The PDF reader

Papero has its own PDF reader, so you can read a paper without leaving the app. In a document it opens beside your text, so you can check a source while you write and quote it with its page. It works on Free and Plus, for every PDF in your library.

Open a PDF

There are several ways in:

Library page: press the PDF badge on a source, such as PDF, 12 pages, then Open PDF. The reader covers the list until you press Back or Close PDF.
Library panel in a document: press Open PDF on a source. See Your library.
A citation in your text: click it and press Show in PDF on a source that has a PDF. See Show the passage behind a citation below.
A Chat answer: press the small button after a source in the answer, such as "p. 4", or PDF when the passage has no page number. The reader opens under Passage the answer used. See Chat with your library.
The Citation report: press Show passages beside a source under a sentence the report checked. The reader opens under Passages the check read. See Citation report.

In a document on a computer, the reader sits beside your text. Drag its left edge to make it wider or narrower; Papero keeps the width you chose. In a narrow window it opens over the text instead. On a phone it opens as a sheet over the page.

Find your way around

The top of the reader names the paper by its authors and year, such as Maheshwari et al., 2019, with its title under it.

Under that, the toolbar has:

Page 3 of 18, with Previous page and Next page. Press the page indicator to type the page you want;
Zoom out, Zoom in and Fit width.

The pages scroll in one column.

The menu at the top right, PDF options, has Open in new tab, Download PDF and, in a document, Cite this paper, which cites the paper at your cursor.

Show the passage behind a citation

When a cited source has a PDF, Show in PDF finds the passage in it that is closest to your sentence.

Click a citation in your text.
Press Show in PDF on the source.
The reader opens under the heading Closest passage to your sentence, with the passage highlighted on its page.

If the citation names a page, Papero searches that page. If nothing is close enough, the reader opens at the cited page, or the first page, and says No passage closely matches this sentence. For a very long PDF, Papero may not search the whole file. Add the page to the citation and try again, so it can search there. See Cite as you write.

Chat answers and the Citation report mark their passages in the same way.

When there are several passages, Passage 1 of 2 shows where you are, with Previous passage and Next passage. If you scroll away, Back to passage takes you back. If Papero cannot mark a passage on the page, it says We couldn’t mark this passage on the page. This is the text that was used. and shows the text instead.

Quote from a PDF

You can take a quote straight from the PDF into your document, with a citation of its page.

Click in your text where the quote goes.
In the reader, select the text you want.
Press Quote with citation in the small menu under your selection.

Papero puts the text in quotation marks at your cursor, followed by a citation of the paper. The citation has the page as printed in the paper when Papero can tell it. When it cannot, the citation has no page, and you can add one. See Cite as you write. The quotation marks follow your document's language, so a French document gets guillemets. If you forget to click in your text first, Papero says Click in your text first, then quote.

When a passage is shown, Quote this passage quotes the whole passage the same way, without selecting it.

Copy in the same menu copies the selected text. On a phone, on the Library page and in a read-only document, the menu has Copy only.

When a PDF does not open

This PDF was removed: the PDF is no longer in your library.
Couldn’t load this PDF: press Try again, or Open in new tab to open it in your browser's own viewer.

A scanned PDF without text opens like any other, but there is no text to select or highlight. See Upload PDFs.

Next: get a free PDF.