How do I use Google's PDF viewer?

Last reviewed: September 27, 2026 · Markdown version

"Google's PDF viewer" is really three viewers: the preview in Google Drive, the viewer built into the Chrome browser, and the Files by Google app on Android. They open the same file differently and can do different things with it. Here is each one from Google's own help pages, including one feature of Chrome's viewer that is easy to miss.

In Google Drive

Google's help says that with Drive on the web "you can view things like videos, PDFs, Microsoft Office files, audio files, and photos": go to drive.google.com and double-click the file. You can choose how PDFs open — "Open PDFs in a new tab" or "Open PDFs in preview mode in the same tab" — in Drive's Settings. To use a different program, right-click the file, point to Open with and choose an app. The same page warns: "If you try to open a suspicious file, you may get a warning message" (View & open files — Google Drive Help, read 27 September 2026).

Opening a PDF with Google Docs is a different operation from viewing it, with its own limits. What that does to a scanned PDF.

In Chrome on a computer

Whether Chrome shows a PDF or downloads it is a setting. The switch is in Settings, Privacy and security, Site Settings, Additional content settings, PDF documents, where you pick "Download PDFs" or "Open PDFs in Chrome" (Download a file — Google Chrome Help, read 27 September 2026).

The feature that is easy to miss is on the same page: "When you use the Chrome PDF viewer to access PDFs, scanned PDFs of physical documents are automatically converted to be searchable and selectable using Optical Character Recognition (OCR)." Google adds that "The conversion is completed on your device without sending any data to Google or third parties", and that while a scan of several pages is being converted you will see the notice "Extracting text from PDF…". After that, Google says, you can "highlight, search, copy, paste, and find text within the document".

Two more things from that page. You can fill in a PDF form in the viewer and choose Download Edited to keep your version. And to save a PDF from a link without opening it, right-click and choose Save Link As. The page does not say which languages the OCR reads, or whether the recognised text is kept in a file you download afterwards, so check before relying on either.

On an Android phone: Files by Google

Files by Google opens PDFs directly. Tap one under Recents, or search for it; the More menu then has Find in file — "Search for specific text in the PDF" — plus Open with, Print and File info. The Edit button adds a pen and a highlighter. Note what happens when you keep your annotations: "When you save a copy, it’s uploaded to your Google Drive", while "the original copy remains unmarked and saved on your device" (Open, manage & edit PDFs in Files by Google, read 27 September 2026). If the document should not leave the phone, annotate it somewhere else.

Which one to use

Our rule of thumb: Chrome for a PDF you have just downloaded or clicked on the web, especially a scan you want to search; Drive for files that already live in Drive; Files by Google for a quick look at something on your Android phone. For choosing an app for the jobs none of these do, see which PDF app is best for what.