Background

• Apple's touch-version of its iPod MP3 player supports a wide variety of functions, beyond that of a basic media player, due to its usage of an operating system. You can find Apple's iOS on the iPod and iPad as well and all iOS devices, including the iPod touch, are capable of downloading and using applications, browsing the Internet with native Wi-Fi support and connecting to other electronics via Bluetooth. Because the iPod touch uses iOS, you can use it to load file types beyond the audio, video and images that you can peruse on other versions of the iPod. This includes Web pages and PDF downloads you may find on the Internet.
  
  

PDF

• PDF is a type of file that Adobe systems created. PDF files can include text, images, lists, forms and links, among other content. PDF files may appear similar to word processing documents. Websites may provide form downloads in the form of PDFs for download or you may receive emails with PDF attachments, which you must return to the sender. On your computer, you would view these files in Adobe software such as Adobe Reader, a free program, or create and edit PDF files with Adobe Acrobat, which is commercially available. There's no native support for PDFs on your iPod touch, so online links to PDF files won't work correctly. However, you can install optional applications for accessing these files.
  
  

Applications

• PDF Reader Lite is an app that you can download to your iPod touch to view PDF documents, as well as text documents in the DOC or TXT formats, respectively. With this application, you can use your fourth generation iPod Touch to scan documents with the built-in camera and save those files as PDFs. The reader features include the ability to download PDFs from the Internet or your email, even if those PDFs are password-protected. CloudReaders is an alternative PDF and e-book reader. CloudReaders allows you to download and read the files from online or transfer them to your bookshelf from your computer. CloudReaders is compatible with large files that may not work with other apps.
  
  

Considerations

• If you want to download an application to your iPod touch, you can search for the readers on your computer, download them to iTunes and transfer them to your device when you sync it with iTunes. This may be preferable if you don't currently have Wi-Fi access. Alternatively, you can directly download PDF reader apps to your iPod touch using the App Store app on the device. This requires an Internet connection, as does downloading PDF files from the Internet; however, you can then read the files in offline mode after you save them to your device.