You can open a GeoPDF without ArcGIS in a browser, in QGIS, in Adobe Acrobat, or in a mobile map app. Which one is right depends on what you need: a quick check of where the file sits and its coordinates, a GIS layer to combine with other data, or a map to carry in the field.
Quickest: drop the file on the free GeoPDF viewer. It shows where each page sits on a map, the latitude, longitude and grid coordinates under your cursor, and the page’s scale, and you can measure on it. It runs in any browser, with nothing uploaded and no account.
1. A browser GeoPDF viewer
Best for: checking a file, reading coordinates, sending a colleague somewhere they can open it without installing anything.
- Open the GeoPDF viewer and drop the PDF on it.
- Pages with coordinates are marked map in the page list, and the viewer opens the first one.
- The corner map shows the page’s footprint; the status bar shows coordinates under the cursor.
- Measure distances and areas at the drawing’s own scale, and export them to CSV.
It reads the ISO 32000 encoding that GDAL and QGIS write by default. The older OGC encoding used by some TerraGo files isn’t read yet.
2. QGIS
Best for: combining the GeoPDF with other GIS data, reprojecting, or converting it.
QGIS is free desktop GIS for Windows, Mac and Linux. Add the GeoPDF as a raster layer (Layer › Add Layer › Add Raster Layer) and it lands in the right place on the map. QGIS reads GeoPDFs through GDAL, so gdalinfo yourfile.pdf on the command line is also a quick way to print the coordinate system and corner coordinates.
3. Adobe Acrobat
Best for: people who already have Acrobat.
Adobe documents cursor coordinates and distance, perimeter and area measuring on geospatial PDFs in Acrobat. In the free Acrobat Reader, Adobe says the measuring tools are available only if the PDF’s creator enabled them. On Windows, TerraGo’s free GeoPDF Toolbar plug-in adds coordinate display (up to three coordinate systems at once) and measuring to Reader and Acrobat.
4. Mobile map apps
Best for: taking the map into the field with live GPS.
Apps such as Avenza Maps (iOS and Android) show your GPS position on a GeoPDF. Check the plan you need: Avenza’s free plan no longer imports your own maps, and its Plus plan allows 20.
If the coordinates don’t show up
- Check the encoding. If one program reads the file and another doesn’t, it’s probably the OGC encoding. QGIS reads both.
- Use the original export. Re-saving a GeoPDF in some PDF editors, or “printing to PDF”, strips the coordinates.
- Check the right page. In a drawing set, only some sheets may be georeferenced.
More background in What is a GeoPDF?, and if you need to measure drawings without coordinates, see how to measure a PDF drawing to scale.
Sharing GeoPDFs with clients
If you deliver GeoPDFs to clients who don’t have GIS software, upload them to a site in Swyvl: they sit with your orthomosaics, scans and 360° photos, georeferenced pages are detected and measure at their own scale, and your client opens everything from one link.