Nov 18, 2010 08:00 GMT  ·  By

The iPad GoodReader app has reached version 3.1.0 according to the people at Good.iWare Ltd., who’ve recently added iOS 4.2 support for multitasking, a new repair-PDF feature, a new PDF displaying engine with smoother zooming / panning, as well as a more reliable freehand drawing tool, to name some of the key additions in this new release.

In a nutshell, GoodReader for iPad is a robust PDF reader with advanced reading, annotating, markup and highlighting capabilities.

The app also serves as an excellent file manager, TXT file reader and editor, audio/video player, Safari-like viewer for MS Office and iWorks files.

According to its makers, GoodReader supports massive PDF and TXT files, as well as all of the most popular file types, which include:

• MS Office - .doc, .ppt, .xls and more • iWork'08/'09 • HTML and Safari webarchives • High resolution images

Good.iWare says "it even does audio and video!"

The changelog for version 3.1.0 is quite large (those interested in getting the full scoop can check it out here).

There are, however, a number of noteworthy additions that we wouldn’t want to leave out from this report.

For starters, Good.iWare makes an important note regarding the new PDF engine: “please reboot your device if you're experiencing performance problems,” the company’s advice goes.

The release notes continue with the developer mentioning “iOS 4.2 compatibility (multitasking support),” the new PDF displaying engine, which allows for smoother zooming / panning, and the aforementioned "Repair a PDF File" feature.

“Some damaged files that previously caused GoodReader to display an ‘Unknown PDF Error’ message (and could not be annotated for that matter), can now be automatically repaired,” the developer says.

Also new thanks to the addition of iOS 4.2 support is the 256-bit AES encryption in PDF files.

Enhancements carried out on the freehand drawing tool include:

- freehand drawing tool now allows to zoom and pan a page with two fingers, useful for long handwritten notes that do not fit on one screen - freehand drawing tool now recognizes single taps as dots - no more circles when drawing the "i" letter - freehand drawing tool now works much faster on pages containing a large number of annotations

Download GoodReader for iPad ($1.99)