Chrome gets Two-Page View for PDFs, here is how to enable it

Recently we’ve reported Google is working on adding a Two-page View option for PDFs to PDF Viewer Plugin in the Chrome browser, the option is already available in Microsoft Edge legacy and Adobe Acrobat Reader DC on Windows, but not in Chromium Edge and Google Chrome browser. As Chrome comes with PDF Viewer built-in, there is a popular demand from users to allow them to view PDFs in a two-page view, today the Chromium team has added much needed Two-up view button to Chrome, here is how you can turn it on in Canary.

Google has integrated PDF Viewer into Chrome for users to read, view and print PDFs. The Chrome PDF Tool lets you Zoom in/Zoom out the page contents, offers controls in the page context menu to rotate the document clockwise and counter-clockwise. The plugin with Download and Print options on the toolbar, allows scaling the whole PDF document to fit to page.

How to enable Two-up view for PDFs in Chrome browser

1. Ensure you’re using the latest Chrome Canary 82.0.4084.0 or later, visit chrome://flags/#pdf-two-up-view

2. Select Enabled and restart the browser

3. Click on Chrome menu, select Settings > Privacy and Security > Site Settings > PDF documents or load chrome://settings/content/pdfDocuments in the address bar

4. Make sure “Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them” setting is disabled.

5. Drag and drop PDF locally stored on your computer to the Chrome address bar or open the PDF you found on the web in Chrome

6. Hover over the right side of the PDF below the fit Page button to see newly available “two-up view” control, toggle it to enable or disable the feature

Google Chrome on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS platforms are getting this. Microsoft Edge Legacy calls the button as a Two-page Layout and offers shortcut F8, let us hope Google will also bring a shortcut to Chrome’ PDF Viewer’s Two-up View as well.

PDF in two-page view Chrome