External Display BrowserPresenting3 min read

How to Present a PDF Full-Screen From Your iPhone to a Projector

Teachers, students and anyone who has ever been handed a room and a projector five minutes before speaking: you don't need a laptop. A phone, an adapter and a PDF of your slides is a complete presenting setup, and unlike the browser-based route, it works with no network at all.

Why a PDF, and why full screen matters

A PDF is the most reliable presentation format there is. It doesn't need an account, a signal, or the room's Wi-Fi to hold up. Your fonts are embedded. Nothing reflows. Export your deck to PDF before you leave and the only variable left is the cable.

The full-screen part is what stock iOS won't give you. Mirror an iPhone to a projector and you get a phone-shaped picture floating in the middle of the screen with black down both sides, your slides end up occupying maybe half the wall. That's a shape mismatch between a 19.5:9 phone and a 16:9 projector, and no setting in iOS fixes it, because iOS is copying the phone rather than drawing for the projector.

The setup

XeOS: External Display Browser renders its own desktop at the projector's resolution, and every window has a full-screen button that strips away all interface. A slide fills the wall.

1. Get the PDF onto the device

Import from the iOS Files picker, using the Files app's import button.
Mount a folder, an iCloud Drive folder, a folder on the phone, or a USB stick in your adapter, and open the file in place. See the drives guide.
Download it from email or the web.

2. Connect to the projector

Room has	You need
HDMI, USB-C iPhone	USB-C to HDMI cable, or a multiport adapter
HDMI, Lightning iPhone	Lightning Digital AV Adapter
VGA only (older rooms)	Lightning to VGA Adapter
An Apple TV or AirPlay screen	Nothing, mirror from Control Centre

Carry a short HDMI cable. Rooms have the port; the cable is usually plugged into something else.

3. Open the PDF

Double-click it in Files. The built-in viewer opens, with page thumbnails, zoom, search and annotation tools.

The PDF viewer showing a presentation slide with a toolbar of view, annotate, shapes, insert, form and redact tools. — The viewer, windowed.

4. Go full screen

Click the green button in the window's corner.

The four window buttons, with the green full-screen button third from left. — The green button removes the title bar, the toolbar and the dock.

A presentation slide filling an entire external display, edge to edge. — The slide on the wall, nothing else on screen.

Page through with arrow keys on a Bluetooth keyboard, Page Up / Page Down, a mouse wheel, or a swipe on the phone-as-trackpad. Move the pointer to the top edge to bring the title bar back at the end.

Getting the slide to fill the frame

Decks exported at 16:9 match most projectors exactly. A 4:3 deck will have a band each side, that's the deck's shape, not the app's. Two things to check if there's still a border:

The projector's own picture-size setting, "Just Scan", "Screen Fit" or "1:1". Overscan is on by default on a lot of hardware.
Settings › Display, pick the resolution the projector reports. Older projectors are happiest at 1280 × 720 or 1920 × 1080.

The other route: Google Slides

If the room has Wi-Fi and your deck lives in Google Slides, the browser gives you the real desktop site with its own presenting controls. Open the deck, press Present, then the green button. Full walkthrough in the presenting guide.

Use it when you have connectivity. Use the PDF when you can't rely on it, which, in a school hall or a client's meeting room, is most of the time.

Pre-flight checklist

Deck exported to PDF and on the device.
Adapter and a short HDMI cable.
Multiport adapter if the session runs long, so the phone charges.
Do Not Disturb on, a message on a four-metre screen is memorable for the wrong reason.
Auto-lock off in iOS Settings › Display & Brightness.
Content scale checked, so the back of the room can read it.

XeOS: External Display Browser turns an iPhone or iPad into a full desktop on any monitor, TV or projector.

Download XeOS on the App Store

Frequently asked

Do I need internet?

Not for the PDF route. The file and the app are both on the device.

Can I annotate during the talk?

Yes, the viewer has annotation tools, and changes can be saved back to the file.

Can I present a PowerPoint file directly?

There's a preview for Office files that's good enough to present from, but PDF is the safer bet when exact layout matters.

Does this work on an iPad?

Yes, on any iPad that can output video, no Stage Manager needed.

Can I see my notes on the phone?

Not as a separate presenter view; the phone acts as your trackpad. Notes on paper or on a second device is the practical answer.