Why would a view be displayed differently in different software? Using Drupal 7 and the Views PDF module, I have created a PDF output that looks perfect when opened in a browser, but is inconsistent everywhere else: On Chrome, Firefox, and Edge it is displayed exactly as designed; on
Acrobat Reader, it shows only a table background color, the rest is blank, and there is no text; on iPad and Outlook, it displays a blank white screen.

What would cause the PDF to display perfectly in a browser and horribly in everything else?
Ironically, the PDF document format was designed to display the same everywhere ... but that's an overly ambitious goal. 

First note that "in the browser" isn't especially meaningful - different browsers, with different configurations, will use different engines to display the pdf. 

Your different experiences are due to those different engine(s) in your browsers vs. the acrobat reader engine, which is perhaps also used for your ipad and outlook.

My best guess is that your browsers have access to some non-standard fonts that you're using in the output, but the other engines don't. Getting the views pdf to embed those fonts, or using standard fonts instead, will probably fix it.