Guys, I read my local paper on my bus journey home each day, it's usually over 40 pages and can be 30-110Mb in size (depending on adverts and photos)
I've tried all the free readers and the only one that works without crashing is the free office app that came with the Tab, however this doesn't have a way to jump a few pages, for example, if I'm on page 20 and nearing home I want to jump to the back page to read the sports pages before I get off, with the office app I have to swipe right to the end
Is there anything out there that can handle the paper and also be able to jump around pages (and preferably, one that is nice to look at and maybe even animates turning pages!)
if anyone has any paid PDF viewers, can you try the paper and let me know how it handles it? (todays happens to be the smallest so far at 21Mb though I'll be putting tomorrows there in 16 hours so it depends when you read this as to which you download)
www.maffmace.co.uk/YEP.pdf
Thanks
EzPDF reader is my favorite, does everything you need and is updated frequently by the developer.
http://www.appbrain.com/app/ezpdf-reader/udk.android.reader
Unfortunately there is no PDF annotation tool available for Android yet...
I've been using RepliGo Reader to handle some of my larger PDFs and find it satisfactory. It has a nice Reading View, supports Bookmarks, lets you go to any page you want, and select text for copying to another app. If the PDF has been set up properly, selecting the Bookmarks option shows a Table of Contents for fast moving around larger documents. It even handles the Adobe DRM files, which is one of the main reasons I use it. So far it has opened everything I have thrown at it, which is not the case with some of the other PDF readers I have tried. There is no fancy page animation, just a solid and usable app.
daniel.weck said:
EzPDF reader is my favorite, does everything you need and is updated frequently by the developer.
http://www.appbrain.com/app/ezpdf-reader/udk.android.reader
Unfortunately there is no PDF annotation tool available for Android yet...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried that, it doesn't like large PDF's
Maris_ said:
I've been using RepliGo Reader to handle some of my larger PDFs and find it satisfactory. It has a nice Reading View, supports Bookmarks, lets you go to any page you want, and select text for copying to another app. If the PDF has been set up properly, selecting the Bookmarks option shows a Table of Contents for fast moving around larger documents. It even handles the Adobe DRM files, which is one of the main reasons I use it. So far it has opened everything I have thrown at it, which is not the case with some of the other PDF readers I have tried. There is no fancy page animation, just a solid and usable app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will give that a go, thanks
I'm currently reading a graphically-rich 12MB book with 740 pages, and RepliGo Reader really lacks the zoom + navigation features that make the reading experience acceptable. On top of that, large books take *ages* to load, the font kerning is often wrong (weird character spacing), and the page refresh logic is really distracting (transition from blurry bitmap to fine text in scalable vector graphics mode).
That's why I recommended the cheaper, but more full-featured ezPDF Reader.
I hope you eventually find what you need
Cheers, Dan
daniel.weck said:
I'm currently reading a graphically-rich 12MB book with 740 pages, and RepliGo Reader really lacks the zoom + navigation features that make the reading experience acceptable. On top of that, large books take *ages* to load, the font kerning is often wrong (weird character spacing), and the page refresh logic is really distracting (transition from blurry bitmap to fine text in scalable vector graphics mode).
That's why I recommended the cheaper, but more full-featured ezPDF Reader.
I hope you eventually find what you need
Cheers, Dan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you try it with the newspaper I've linked to?
I've just uploaded todays which is 40 pages and 65Mb (av 1.6Mb per page) which is about normal each day and will be more challenging than a book that's on average 0.016Mb per page
the pages in the 20's are most difficult as they have adverts and classifieds in them
www.maffmace.co.uk/YEP.pdf
ezPDF is one of the best I've used so far
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
tried them all, repligo is the fastest page render by far.
bubblebob said:
ezPDF is one of the best I've used so far
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
le3ky said:
tried them all, repligo is the fastest page render by far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how do they cope with the paper I've linked to above?
that's all I'll be using it for
www.maffmace.co.uk/YEP.pdf
mmace said:
Guys, I read my local paper on my bus journey home each day, it's usually over 40 pages and can be 30-110Mb in size (depending on adverts and photos)
I've tried all the free readers and the only one that works without crashing is the free office app that came with the Tab, however this doesn't have a way to jump a few pages, for example, if I'm on page 20 and nearing home I want to jump to the back page to read the sports pages before I get off, with the office app I have to swipe right to the end
Is there anything out there that can handle the paper and also be able to jump around pages (and preferably, one that is nice to look at and maybe even animates turning pages!)
if anyone has any paid PDF viewers, can you try the paper and let me know how it handles it? (todays happens to be the smallest so far at 21Mb though I'll be putting tomorrows there in 16 hours so it depends when you read this as to which you download)
www.maffmace.co.uk/YEP.pdf
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried the Adobe Android app?
Might also want to look into turning it into an epub. Download Calibre for your PC/Mac, let it do the conversion, and can even be setup to automatically pull down news sources and convert them to the format of your choice, and sync them to your device of choice.
Just to reiterate a bit, Calibre rocks.
For epub readers, I'm really fond of Aldiko. And Perfect Viewer is also a nice app for CBZ, PDF, etc (though the UI could use a bit of work).
mmace said:
how do they cope with the paper I've linked to above?
that's all I'll be using it for
www.maffmace.co.uk/YEP.pdf
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I downloaded the paper and tried it with the free Adobe Reader app from the Market and it works fine. All graphics and text are there. If you use the "Continuous Scroll" you can quickly scroll through a birdseye view of the pages until you find the one you want to view. The "Fit to Screen" view does what it says and a double-tap on an article or text area will zoom it to an easily readable size. It also supports pinch to zoom if you need a different size. Long-pressing the screen brings up a scrollbar across the bottom and some other options.
RepliGo Reader also renders all but the very first page for some reason, but it is a paid app, and for a newspaper, the Adobe Reader does just as nice a job for free.
I tried to take screenshots of the various menu options and choices, but neither app will let me create one. No such thing as a long-press on the back button because they immediately go back until they exit.
Hope this info helps.
Croak said:
Have you tried the Adobe Android app?
Might also want to look into turning it into an epub. Download Calibre for your PC/Mac, let it do the conversion, and can even be setup to automatically pull down news sources and convert them to the format of your choice, and sync them to your device of choice.
Just to reiterate a bit, Calibre rocks.
For epub readers, I'm really fond of Aldiko. And Perfect Viewer is also a nice app for CBZ, PDF, etc (though the UI could use a bit of work).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, I've tried the official Adobe Reader and it never even renders the 1st page, it just crashes the Tab after a minute or 2 of trying
I will look into the ebook thing, thanks
Maris_ said:
I downloaded the paper and tried it with the free Adobe Reader app from the Market and it works fine. All graphics and text are there. If you use the "Continuous Scroll" you can quickly scroll through a birdseye view of the pages until you find the one you want to view. The "Fit to Screen" view does what it says and a double-tap on an article or text area will zoom it to an easily readable size. It also supports pinch to zoom if you need a different size. Long-pressing the screen brings up a scrollbar across the bottom and some other options.
RepliGo Reader also renders all but the very first page for some reason, but it is a paid app, and for a newspaper, the Adobe Reader does just as nice a job for free.
I tried to take screenshots of the various menu options and choices, but neither app will let me create one. No such thing as a long-press on the back button because they immediately go back until they exit.
Hope this info helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried the official one and it had trouble loading any pages at all and crashed each time
Croak said:
Just to reiterate a bit, Calibre rocks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or not. I have a few PDF books i bought from Manning, and Calibre fails flat on face on those files. Yes, it does convert them - but all pictures are destroyed during the conversion and because of the signature at bottom of every page, it makes the final epub file even worse.
Only if there would be a reader which could read both epub and pdf formats in one app.
faugusztin said:
Or not. I have a few PDF books i bought from Manning, and Calibre fails flat on face on those files. Yes, it does convert them - but all pictures are destroyed during the conversion and because of the signature at bottom of every page, it makes the final epub file even worse.
Only if there would be a reader which could read both epub and pdf formats in one app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tried it to convert today's 120Mb paper to an 80Mb ePub, just uploading it now to test
Trying to import todays paper into Aldiko and it's said "Importing Books..." for over 20 minutes now, it;s only an 80Mb book, I think this software has failed at the first hurdle
Any other "decent" ePub readers out there?
mmace said:
Hi, I've tried the official Adobe Reader and it never even renders the 1st page, it just crashes the Tab after a minute or 2 of trying
I will look into the ebook thing, thanks
I've tried the official one and it had trouble loading any pages at all and crashed each time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry these apps didn't work for you. I didn't have any crashes using the link you provided with either app on my Tab (T-Mo version, not rooted). I'm out of ideas at this point. I even tried it on my Nexus One and had no problems. Sorry.
Maris_ said:
Sorry these apps didn't work for you. I didn't have any crashes using the link you provided with either app on my Tab (T-Mo version, not rooted). I'm out of ideas at this point. I even tried it on my Nexus One and had no problems. Sorry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
maybe it's because yesterdays paper was so small?
can you try again now?
I just uploaded today's which is 120Mb
www.maffmace.co.uk/YEP.pdf
Hope it's not my Tab
I've also done an ePub, www.maffmace.co.uk/YEP.epub which is 80Mb
Converting a PDF with rich column layout (like newspapers or magazines) into an EPUB is a terrible idea. EPUB is designed for reflowable text, not for pixel-perfect ("fixed layout") documents.
I noticed that ezPDF provides "intelligent" navigation features, to automatically move from one column to the next, in order to mimic the human reading flow (eye movement). Unfortunately some PDFs (including the 60MB example kindly provided in this thread for testing) are badly formatted and do not indicate the correct reading flow.
By the way, this unfortunate mediocre PDF encoding is the main cause for awful EPUB conversions. The misuse of typesetting tools in the publishing industry results in pretty poor content quality, structurally-speaking (because the emphasis is on visual appearance, not raw content organization).
So, the best course of action is to continue testing PDF readers (in depth, not just superficially => use previous/next navigation features, double-tap zoom with column scroll-locking, pinch/stretch zoom for fine margin adjustments, placemarks / bookmarks, etc. etc.).
Some PDF reading apps are better maintained than others on the Market. There may be opportunities to report bugs or request features.
Cheers, Dan
mmace said:
I just uploaded today's which is 120Mb
www.maffmace.co.uk/YEP.pdf
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, even my modern laptop struggles to browse this PDF smoothly
I don't expect a mobile device to offer a smooth reading experience
mmace said:
I've also done an ePub, www.maffmace.co.uk/YEP.epub which is 80Mb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't bother. EPUB conversion is not satisfactory for this kind of PDF content (as I explained in the post above).
Cheers, Dan
daniel.weck said:
Converting a PDF with rich column layout (like newspapers or magazines) into an EPUB is a terrible idea. EPUB is designed for reflowable text, not for pixel-perfect ("fixed layout") documents.
I noticed that ezPDF provides "intelligent" navigation features, to automatically move from one column to the next, in order to mimic the human reading flow (eye movement). Unfortunately some PDFs (including the 60MB example kindly provided in this thread for testing) are badly formatted and do not indicate the correct reading flow.
By the way, this unfortunate mediocre PDF encoding is the main cause for awful EPUB conversions. The misuse of typesetting tools in the publishing industry results in pretty poor content quality, structurally-speaking (because the emphasis is on visual appearance, not raw content organization).
So, the best course of action is to continue testing PDF readers (in depth, not just superficially => use previous/next navigation features, double-tap zoom with column scroll-locking, pinch/stretch zoom for fine margin adjustments, placemarks / bookmarks, etc. etc.).
Some PDF reading apps are better maintained than others on the Market. There may be opportunities to report bugs or request features.
Cheers, Dan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the 60Mb one was "created" by myself, each page sent to the printers is around 4Mb, I then put them all together in 1 file and then "print" to a PDF file at 72dpi and A6 page size to reduce the file size
If you download the 120Mb one today, that one is the original files just merged into 1 PDF
I cannot test PDF readers in depth because most don't even open large PDF's like todays
My experience: I have an iPad1, iPad2, HP Touchpad, and three Archos 5" Android tablets... So not too much of a n00b.
Keyboard: The keyboard doesn’t always work for me.. When I first got it, every time I hit the spacebar, it would automatically go down two lines.. And when I hit the delete button, it would go back one space, then it would stop deleting and just repeat the same letter over and over.. While testing this, the Fire crashed.. and when it reset, the keyboard worked better without these issues.. but I still had a lot of typing mistakes as it would be too sensitive.. (kinda crazy that the Fire crashed in the first hour I opened it while typing up an email)
Video: Playing videos from Amazon Prime was fast and sweet! Amazon made it very easy to watch their videos on the Fire. I have not tested MP4 videos I have made for my iPad yet.. Because of size restrictions, I may not do this.
Home screen: Why can you not change the "last viewed" stuff on the top of the Fire.. this is horrible.. I came to work today and of course everyone wants to play with my new Fire.. so they could all see every single website, book, PDF, movie, etc I had viewed last night.. and now because they played with it, I have all the stuff they viewed there as well now.. There should be some sort of incognito mode.. I know this is a personal tablet, but whether someone is behind me when I am in the home screen or someone picks up my tablet at my apartment.. I don't need them seeing what I have been looking at.
Apps: There are a nice amount of apps available already for the Fire.. BUT.. why can’t I remove the apps that the Fire came with? Also, the PDF viewer that comes with the tablet is no good. I side loaded some PDF magazines into the Fire, and they were unreadable on the screen (all jaggy). I then installed the Adobe PDF viewer from the Amazon Market, and the text is much better.. but zooming in and out on a 7” tablet does not make for smooth reading. And why don’t the PDF thumbnail the first page images? The iPad does this right away… all you see on the Fire is the text name of the PDF written over a white sheet. Lastly, I installed Touchdown for the Fire (as the built in email does not include MS Exchange support).. and it works well..except that the client does NOT sync while it is not open.. What the heck is that??
Web: Loading pages like Gizmodo.com was quick.. but it was another issue reading the site.. scrolling down was very jerky and slow.. I know the page is long, but most tech blogs are.. and that is what I would like to read in the back of a cab.
Misc: I wish there were hardware sound control… It would make playing videos/music easier to control, as well as offering page up/page down control for reading. The Fire is a bit heavy and thick.. but for $200, u can’t complain.. I will probably keep using my iPad for reading websites and PDFs… and using the Fire for books and Amazon prime videos.
If anyone knows how to fix the issues above, please let me know.. I know that there is a root out now for the Fire, but I am hoping that there are faster/smoother solutions.
I was able to side load a .m4v file on the Fire, but it wouldn't play until I renamed it .mp4.
The videos were HQ rips for my iPad so that worked great.
I agree on the last item viewed being on the shelf. Wish there was a way clearing that.
EvanWasHere said:
I wish there were hardware sound control… It would make playing videos/music easier to control
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On my Nexus I use Mobiplayer and I can control volume by swiping on the screen. I wonder if you load (or sideload) Mobi or a similar video player if you can get this. Anyone know or can anyone check?
Thanks for the review!
the source code will save us!!!
esoh said:
On my Nexus I use Mobiplayer and I can control volume by swiping on the screen. I wonder if you load (or sideload) Mobi or a similar video player if you can get this. Anyone know or can anyone check?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I sideloaded Mobiplayer and the soft volume swiping does work for the Fire. So at least for video playback I can live without a hardware key. Btw I need to enable software decoding by default or some files won't play... maybe I needed to install a Mobi codec but I don't know which one works. Maybe someone can point me to the right direction...
Cheers,
W.
Agree with you. I'm facing same problem.
I installed Swiftkey and feel it is much better than the Amazon default keyboard.
You can remove the items from the Carosel. Refer to instructions at http://mazurk.net/KindleFire.htm
It's a fun toy and I'm glad I didn't pay anything for it (won it at an office raffle) but I'm still kind of lost as to what I'm gonna use it for as I have an iPad 2. Still, I'm having a blast trying to mess with it and hopefully gonna get TWRP installed here soon.
I am considering buying one of these but would like to try it out in a store before I buy it. Does anyone know of a US retailer that stocks them?
I am mostly curious about the following things:
1) How good is it for taking notes in college/university classes? Can you rest your palm on the screen while using the stylus?
2) Is there a way to view the notes taken on pdf on a computer?
3) Is it pretty solid feel wise? Or does it feel like it will fall apart after a couple years?
4) How much bloatware comes on it and is it hard to remove via rooting?
5) Does the screen go dark enough for comfortable reading in dimly lit rooms?
Thanks for the info.
the notes are great, I use Quill, as it works nearly perfect, in the app i have turned on pen input only and jot tons and tons of notes all day long.
You can export the notes to various files, while im not sure about PDF there is certainly a format that can be read on your desktop
Like all lenovo products i've had its built to last like an enterprise system should be. as long as you take care of it it will last a long time past EOL
Bloatware isnt too bad, theres still some stuff lenovo managed to get into the system pretty deep (like the status bar wheel widget thing.) but its never bothered me that much as it only comes up at the home screen.
screen brightness works great in dim rooms, i tend to read books by a small lamp in bed most of the time with minimal strain.
I purchased mine from lenovo direct so I dont know about any local retailers.
Thanks for the info. However when I asked about notes on PDFs I should have clarified a bit. I was asking about their PDF viewer that lets you take notes on the PDF document and weather that can be exported to something useful.
Also I thought of one more thing: If I have my notes backed up with something like spideroak, can the notes be converted on a computer? I ask because I am worried about taking a semesters worth of notes on it then having it die and there being no way to read them without getting a new tablet.
FearTheCron said:
Thanks for the info. However when I asked about notes on PDFs I should have clarified a bit. I was asking about their PDF viewer that lets you take notes on the PDF document and weather that can be exported to something useful.
Also I thought of one more thing: If I have my notes backed up with something like spideroak, can the notes be converted on a computer? I ask because I am worried about taking a semesters worth of notes on it then having it die and there being no way to read them without getting a new tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ezPDF allows you to fill out pdf forms, underline, strikeout, and add freehand drawings as well as circles/squares/etc. It should do what you're looking for.
https://market.android.com/details?id=udk.android.reader&feature=search_result
and if you have the file saved as a pdf on your sd card you should be able to open it with any pdf reader (pc or otherwise).
The quill note taking app he mentioned allows you to export your notes to sdcard pdfs
Thanks for the info.
One last thing: has anyone used connect bot or another ssh client on this? I am curious if the keys on the keyboard folio such as escape quotes tild and whatnot all send the proper characters. I had a bluetooth keyboard for my N1 a while back that sent some weird unicode characters for the quotes making terminal usage very difficult.
https://market.android.com/details?id=berserker.android.apps.sshdroid&hl=en
I have used SSH droid with WINSCP worked like a charm, I'm by no means an experienced user with SSH, i just used it to dig around the file system.
SSH droid is a server for the android device, I am asking about using a client on the android device.
My bad, I left my brain at home today... I will test it for you this evening and let you know if the client works with the keymapping
Cool thanks, I look forward to hearing your results.
Update: I just ordered one, so if its too much of a bother don't worry about testing the connect bot thing. My shiny object syndrome overwhelmed my frugal side. Can't wait to get my hands on it.
It works like a charm tested with Moba SSH home 1.22 and connect bot, all the keys from the folio map properly and I haven't seen anything odd at this point, also SSH'd into a couple of Access points over my VPN at work with the TPT to test as well.
Congrats on the TPT! you're gonna love it!
Unfortunately the keys do not map properly, escape is still connected to "back" in the android os and ctrl is connected to "menu". Does anyone know if there is some way to map these to their proper functions?
Thanks
S