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I'm one of those people that cram 100's of PDF files in my documents folder just because I like to read electronic books, but not on a computer. I have been recently been looking for a handheld PDF viewer for convienence. The only problem is most of the ones I find do not actually support it but some crappy proprietary format instead. Does anybody know of a nice handheld PDF viewer that's available?
Most obvious question -
What platform?
What does the platform matter? The question seems to be what sort of DEVICE is handy for viewing PDFs... As in, an e-book reader or some suchQuote:
Originally Posted by cyberfish
Oh.
I thought s/he meant a PDF reader (a program) for a handheld.
How about... a tablet PC? I use mine for reading e-books all the time. Handheld, too =). Of course the downside would be the size and weight.
I tried to read on a PDA, but it was a lot more tiring, due to the short lines (and so the eyes have to "seek" to the beginning of the next line frequently). Also, if the book occasionally contains figures or tables (probably not a problem for novels), they are almost inaccessible due to the small screen, especially if the e-book is not designed to be read on a small-screen device.
AFAIK, the problem with supporting PDF documents is that they have fixed layouts (page sizes, for example, which in turn determines the length of lines), unlike formats like HTML where the program can determine where to break lines up.
That is to say, even if you can find one that supports PDF, it probably won't work with "regular" e-books (unless you don't mind horizontal scrolling for every line).
I read about Sony Reader on our local newspaper the other day.
But I haven't personally seen it or worked with it so i can't say whether it is nice or not.
Besides Sony Reader there seems to be other readers too.
Weigh your options carefully before purchasing them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Reader
http://www.labnol.org/gadgets/comput...k-reader/1888/
Nokia N-series phones have pdf-reader in them. As does many of the lower series phones - I've got a Nokia 6220 Classic, and it has a PDF reader.
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Mats
But does it work (how?) with regular e-books in PDF, though? Without needing to scroll horizontally constantly.Quote:
Nokia N-series phones have pdf-reader in them. As does many of the lower series phones - I've got a Nokia 6220 Classic, and it has a PDF reader.
I use my mp3 player for such a purpose (Toshiba F20 with rockbox). It doesn't have a pdf-viewer as such, but I just convert the pages into jpegs and view them that way, searching is made possible by dumping the text to a text-file (so I know which jpeg to look at). A bit of a hack, but it works well.
Yes, that may be a problem - a netbook or some such is probably a better choice...Quote:
Originally Posted by cyberfish
--
Mats
Is there a way to convert a pdf to other formats like html or just plain text? If you can then I will probably go with the sony reader.
Sure... http://pdftohtml.sourceforge.net/Quote:
Originally Posted by herWter
Thank you brewbuck but does anybody know how well html looks on handhelds like the sony reader? I'm afraid HTML won't be any better than pdf.
Why do you want html, anyways?(Are you having e-books in the compiled html format?)
I don't think html is supported by sony reader.
It is not listed under the "formats supported" in wikipedia.
Only 300,000 units have been sold according to wiki since its launch.
So i am guessing it could be expensive.
Once again,be sure to check whether it suits your needs before making a deal.
Why did you ask about converting pdf to html, then?Quote:
Originally Posted by herWter
Still more info can be found here,
http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/reader-ebook/block/5#a20
http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/06/s...ails-and-pics/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/27/s...nystyle-store/
Please do post back about your experience in case if you end up purchasing it.
http://lib2go.com can convert pdf to lrf for Sony. Quality is acceptable.
Thanks. Very nice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Deni