PDF Viewer App

[Quickdood]

Hello,

I am one of the many that will buy an Ipod Touch later this month and one of the things that I would like more than anything else is for someone to develop a PDF reader for both the Ipod touch and the Iphone.

I know at this point one can view PDFs over Safari but from what I have read it is not adequate and it certainly sucks with the Touch because one is not always connected.

A PDF reader/E-Book reader is what the Touch and the the Iphone really need to make them an all in one entertainment solution.

Features I would like to see:
Turning the page of a book with the flick of a finger (maybe followed by a page turn animation to give it the feel of really reading a book)
Bookmarking
Highlighting
Adding notes to certain pages
Dictionary Integration for quick word look up preferably in a pop up bubble
Quick Jump (Go To Any Page By Typing in Page Number)
The Ability to jump directly to a particular chapter by touching chapter name in the index of the book.

I wish I was a programmer because I would definitely do my best to get something like this out but all I can do is beg for someone who knows there **** to do this, I would even pay for a program like this!

Anyone else desire a program similar to this?

 

[poppe]

Hello,

I am one of the many that will buy an Ipod Touch later this month and one of the things that I would like more than anything else is for someone to develop a PDF reader for both the Ipod touch and the Iphone.

I know at this point one can view PDFs over Safari but from what I have read it is not adequate and it certainly sucks with the Touch because one is not always connected.

A PDF reader/E-Book reader is what the Touch and the the Iphone really need to make them an all in one entertainment solution.

Features I would like to see:
Turning the page of a book with the flick of a finger (maybe followed by a page turn animation to give it the feel of really reading a book)
Bookmarking
Highlighting
Adding notes to certain pages
Dictionary Integration for quick word look up preferably in a pop up bubble
Quick Jump (Go To Any Page By Typing in Page Number)
The Ability to jump directly to a particular chapter by touching chapter name in the index of the book.

I wish I was a programmer because I would definitely do my best to get something like this out but all I can do is beg for someone who knows there **** to do this, I would even pay for a program like this!

Anyone else desire a program similar to this?

Pretty sure they already have the e-Book reader out; you just have to hack the iPHone.

 

[Quickdood]

Pretty sure they already have the e-Book reader out; you just have to hack the iPHone.

The ebook reader they have is just html and plain text unfortunately.

 

[Quickdood]

I have looked pretty hard and I am pretty sure there is no PDF app out there that is not Safari based. I would like to see the ipod touch eventually be more of a PDA than an Ipod and a good PDF reader would help that.

 

[SirCrumpet]

its entirely plausible i have no idea what i'm talking about, but would it not be possible for you to direct safari to a location of a pdf on your ipod Touch, or does safari only work over the "real internet"?

 

[Quickdood]

its entirely plausible i have no idea what i'm talking about, but would it not be possible for you to direct safari to a location of a pdf on your ipod Touch, or does safari only work over the "real internet"?

I am pretty sure Safari doesn't work offline. Also I hear that Safari doesn't offer a lot of features with PDFs. It would be much better if someone would just create a non-safari based app. The only problem is we need to find that someone. I think once the touch comes out we will see a surge in apps because much more people will be able to develope on it due to the lower price and also the fact you don't need AT&T and it will be available in several countries.

 

[awmazz]

There already is an inbuilt PDF Viewer.

In any app on your Mac (eg if you open a PDF in Preview, a html page in Safari etc), just select 'Print' and then the PDF button -> Save PDF to iPhoto.

Then when you sync iPhoto to your iPhone/Touch you can view it as a normal 'photo' (except it's a PDF) which you can enlarge, scroll page, scroll through multiple pages, shrink again, etc. You can view the PDFs in iPhoto too, of course.

 

[awmazz]

I have looked pretty hard and I am pretty sure there is no PDF app out there that is not Safari based.

Did you look as far as iPhoto?

But like iTunes, it has to have the PDF added to its library so it can sync it to the iDevice. This is done through the 'print as PDF' dialogue box on any app, as I mention above.

I've only just researched this myself in preparation for the arrival of my new Newton 3100, er.. iPod touch... so I don't believe you have the chapters and index stuff though, just scroll through multiple pages like a roll of photos.

 

[Quickdood]

Did you look as far as iPhoto?

But like iTunes, it has to have the PDF added to its library so it can sync it to the iDevice. This is done through the 'print as PDF' dialogue box on any app, as I mention above.

I've only just researched this myself in preparation for the arrival of my new Newton 3100, er.. iPod touch... so I don't believe you have the chapters and index stuff though, just scroll through multiple pages like a roll of photos.

Well i'll be damned, thank you! Although this is not exactly what I am looking for as you said no index etc... This will hold me off until someone actually programs something for PDFs.

Can this be done using windows or linux? Not fortunate enough to have a mac yet.

 

[awmazz]

Can this be done using windows or linux? Not fortunate enough to have a mac yet.

I'm not sure at all. It's a print option on all apps, not just Mac native ones, so it could be Mac sytem level thing. I just checked Adobe Illustrator and the option 'save PDF to iPhoto' appears in their print dialogue too, as well as all the native Mac apps like Safari etc. I don't recall ever seeing this option though before OSX 10.4.10 (ie pre-iPhone release) so maybe it is Mac only.

Unless it's a system-wide printer driver installed by iPhoto? On PCs? I don't know!

 

[awmazz]

PS. The 'Import' option in iPhoto shows PDF files greyed out, and I just tested dragging and dropping some PDFs (single and multi-page) onto the iPhoto window, and it doesn't work either. Says 'incorrect format'.

So I guess you can only use the specific 'save PDF to iPhoto' option.

 

[Quickdood]

PS. The 'Import' option in iPhoto shows PDF files greyed out, and I just tested dragging and dropping some PDFs (single and multi-page) onto the iPhoto window, and it doesn't work either. Says 'incorrect format'.

So I guess you can only use the specific 'save PDF to iPhoto' option.

Thanks for the follow up, well needless to say I can't wait for the Touch to come out. Prob wont see any significant progress until it does come out. In the mean time maybe an admin can make a Ipod Touch apps and dev forum?

 

[awmazz]

...you can view it as a normal 'photo' (except it's a PDF) which you can enlarge, scroll page, scroll through multiple pages, shrink again, etc. You can view the PDFs in iPhoto too, of course.

I stand corrected!

I just checked the iPhoto library folder and what this process has done is simply convert all the pdf pages into a sequence of jpgs (which it displays in order) of approx 200-900 KB size each to give you an idea of how much space it will take. I did a test with some long web pages from Safari, and a complete eBook.

So it's not the proper PDF app I thought it was. You really are just scrolling through pictures. The resolution in iPhoto on a 24" screen fooled me that they were pdfs (you can still read tiny 6 point type easily), so for all intents it's as good as a pdf I suppose and will look crisp on a small screen even when enlarged to actual size.

So perhaps you can find a PC app which similarly converts multi-page pdfs to a sequence of jpegs and just import the whole folder of them as an iPhoto album, which would then be the 'pdf' you upload to the iTouch.

 

[madmaxmedia]

It's a nice little workaround to start with. I also heard it's better if you 'print' at larger than 100%, so if you need to zoom in you will have higher resolution.

I'm sure in time better options will come.

The killer reader app would be if 'Tofu' could be ported over, with the page flick gesture. I don't think it does images, but it does a great job with a variety of file formats, and is generally good at re-paginating PDF ebooks.

 

[Quickdood]

It's a nice little workaround to start with. I also heard it's better if you 'print' at larger than 100%, so if you need to zoom in you will have higher resolution.

I'm sure in time better options will come.

The killer reader app would be if 'Tofu' could be ported over, with the page flick gesture. I don't think it does images, but it does a great job with a variety of file formats, and is generally good at re-paginating PDF ebooks.

Just took a look at Tofu and it is pretty sweet, I would love to see that on an Ipod Touch or the Iphone.

Also I just got back from the Apple Store and I spent a good 20 minutes in there playing with the iphone and its PDF feature using Safari. All I can say is I wasn't impressed. Even in widescreen mode the text was small and when I zoomed in scrolling from page to page was annoying. It was hard to keep the text centered because I kept scrolling a little horizontally unintentionally. From what I could see there was no next page feature or any really useful features that would make PDF reading easy.

I didn't get a chance to try the iPhoto pdf conversion to pics method because they didn't have any iPhones hooked up to the computers but I clearly see the need for a PDF program on Iphone/Touch in the near future. Listening to my music while reading my ebooks on the same device would be so sweet. One thing Microsoft did well was there Reader program for the pocket PC I would love to see something close to that quality for the iPod touch so I don't have to pull out my old HP PDA again

 

[madmaxmedia]

Also I just got back from the Apple Store and I spent a good 20 minutes in there playing with the iphone and its PDF feature using Safari. All I can say is I wasn't impressed. Even in widescreen mode the text was small and when I zoomed in scrolling from page to page was annoying. It was hard to keep the text centered because I kept scrolling a little horizontally unintentionally. From what I could see there was no next page feature or any really useful features that would make PDF reading easy.

I didn't get a chance to try the iPhoto pdf conversion to pics method because they didn't have any iPhones hooked up to the computers but I clearly see the need for a PDF program on Iphone/Touch in the near future. Listening to my music while reading my ebooks on the same device would be so sweet. One thing Microsoft did well was there Reader program for the pocket PC I would love to see something close to that quality for the iPod touch so I don't have to pull out my old HP PDA again

Yeah, the main thing is definitely either re-formatting on your computer for the iPhone/Touch, or having an app that will re-paginate right on the Touch. PDF documents can be pretty complex layout-wise, but Tofu does a good job of making docs readable. So something just like that would be great on the iPhone/Touch.

The PDF-to-iPhoto thing wouldn't solve the problem of needing to scroll from left-to-right. It's just a good basic way so the capability is not missing altogether.