Greets, guys.

I'm about to start my PhD, and I'm trying to find a reader that'll run Linux and let me view multi-column (usually 2) articles in PDF format.

Has anyone here ever tried to view one of those with OpenInkpot and would care to comment on the readability?

Also, if anyone would be able and willing to test it, here's a sample article:

http://download.intel.com/research/silicon/moorespaper.pdf

Thanks!

tdido,

I am currently a doctoral student and was in the same boat as you a year ago and got some really valuable advice from this forum.

AFAIK, almost all readers run some form of Linux. You can look at the E-reader Matrix on the wiki to be sure which ones do.

Early this year, I bought the iLiad Book Edition but I find that it's certainly not ideal for reading 2-column articles unless you install the hacked version of ipdf known as 'column-mode' ipdf which allows you to read a column at a time and then move between columns in the right order. However, it doesn't always work and the small screen size doesn't help either.

If you can afford it, the iLiad DR1000S is probably going to be the best thing out there for reading PDFs since it has some nice features like being able to annotate PDFs, jump within a document using links etc. However, like the iLiad Book Edition, it has horrendous battery life and larger PDFs have been reported to suffer from slow page turns.

I have recently bought a Kindle DX and while it doesn't have all of DR's features regarding PDF files, it's quite useful and handy for reading 2-column files. Of course, if the text size is quite small in the file, then the portrait mode might not be useful and reading a 2-column file in landscape mode is a total pain. I would imagine that the DR would suffer from similar problems, the zooming capabilities notwithstanding. Of course, I am just speculating and people who actually own the DR might be able to provide better input.

Since, I also want to use the same Kindle DX for pleasure reading, I find that having access to the Amazon store is quite a plus.

Nitin

OpenInkpot needs one improvement for PDFs: landscape mode support. That combined with precise trimming, zooming, and sliding, would allow you to read multi-column PDFs in good conditions.
They already planned to add this feature, but not right now.
Of course you could help them write the code.

DesiLinguist, thanks for the input. Much appreciated.

Lbooker, you're totally right. The thing is, getting a V3 here in Argentina will be really expensive, so I wanted to check if the device would be useful at all from the start. If it were, I would really love to help code the improvements and make the investment worth it.

Cheers!

There is one on sale here:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49211
I cannot contribute code to OpenInkpot, but if I can help get a programmer on board, that would be cool!

Greets, guys.

I'm about to start my PhD, and I'm trying to find a reader that'll run Linux and let me view multi-column (usually 2) articles in PDF format.

Has anyone here ever tried to view one of those with OpenInkpot and would care to comment on the readability?

Also, if anyone would be able and willing to test it, here's a sample article:

http://download.intel.com/research/silicon/moorespaper.pdf

Thanks!

Hello,

try http://jupiter.kaist.ac.kr/~taesoo/projects/paperCrop/index_eng.html

for reading multi-column (usually 2) articles.
bozon42

Well, thanks everyone! Great info. I'll just have to think about it a little bit and make a desicion.

Cheers!

Why not use Papercrop (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31677) or similar utility to split the columns onto separate pages?