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Old 02-22-2012, 09:46 AM   #1
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Reading technical docs (PDFs/EPUBs) on M92 -bugs and workarounds

I am going to dump here details about all the problems with reading and annotating PDFs and EPUBs

If you have problems with specific PDFs please upload them here and I will test them on my M92. I will also try to see if there is an workaround by playing with different PDF formats
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Old 02-22-2012, 09:58 AM   #2
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My first impression after I have played with it for a short time (10h) is that the software needs more polishing. Lots more! (Yes Beryl I just said that )

I would recommend to the Onxy programmers to have a look at ezpdf, the latest version. That PDF reader has a wonderful workflow built in. Onyx's PDF reader is not very ergonomic to say so (I am stretching here the meaning of the word). The allways visible toolbar approach would be beter,
There is no sense in having the bottom toolbar used 75% just do display a page slider
I would rather enjoy having there the buttons for zooming, fonts, layout anotations and tools.
The reader is not very fast when it comes to selecting options in the menus either.

Last edited by PF4Mobile; 02-22-2012 at 10:06 AM.
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Old 02-22-2012, 10:02 AM   #3
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Bugs:

1) when reading a PDF in portrait, 1 page layout, I zoom in to 175%. After that I change the layout to "scroll page" and the zoom gets back to "whole page". If I go to Zooming again and check my initial zoom is selected 175% but what I am seeing on the screen is still "whole page" Pressing the button again gets the zoom back to 175%

2) annotations and panning with the stylus are conflicting in functionality while the right side button does not always move the documents (see #3)
The < and > left buttons should be configured to advance in the document ONE SCREEN not ONE PAGE. The OK button should be used for finer document window or position adjustments (left right and up down) as it sometimes works.
This will eliminate the need to use the stylus to move the document on the screen

At this moment the OK button does the same thing as the arrows. (let say I am in Landscape mode an I see just one section of the page. There is no way to see a diagram or figure that would be split between two consecutive sections because the OK button does not permit finer adjustments of the page position.

3) Landscape mode, zoom to width, and one page layout selected. You see let's say half of a page. The reader is captive in that page. If you push the OK button in any direction you do not get out of that page. The same goes for < and >. The reader will cylce between the two halves.


Feature requests:
  1. Highlighted text should also be merged into the original PDF so you can transfer the annotated file on desktop and see the annotations there.
  2. Drawing (lines, rectangles, circles) when in scribbling mode. This is a standard function for a PDF reader
  3. Underlining text would also help a lot.
  4. An undo last action button on the bottom status bar would also help
  5. Replace the long slider at the bottom of the page with a tool bar with the most used tools like highlighter, eraser, sketching and so on
  6. The configuration screen shall not close after each selection you make. It should have its own "Close" button. It is really annoying to have to go through the same sequence when you change something

Last edited by PF4Mobile; 02-25-2012 at 06:38 PM.
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Old 02-22-2012, 11:17 AM   #4
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Reading PDFs:

Page Orientation:
-in portrait mode you need to cut the margins of the page. Some documents are OK but is all depends on the font size and line height and on the space between lines. Highly dense text blocks are difficult to read in this mode
-in landscape mode you are OK

Document layout
here you can choose between "1 page" and "Scroll mode"
I prefer the second mode and I use the right side button to advance on page.

Browsing the document:
Sometimes confusing, it all depends on the layout and page orientation.
I am still trying to understand how the reader decides to use the buttons for browsing because sometimes it seems to jump one page ahead no matter if you press the OK (right side button) or the Back and Forward buttons (arrow buttons on the left side)

Trying to use the stylus to move the document (panning) conflicts with the annotation mode (you can not have both). See the bugs section for a solution to this problem.

Refresh: allways on otherwise the screen gets greyish and ghosting after ghosting artifacts take over the page

Exporting annotations

Here the PDF reader has a problem: when you start annotating you have to decide if you want to keep your notes is a separate file or in the PDF file that you read.
Highlighted text can be exported via the annotation menu but it is not merged in the PDF file.
On the other hand you have scribbles that you can use to mark the text and you can merge the scribbles into the PDF file and you will see them on desktop

So depending on your purpose you have to choose one or the other.

Last edited by PF4Mobile; 02-22-2012 at 01:48 PM.
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Old 02-22-2012, 11:31 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PF4Mobile View Post

Bugs:

1) when reading a PDF in portrait, 1 page layout, I zoom in to 175%. After that I change the layout to "scroll page" and the zoom gets back to "whole page". If I go to Zooming again and check my initial zoom is selected 175% but what I am seeing on the screen is still "whole page" Pressing the button again gets the zoom back to 175%

.
.
.

Onyx's PDF reader is not very ergonomic to say so (I am stretching here the meaning of the word). The allways visible toolbar approach would be beter,
There is no sense in having the bottom toolbar used 75% just do display a page slider
I would rather enjoy having there the buttons for zooming, fonts, layout anotations and tools.
The reader is not very fast when it comes to selecting options in the menus either.
All those problems with pdf reading were introduced in 1.7 firmware. In 1.6 it was OK.

It is a release candidate not final version, so bugs may occure more than expected....

Actualy, I like long bar for text. It is not that handy for short scientific papers, but for publications 100+ pages it is good.

Instead of adding many other buttons, it would do to if by touching the tool icon (right of text slider) would invoke a dialog window with last, say, 10 used tools.

It is one more keystroke comparing to access directly from bottom bar, but it has by nature self organizing feature. Tools used by particular user for particular type of tasks are available and if not, user activates the tool by normal way and the next time the tool needed will be ready...

Also might be fine if Onyx adds one more 'page group' 'Currently used tools' to the current control menu. Several say 10 last used tools would be there. It shouldn't be difficult to implement and the ergonomic would be well increased.

I need to switch between hand tool, scribling tool, scribling eraser, page rotation, and so on.

Last edited by Mono; 02-23-2012 at 01:44 PM.
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Old 02-22-2012, 11:32 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PF4Mobile View Post
My first impression after I have played with it for a short time (10h) is that the software needs more polishing. Lots more! (Yes Beryl I just said that )

I would recommend to the Onxy programmers to have a look at ezpdf, the latest version. That PDF reader has a wonderful workflow built in. Onyx's PDF reader is not very ergonomic to say so (I am stretching here the meaning of the word). The allways visible toolbar approach would be beter,
There is no sense in having the bottom toolbar used 75% just do display a page slider
I would rather enjoy having there the buttons for zooming, fonts, layout anotations and tools.
The reader is not very fast when it comes to selecting options in the menus either.
Well, you were warned.
Welcome to world of experimental reading.
So I guess you are at the same level of satisfaction as I was before I returned mine.
ezpdf: no way they can develop something like that(I use ezpdf as well as Mantano on my tablet).

But I don't want to sound too pessimistic: given the purpose you use it for, you probably will have ways to make things work sufficiently- that is what I hope for you ...

I am still watching the Jetbook Color ...

Last edited by Beryll Snyder; 02-22-2012 at 11:33 AM. Reason: spelling
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Old 02-22-2012, 11:36 AM   #7
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All those problems with pdf reading were introduced in 1.7 firmware. In 1.6 it was OK.
That is the problem here: 2 steps forward, one step back. Sometimes the other way around ...
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Old 02-22-2012, 11:48 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by Beryll Snyder View Post
Well, you were warned.
Welcome to world of experimental reading.
So I guess you are at the same level of satisfaction as I was before I returned mine.
ezpdf: no way they can develop something like that(I use ezpdf as well as Mantano on my tablet).

But I don't want to sound too pessimistic: given the purpose you use it for, you probably will have ways to make things work sufficiently- that is what I hope for you ...

I am still watching the Jetbook Color ...
Jetbook Color is going to be just a more expensive disappointment
At least that is my opinion now

I will find a way to use this ereader. To be honest with you I did not expect everything to go well but at least I needed to know that I can use it for reading. The software has problems but they will fix them

I am now playing with PDFs. CHM reading and the epub resulted from that CHM were not readible. I need time to see why. ALl I can say is that I was reading a page that I knew it had more text but I could not read the damn page. the software was jumping to the next paragraph

I converted the CHM to a PDF and ...the annotations did not work when I was in zoomed mode. I used Adobe Acrobat to reduce the size of the doc. I believe that also it did some cleaning and not the document is readable/browsable and you can annotate.

Next steps:
exporting the comments to desktop
merging the comments (annotations) with the original PDF. That seems to work only for scribbles ???!!??? Am I missing something here?

Last edited by PF4Mobile; 02-22-2012 at 12:35 PM.
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Old 02-22-2012, 01:53 PM   #9
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Originally Posted by PF4Mobile View Post
Next steps:
exporting the comments to desktop
merging the comments (annotations) with the original PDF. That seems to work only for scribbles ???!!??? Am I missing something here?
I guess not. It is possible to merge only the scribles with original pdf.
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Old 02-22-2012, 04:57 PM   #10
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Definitely scribbling gives a more fluid workflow since it is fast and you do not have to confirm the operation every time as you do with highlighting

At this point I would appreciate what is called "drawing" (lines, rectangles, circles)
I will add this to the feature requests list above
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Old 02-23-2012, 04:05 AM   #11
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I will find a way to use this ereader. To be honest with you I did not expect everything to go well but at least I needed to know that I can use it for reading. The software has problems but they will fix them
Well, I simply don't have the stamina and time, and I don't want to advance the money they don't seem to have.
As some people already mentioned: it is not that much to do and it can't be that much work/effort - but for unknown reasons:snailspace ...

Ectaco: I am hoping against hope - you might be right.
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Old 02-23-2012, 06:29 AM   #12
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Well, I simply don't have the stamina and time, and I don't want to advance the money they don't seem to have.
As some people already mentioned: it is not that much to do and it can't be that much work/effort - but for unknown reasons:snailspace ...

Ectaco: I am hoping against hope - you might be right.
Well ...for me the problem sounds different.
I can not wait and I do not have spare eyes :-)
Since this is the best option or the smallest evil....

Anyway, my opinion is that they moved fast from 1.6 to 1.7.
Also the sales are getting steam, they get more money and that will allow them to be faster.
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Old 02-23-2012, 08:39 AM   #13
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My theory is that they tried to improve the navigation in document (maybe towards 2column), but things went wrong...

EDIT:
portions deleted

It is a release candidate not final version, so bugs may occure more than expected....

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Old 02-23-2012, 08:55 AM   #14
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Also the sales are getting steam, they get more money and that will allow them to be faster.
I like your optimism.
The whole experience gives new meaning to the word "reading adventure " ...
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Old 02-23-2012, 09:24 AM   #15
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I like your optimism.
The whole experience gives new meaning to the word "reading adventure " ...
I am not using the device for much.
I wanted to give my eyes a break ... I do not want to know how much is to buy eyeglasses.
I wanted to read PDFs and annotate them and see the annotations on the desktop.

All the above are ok excepting the last one where I had to settle for scribbling which for now is faster and easier to transfer to desktop within the same document. I have not tried yet, I am still reading a document. I hope I will be done by tomorrow with going through a complete cycle for my workflow.
So far I am happy. If the issues listed in message #2 and #3 in this thread are solved I will be more than happy.

I hope these explain my optimism and the fact that I am OK with the device.
To be honest with you if it wasn't for my eyes I wouldn't even look at this device.

I do realize the the amount of work included in any android based tablet is much bigger, the feature set is more complete, the performance better and so on ...but how does that help if you end up being blind?

If I was an investor I would surely invest in what would be called an eInk monitor. B&W for the beginning. I would design it as a second monitor for any desktop computer or laptop. If the user needs colors, multimedia and so on the monitors we all use today are far better. If the user needs reading then use this second eInk monitor. But hey, I am not an investor (I would not need to read this much if I was one ) so I can only pray for that eInk to show up on the market asap. I am quite sure that somebody out there is already working on it, the opportunity is too big to miss, only the technical obstacles to make that usable are big.

Last edited by PF4Mobile; 02-23-2012 at 09:28 AM.
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