MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Prospects for Academic/Scientific PDF reading in the coming year

soilwork · 03-06-2011, 02:13 PM

I am in academia and so far I am quite satisfied with Entourage Edge (EE) even though it is not quite perfect. Since paula-t and Filark mentioned good things already, I would like to add some gripes about EE.

1)
Weight is quite substantial. Carrying only EE is not a problem but carrying EE with a laptop can be quite hefty. Since EE cannot do everything that PC can do (e.g. powerpoint presentation), I end up carrying both PC and EE. It is not very light (at least to me) since I mostly rely on public transportation. Also, holding EE over an extended period of time can be quite uncomfortable.

2)
EE offers very flexible way of viewing and commenting PDF files (e.g. highlight, memo, and scribble) within EE but you cannot exchange commented PDFs between EE and PC transparently.
The reason is that EE has a closed system of editing PDFs. First, the file should be located or added to its internal storage called 'Library' to add comments. Second, comments made in PDF are saved inside EE, so it is quite easy to read or modify comments within EE but you cannot do that with any other software or device.
You can 'export' the PDF with comments but the resulting PDF consists of page images and loses all the text layers. Such PDF files are not very useful since you cannot search text anymore and also you cannot really edit the exported highlights or scribble since they are just images now. In other words, once you made comments to PDF and took it out of EE by 'exporting', the PDF file is not very useful anymore.
As a user, I would like to add comments to PDF regardless of the file location or device. Combined with cloud sync services like Dropbox, I should be able to add comments on the most recent version of a PDF document across multiple devices. This is not possible with EE.

In sum, if you are mainly interested in reading PDFs and if you are planning to add comments on PDFs using only EE, EE is a very good device and I would highly recommend it. But if you would like to add comments to PDF files across multiple devices, EE is not the machine for you. I still like my EE but I will seriously consider buying a netbook with Pixel Qi screen with long battery life if one comes out.

03-06-2011, 02:13 PM	#31
soilwork useR! Posts: 299 Karma: 651 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: NY Device: Onyx Boox Max 2, Kobo Libra H2O, iRiver Story HD	Some gripes about Entourage Edge (EE) I am in academia and so far I am quite satisfied with Entourage Edge (EE) even though it is not quite perfect. Since paula-t and Filark mentioned good things already, I would like to add some gripes about EE. 1) Weight is quite substantial. Carrying only EE is not a problem but carrying EE with a laptop can be quite hefty. Since EE cannot do everything that PC can do (e.g. powerpoint presentation), I end up carrying both PC and EE. It is not very light (at least to me) since I mostly rely on public transportation. Also, holding EE over an extended period of time can be quite uncomfortable. 2) EE offers very flexible way of viewing and commenting PDF files (e.g. highlight, memo, and scribble) within EE but you cannot exchange commented PDFs between EE and PC transparently. The reason is that EE has a closed system of editing PDFs. First, the file should be located or added to its internal storage called 'Library' to add comments. Second, comments made in PDF are saved inside EE, so it is quite easy to read or modify comments within EE but you cannot do that with any other software or device. You can 'export' the PDF with comments but the resulting PDF consists of page images and loses all the text layers. Such PDF files are not very useful since you cannot search text anymore and also you cannot really edit the exported highlights or scribble since they are just images now. In other words, once you made comments to PDF and took it out of EE by 'exporting', the PDF file is not very useful anymore. As a user, I would like to add comments to PDF regardless of the file location or device. Combined with cloud sync services like Dropbox, I should be able to add comments on the most recent version of a PDF document across multiple devices. This is not possible with EE. In sum, if you are mainly interested in reading PDFs and if you are planning to add comments on PDFs using only EE, EE is a very good device and I would highly recommend it. But if you would like to add comments to PDF files across multiple devices, EE is not the machine for you. I still like my EE but I will seriously consider buying a netbook with Pixel Qi screen with long battery life if one comes out. Last edited by soilwork; 03-07-2011 at 02:07 PM.