Thread: PDF reading on Small Size PDA
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Old 07-08-2008, 02:01 AM   #8
DMcCunney
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alpman77 View Post
Hello all,

I have just signed up.

For a long time, I am trying to figure out the possibility and convenience of reading pdf formatted ebooks on a small PDA.

The fact that, I am looking for a phone-PDA for mostly ebook and pdf reading and other PDA applications.

And, I just could not figure out what to purchase. I dont want heavy and very big device.

What do you think of 2.8" and 2.5" screen PDAs, when it comes to pdf reading?
What do you think of the resolution? QVGA is enough? Or should I look for VGA?

Thanks in advance,
Alpman77
I read ebooks on a PDA. My device is a Tapwave Zodiac 2, with a 320x480 color screen, running Palm OS 5.27, and about half of its function it to be a pocket library.

I can view PDFs on it. There is a splendid open source PDF viewer for Palm OS called PalmPDF. But in practice, I use PDFs only when no other format is available for the information.

PDFs are the worst format for handhelds. They assume a larger screen or a printed page, and they generally don't reflow to fit the smaller screen. Depending upon the PDF and the layout, you may have to side scroll to read them, which is actively painful.

By all means, get a PDA, but don't do so for the purpose of reading PDFs. There are many other formats a PDA handles well. Here, for example, I have about 3,500 ebooks on my device. Most are HTML files converted to view with Plucker, a free, open source. offline HTML view for Palm OS. I also have a fair number of documents in Mobipocket format, plus some eReader volumes, plain text files, and Word and RTF files.

Mobipocket has viewers for Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Symbian smartphones, and Blackberries, with a Java based viewer currently in alpha status. the Mobipocket Creator application that generates Mobi formatted documents can use HTML files, Word dopcuments and RTF files, PDFs, and plain text files as source material. Both Mobi Reader and Creator are free of charge.

Take PDFs out of the equation, and make your decision based on what else you might do with the device you buy. In general, larger screen and higher resolution are preferable, but they come at a higher cost.
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Dennis
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