New Reader with great pdf-support: Mantano Reader (like aldiko+ezpdf)

[jjonas]

Originally Posted by loyukfai

P.S. If you want your annotations stored in the file itself, at the moment, you may try ezPDF or Repligo.

You seem to have experience on different pdf reader / annotation apps on Android, and your needs seem to be very close to my own. What I'm looking for is the ability to annotate pdfs, also freehand (I'm reading scanned pdfs as well), AND the ability to save my annotations into the pdf, so that when I come back to it to see what the essential points were, I can run the pages through as if it was a normal book that I have underlined and see quickly which parts I have highlighted for later reference. Most likely I would read the stuff on the tablet, make annotations, save it and transfer it onto my desktop computer where I'll use another PDF reader to look it up later when I need to.

In your experience and opinion, is there an app that I can use for all this, or is it going to be a compromise one way or another? I've tried finding out this information on Repligo, Moon+ Reader, Mantano, Foxit Reader, Aldiko, Cool Reader and ezPDF (and probably a few others) but I haven't been able to figure out everything I've wanted to know, so it's kind of hard to decide which one of these to try. I don't remember offhand which ones of these you can try out for free, but certainly I'm not going to pay a 2-5 euros - a cheap in itself for an app - for a dozen apps, amounting to maybe 30 euros just to check it out myself because the app's description is too vague.

Any recommendations? At least it seems like Mantano is not for me. How would you (or someone else who has experience) characterise Repligo and ezPDF's abilities in light of the needs outlined above..?

Thanks!

EDIT: PS. Oh btw another necessary function that doesn't need to be integrated into the same app as the above functions (but is good if it is) is reading non-english texts in with a dictionary, so that I can (for example) tap the word I don't know/remember, and a dictionary window with the word pops up (or whatever is the way this can be implemented).

[ghostyjack]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

The problem apesmom describes has only to do with the collections, not with the files themselves. I must admit, I've no idea how it keeps track of the collections (I know the meta data such as last read, and current page, is saved in a sqlite db, but I couldn't find the collections in there... But this could also be because my collections had all disappeared when I searched...)

Yep, all your files are still on the tablet, I've got this issues as well.

So if you want to be able to see your files, then set the view to show all books (i.e. no filtering) and you will see them.

Until they sort out this issue, managing your books will be a bit painfull with that many on it.

[Sweetpea]

Yes, but according to one of the posts above, they finally cracked the problem and we should see an update soon!

[ghostyjack]

Thank god for that!

[loyukfai]

@jjonas: Just babbling out of my head, be warned... : )

First of all you can forget all the EPUB+PDF readers. That leaves you ezPDF, RepliGo and maybe a few other solutions. I haven't tried RepliGo and Foxit myself, the latter is a fairly new entry that wasn't available when I did my research, and RepliGo just didn't seem to suite my needs as much as ezPDF but seems to render pages faster.

If you google "ezpdf repligo" you will find many results, besides you can check the user comments on the Android Market for both apps.

BTW, all purchases through the Android Market has a 15-min return window. And ezPDF is on (fire)sale at the moment.

For dictionary I use ColorDict, it's supported by ezPDF and Mantano AFAIK.

One thing you have to consider is the relatively lack of accuracy of capacitive touchscreens, but it belongs to another topic even more than this post.

Cheers.

P.S. Sorry for going off-topic.

[Sweetpea]

Actually, part of what he wants is on the stock PDF reader on my Flyer... But beside the awesome abilities to make notes and such, it's basic. And that's an understatement

(oh, the pen does help if you want to make notes!)

[Eskarina]

@jjonas

From your description, it sounds like Ezpdf reader may suit your needs. In Ezpdf, the annotated copy of your pdf file gets saved as a separate file (with the extension annotated.pdf) that includes the annotations. I'm also able to see my free-hand annotations when I view the pdf on my laptop - is that what you're talking about?

Ezpdf has three versions on the android market: free, lite and pro. I use the pro version which was on sale for 10c yesterday. It may still be - check it out.

Edit: My bad. There's only two versions of Ezpdf reader - lite and pro. The third "free" version is actually the cloud plugin.

[apesmom]

Mantano Reader 1.6.5 for Android released
We've just released an update. Here are the changes:

Chinese translation
Chinese, Korean, and Japanese fonts can now be installed
Fixed book cover size on home screen
Annotations can now be tagged
Long-press on a metadata (collections, tags, authors, etc.) to edit it
Reader: Theme icon modification
Deletion of highlights and notes attached to highlights now allowed from the "My Notes" tab.

Sadly I can't update it on my NC CM7 - it's telling me it's incompatible. Yes, 1.6.4 is currently running on that device.

It does allow the editing of collection tags which is nice . . .if I could get it onto my primary reading device.

[Blossom]

I'm still waiting for 1.6.4 from Amazon. I guess 1.6.5 is new version so now have to wait for it too. Has Mantano forgotten about us?

[apesmom]

Another nice tweak in addition to editing the names of your collections is that you can move an entire sub-collection under a new master collection.

I found this out because the collections that previously disappeared were back but they were missing the master collections I had created. I was able to recreate the master then move the existing sub back to where it belonged.

The info popup now shows which collections the book has been assigned to which is nice for figuring out where you originally stuck something.

[apesmom]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I'm still waiting for 1.6.4 from Amazon. I guess 1.6.5 is new version so now have to wait for it too. Has Mantano forgotten about us?

I doubt you've been forgotten, it probably has to do with Amazon. I've been reading some horror stories about getting apps through their process.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by apesmom

I doubt you've been forgotten, it probably has to do with Amazon. I've been reading some horror stories about getting apps through their process.

They never had a problem before. We just had to wait longer but it's been a long time since 1.6.4 has been out and 1.6.3 is the last version Amazon has.

[GregoryP]

Originally Posted by Blossom

They never had a problem before. We just had to wait longer but it's been a long time since 1.6.4 has been out and 1.6.3 is the last version Amazon has.

Version 1.6.4 was rejected because of a link in the app (when sharing annotation) that sent the user to Android Market... We fixed this, but now the new version has to go through all the validation process again.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by GregoryP

Version 1.6.4 was rejected because of a link in the app (when sharing annotation) that sent the user to Android Market... We fixed this, but now the new version has to go through all the validation process again.

Thanks for the update. I hope the latest version 1.6.5 will be submitted to Amazon as well. The subcollections bug is a biggie and it be nice to have the fixed version.

[jhempel24]

Just a quick question.....is there away to adjust the margins, or keep the text from being on top of the bookmark Icon?

Thanks!