903 PDF annotations on Pocketbook 903

[rkomar]

I'm curious whether any e-reader supports in-PDF annotations. I've done a bit of developing with Adobe's PDF SDK in the past, and found that they were very protective of the features that separate their cash-cow, Acrobat, from the free viewer programs. Annotations fell squarely into the for-cash features of PDF. I suspect that any program that supports annotations would not be cheap, and you could expect the cost to be added to the price of the e-reader if available.

[Zarathustra]

IREX ILIAD did it (as mentioned already in one of the previous replies) for several years

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

IREX ILIAD did it (as mentioned already in one of the previous replies) for several years

Yeah, I saw it after I posted. So, was the Iliad reasonably priced, or something like the price of a reader with Acrobat added to it?

[Zarathustra]

Well, they went bankrupt just earlier this year ..... they were a bit more expensive (but competition was less) .... and considering their problems reported in the IREX thread it can be expected that the number of sells was lower

[bogdaniosif]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I'm curious whether any e-reader supports in-PDF annotations. I've done a bit of developing with Adobe's PDF SDK in the past, and found that they were very protective of the features that separate their cash-cow, Acrobat, from the free viewer programs. Annotations fell squarely into the for-cash features of PDF. I suspect that any program that supports annotations would not be cheap, and you could expect the cost to be added to the price of the e-reader if available.

The PDF spec is open and anyone can create programs that do anything with PDF files, without paying anything to Adobe.

In your situation, you were using an SDK from Adobe, which is very very different from writing an app from zero with the purpose of viewing or editing PDF files. This is why Adobe were able to charge anything they wanted for any action you did with the help of their SDK. Writing code from scratch to handle PDFs is a much more difficult and laborious task compared with using an SDK to accomplish the same thing.

As an example of a very affordable app that is capable to handle PDF files with annotations I can direct you to the excellent GoodReader for iPad. It can handle all kinds of PDF annotations and it costs 3$.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

Well, they went bankrupt just earlier this year ..... they were a bit more expensive (but competition was less) .... and considering their problems reported in the IREX thread it can be expected that the number of sells was lower

I followed most of that because I was waiting for the dr-800 to appear in Canada when it came out about a year ago. Unfortunately, it didn't come to be. Those people in this forum who think PB should have waited until after Christmas to release a more stable product can think about IREX and what happened to them when they missed the Christmas rush.

Anyway, my point was that PDF annotation is probably not a simple, cheap feature to add to any reader. People who want it should be ready to pay quite a bit more for it, at least if Adobe has anything to do with it.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by bogdaniosif

The PDF spec is open and anyone can create programs that do anything with PDF files, without paying anything to Adobe.

In your situation, you were using an SDK from Adobe, which is very very different from writing an app from zero with the purpose of viewing or editing PDF files. This is why Adobe were able to charge anything they wanted for any action you did with the help of their SDK. Writing code from scratch to handle PDFs is a much more difficult and laborious task compared with using an SDK to accomplish the same thing.

As an example of a very affordable app that is capable to handle PDF files with annotations I can direct you to the excellent GoodReader for iPad. It can handle all kinds of PDF annotations and it costs 3$.

Can you recommend any PDF viewers that can do annotations and that run under a Linux ARM busybox system? I remember my head spinning just looking at the SDK annotation documentation, and I'm not surprized that most open source PDF software have not implemented it natively, even if it is in the spec. Even some of the closed-source products add annotations to external files and aren't portable to other viewers. It's clear to me that annotations have been made deliberately hard to implement to protect Adobe's revenue stream.

If anyone knows better, I don't want them arguing with me; I want them to tell PB how to incorporate annotations on their readers if it can be done cheaply.

[bogdaniosif]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Anyway, my point was that PDF annotation is probably not a simple, cheap feature to add to any reader. People who want it should be ready to pay quite a bit more for it, at least if Adobe has anything to do with it.

Reality check with prices for apps that can handle PDF annotations

Adobe Reader X for Windows - Price: 0
PDF-Xchange Viewer for Windows - Price: 0
Foxit Reader for Windows - Price: 0
GoodReader for iPad - Price: 3$
iAnnotate for iPad - Price: 10$

Pocketbook 902 - Price without shipping: 330 EUR
Pocketbook 903 - Price without shipping: 400 EUR

You do the math and tell me if at these prices is ok not to have and not to expect at least from the 903 to handle PDF annotations.

As seen below, btw thanks LoneTech, NO book annotation with a stylus capability is provided, let alone PDF annotations. Now if this is something a buyer of a touchscreen+stylus ereader expects, then I think that buyer is also the vendor.

Originally Posted by LoneTech

Just received my PocketBook 903, and can write down a few initial impressions. The note taking is, sorry to say, horrible in this release (2.0.4). It only does marking of strips of existing books, and saves those as bitmaps with links into the book. They also only appear in the table of contents. The scribbling program demonstrated earlier is available, but has no connection to the notes function.

[bogdaniosif]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Can you recommend any PDF viewers that can do annotations and that run under a Linux ARM busybox system? I remember my head spinning just looking at the SDK annotation documentation, and I'm not surprized that most open source PDF software has not implemented it natively, even if it is in the spec. Even some of the closed-source products add annotations to external files and aren't portable to other viewers. It's clear to me that annotations have been made deliberately hard to implement to protect Adobe's revenue stream.

I don't know well enough the Linux app world to make such a recommendation.

The PDF format clearly takes its toll from anyone who tries to master it but that is only because it really solves well a lot of problems. The Windows viewers took a couple of years to evolve to stable versions.

However, my expectations from the 903 do not change and I think this is true for any buyer of this device.

[Zarathustra]

However, my expectations from the 903 do not change and I think this is true for any buyer of this device.

Actually, I have to fully agree the above comment. And I would also say, that it should not be too hard, to have a workaround by having two layers, one PDF viewer layer and on top (in a separate file) the notes. That is how, Irex did it for at least 3 yrs. ... and later somebody will find a solution to merge both versions (or create a PDF viewer which takes care of a 2nd layer)

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I'm curious whether any e-reader supports in-PDF annotations.

I can tell you that Onyx Boox (alert - I am a retailer of this product) allows you to scribble on/in the PDF. Actually handwrite on the page. It doesnt move off the device that way but on device you can. There are ways to make notes that can go off the device separately.

The Samsung Readers ( of which only one made it to market ) showed a sytem that allowed you to make a sort of post it note in/on the page as well. Very similar to what was shown by Plastic Logic for their device.

I dont know if that feature made it to the production samsung device but someone could ask the owners in this thread https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...28#post1300228

edit- i review i found at pocket-lint does suggest the post-it note and scribble did make it to the e60 but does not specify if it works in PDFs.

I've seen similar ideas used for 2-3 other devices but I don't remember which ones. or if it was supported for PDFs.

[SkyDream]

Originally Posted by bogdaniosif

However, my expectations from the 903 do not change and I think this is true for any buyer of this device.

Me too.
PB 903 is a expensive reader but the firmware is somewhat behind with features. Maybe it's still beta (although released) and need a lot of improvement.

[LoneTech]

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

And I would also say, that it should not be too hard, to have a workaround by having two layers, one PDF viewer layer and on top (in a separate file) the notes.

That is the common technique. Here's a simple summary of those I know:

pdfedit - tool to alter the contents of a PDF. Very heavy demands on the computer and not so easy to use, in my experience.

Okular - KDE program, allows drawing in a separate layer on top, including highlights and such. The KDE integration makes for a lot of dependencies. What annotations you make (Review tool) are saved separately, but I don't know where nor how to export them.

Xournal - Gtk+ based note taking program designed for pen equipped computers. Requires poppler for PDF support, already used by pdfviewer, and Gtk+, already used by Midori webbrowser. Supports exporting its annotations as a merged PDF file. EvilDragon recorded a quick Xournal demonstration on the Pandora handheld, which is also ARM-based.

I would like to know of others.

Edit: Sorry for the duplicate information above. I had forgotten that I already posted these in this thread. Anyhow, the new info is that porting xournal should be fairly easy - but I haven't yet found the sources for midori for pocketbook. Getting it to update as smoothly as scribble does may take a little more time.

I really want the new SDK, because the one I have (15.1) doesn't seem to work for my 903.

[domee]

Okular for KDE is a great app. I use it for my studies because it allows you to save your highlighting and annotations in a separate XML file (actually, it does that automatically once you work with a PDF file) and you can easily copy the XML file to another computer and continue working on your PDF there. The only important thing is, that the PDF file name has to be the same.

As the question came up earlier: the XML files can be found in the folder home/.kde/share/apps/okular/docdata (make sure that you can see hidden folders).

As for the PB 903: This is really a shame. I'm a doctoral student and I will probably go for the Entourage Edge... it is heavy and pricy, but once I checked out the presentations on YouTube I instantly fell in love with it. Check this out for annotation options on the Edge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bJWCzTpDZ8

Greets

[catharsis]

Those who got the 903: can anyone do a full review of the device, not just note taking?
If Xournal can run on 903, annotation issue is fixed (I tried Xournal on my iRex DR800 and it's great software).