Questions for new Iliad owners!

[VillageReader]

I'll add my two cents here. Although we are talking about 'zoom', what will really be needed for best performance is what I think Adobe calls 'reflow' for a document. The difference is with zoom some information will be off the page. With reflow, font sizes will remain the same regardless of page size and will 'flow' around images, etc. as needed. In the former, you need to 'move around' the screen to see the whole page. With the latter, the text reformats itself in a legible size to fit the screen size you have.

Question for a user with a Palm and Documents to Go - when you transfer a .pdf file, you only need to scroll veritically, not horizontally, right? I think the concept for the Iliad would need to be the same.

I tried loading a Scientific American magazine I have as a .pdf. You can read it, but barely due to the font size shrinking to show the whole page. To me, zoom is not an elegant solution - reflowing the text to fit the available screen is

(this is why in the .pdf discussions people use a page size of 120 x 150 mm - to get the font sizes to render at approximately the expected size).

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by VillageReader

I tried loading a Scientific American magazine I have as a .pdf. You can read it, but barely due to the font size shrinking to show the whole page. To me, zoom is not an elegant solution - reflowing the text to fit the available screen is

Using the Picsel Browser as viewer on a PDA you drag the document around and zoom in and out of it. It's surprising, how good you can read even big documents this way. But of course the Picsel Browser is insanely fast when pushing and zooming around the document...

[tribble]

Originally Posted by R2D2

Using the Picsel Browser as viewer on a PDA you drag the document around and zoom in and out of it. It's surprising, how good you can read even big documents this way. But of course the Picsel Browser is insanely fast when pushing and zooming around the document...

I cn imagine, that such a dragging feature would be great to use on the iLiad. Even, when you cant see the drag, it is an easy and intuitive way to move through a page.

[oliverbogler]

Originally Posted by Sight Seer

I have been reading the iLiad postings for months now - I am very interested in this device, but have one specific use in mind. I am a scientist and want to use the iLiad to read scientific pdf files that I download from scientific journals. These pdf files are generaly formatted to print on 8.5 x 11 inch paper. Would these files be readable on this device?

Oliverbogler apparently did try to read a science pdf but indicated that zooming would be necessary and cropping of excess white space. This is a bit more work than desired to make the device really useful.

It is my impression, based on the videos and screen shots that I have seen, that zooming and navigating no a page would be a difficult way to read these files. Based on the photo of the first page of the paper posted by Oliverbogler, could it be that the zoom feature would could be controlled to just remove the white margin? Perhaps a "custom" program to reformat these pdfs could be created?

The quick answer is that at the moment PDFs that can be cropped aggressively are just readable. Ones that cannot, border on the unreadable, IMO and with my eyes (just turned 40 and everything is getting blurrier...).

Croppability depends on the source of the pdf - most journals allow it, but for example, Nature ones do not. If you have a specific example in mind, please send it to me or post it, and I can try it and upload a photo.

Reflow would be better, and would work great for some journals. I tried this with a random sample of the pdfs I have of scientific papers, and it only worked with a very few - those that provide a pdf of the typesetting information, I guess. Many however have pdfs that are images of a page. (The ones I reflowed, were exportable to html and thence to a word processor and could be made into a more readable document, but that took as long as it might to read half the paper - so not a good time investment.) If the iLiad PDF viewer gains reflow capability, that would be great - but only in a few cases. Zoom is likely to be more useful - a key would be to have good navigation around the zoomed document.

For me the cropping works best, and I can now read papers on a plane, or anywhere, and can carry hundreds with me, and not have to print and waste time, paper and ink. The 16 grays do make a difference, as does the size, when compared to Sony.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by oliverbogler

The quick answer is that at the moment PDFs that can be cropped aggressively are just readable. Ones that cannot, border on the unreadable, IMO and with my eyes (just turned 40 and everything is getting blurrier...).

How does one crop a PDF?

I thought that the whole point of PDF was to prevent the user from "tampering" with the document.

[VillageReader]

Ok - someone talked about exporting a .pdf to .htm. I checked Scientific American, and you can save the file to .txt. When I opened the file, it seemed there was still a lot of coding buried in the text. So I tried changing the file extension from .txt to .htm to see what happened. I used Open Office and it asked what filter I wanted to use, and gave me a LONG list. So, for those experts out there, any idea when Adobe exports to text what format it is really supplying? I hate to try checking through all of them to see what happens. OTOH, this might be a solution for one magazine at least - inelegant, but a solution.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by VillageReader

Question for a user with a Palm and Documents to Go - when you transfer a .pdf file, you only need to scroll veritically, not horizontally, right? I think the concept for the Iliad would need to be the same.

The Palm Acrobat Reader converts the text to just a flow, so yes, you only scroll up/down.

EXCEPT -- pictures are converted to thumbnails and if you want to see them you do a "tap and hold" which pulls them up in a pan mode, which does include left/right scrolling (using tap-drag with the stylus). It's a reasonable compromise, I suppose. The scrolling is pretty quick, but the zooming seems to be a bit limited.

[VillageReader]

Originally Posted by NatCh

The Palm Acrobat Reader converts the text to just a flow, so yes, you only scroll up/down.

EXCEPT -- pictures are converted to thumbnails and if you want to see them you do a "tap and hold" which pulls them up in a pan mode, which does include left/right scrolling (using tap-drag with the stylus). It's a reasonable compromise, I suppose. The scrolling is pretty quick, but the zooming seems to be a bit limited.

Soooo, if the primary interest is in reading the text of a magazine reasonably formated, this is a solution, but if the graphics are a major part of the magazine it isn't an ideal solution? For example, Harvard Business Review is workable, People Magazine isn't?

[KILI]

Originally Posted by VillageReader

.... we are talking about 'zoom', what will really be needed for best performance is what I think Adobe calls 'reflow' for a document. The difference is with zoom some information will be off the page.....

Hmmm that would not solve my problem with PDF. I would like to have zoom and it is no problem info/text/drawings are not shown because it just falls off the screen because of the zoom. As long as I can scroll left right top bottom it is no problem.
I have a lot of documents I constantly need which contain (amoung other schemas and diagrams) some sort of class diagrams. Unreadable now with the Iliad. I need that zoom.....please?

PS. Attached is such a file.....

[Sight Seer]

Originally Posted by oliverbogler

The quick answer is that at the moment PDFs that can be cropped aggressively are just readable. Ones that cannot, border on the unreadable, IMO and with my eyes (just turned 40 and everything is getting blurrier...).

Croppability depends on the source of the pdf - most journals allow it, but for example, Nature ones do not. If you have a specific example in mind, please send it to me or post it, and I can try it and upload a photo.

Reflow would be better, and would work great for some journals. I tried this with a random sample of the pdfs I have of scientific papers, and it only worked with a very few - those that provide a pdf of the typesetting information, I guess. Many however have pdfs that are images of a page. (The ones I reflowed, were exportable to html and thence to a word processor and could be made into a more readable document, but that took as long as it might to read half the paper - so not a good time investment.) If the iLiad PDF viewer gains reflow capability, that would be great - but only in a few cases. Zoom is likely to be more useful - a key would be to have good navigation around the zoomed document.

For me the cropping works best, and I can now read papers on a plane, or anywhere, and can carry hundreds with me, and not have to print and waste time, paper and ink. The 16 grays do make a difference, as does the size, when compared to Sony.

Thank you for your thoughtful and thorough response to my query. You seem to indicate that cropping makes most pdfs readable. I am uncertain how to crop pdfs but I will give it a try - I would agree that zoom would be okay if, for example you could easily move from the bottom to the top of subsequent columns on a page, much like you would move your eyes if reading the paper version of a column formatted document. I have no idea if this feature would be encoded in the browsing device or in the pdf itself. I am very much hoping that the iLiad will prove useful as a pdf reader - based on your comment, it seems you are making it work for you - I know that many of my grad students and colleagues would definitely find this device useful in handling the virtual landslide of published manuscripts that constantly require our attention each day.

[Sight Seer]

Originally Posted by KILI

Hi Seer-Sight. I'm afraid that you will be disappointed by the Iliad when I read your demands correctly. Indeed do I think you will need a zoom function as I do. Especially with schematics. I have a number of documents with complex class diagrams etc and they are unreadable with the current functionality. You could try for a custom program of course but in view of the recent efforts of Irex (producer of the Iliad) to tighten security you do not have any guarantees the custom program will keep working. Only thing here left is to wait for Irex to build in the functionality (I think they will find something for it). Maybe the developers’ facilities (SDK) which will be released coming half year will result in something useful.

I have some experience now. Although not having a zoom I like the thing and find it useful. I hope they will really facilitate developers and open up the system. As you can see here on the site there are enough brilliant hackers that can do almost anything. (Maybe they can rebuild the Iliad to do the vacuum cleaning ;-))

Thank you for your reply Kili - your assessment of my intended use of the Iliad is spot on. Basically, I want it to replace the vast number of folders that contain the scientific articles that I try to keep track of. Imagine a digital file cabinet with all of your reprint articles in one place. Not only that, but being able to mark them up and save them for later reference at the click of a button.

When the first e-readers came out I was so hopeful that a device would come along for this use. The Iliad seems closest so far...perhaps with a bit more software push, Irex will come through.

[scotty1024]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

I thought that the whole point of PDF was to prevent the user from "tampering" with the document.

The original idea, at least as expressed in the name itself, was to create a portable document format that when viewed would be possible to be viewed the same as when the creator of the document last viewed it.

Which is why Irex's instructions for making Iliad compatible PDF's begin with "Select A5 size paper ...

These days Adobe has been attempting to enable PDF to be an open platform eBook format, something it really isn't very good for IMHO.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by scotty1024

The original idea, at least as expressed in the name itself, was to create a portable document format that when viewed would be possible to be viewed the same as when the creator of the document last viewed it.

Which is effectively what I said. The document is "locked up", preventing user modification.

Which brings me back to my original question: how does one modify a document that is intended to be non-modifyable by anyone except the author?

[VillageReader]

Originally Posted by KILI

Hmmm that would not solve my problem with PDF. I would like to have zoom and it is no problem info/text/drawings are not shown because it just falls off the screen because of the zoom. As long as I can scroll left right top bottom it is no problem.
I have a lot of documents I constantly need which contain (amoung other schemas and diagrams) some sort of class diagrams. Unreadable now with the Iliad. I need that zoom.....please?

PS. Attached is such a file.....

Understood that it doesn't solve your problem or all problems. Graphics represent a challenge. Some graphics (for example a book cover) don't necessarily need to be full scale. Others, schematics for example, might need not only full scale but zoom capability to be truly useful. But most would agree that the text you want to read should be of a useful size without resorting to zoom or other 'effects' that mean that on every page to read the whole page you need to 'move around' the to see regions not displayed on the screen. I just can't imagine reading a book or magazine that way.

[KILI]

Yo all your enthousiatic hacking nerd geeks (like me) check this out...
http://www.irextechnologies.com/jobs/development
They are hiring our kind over there....Sry to say embeded is not my cake but maybe on of you could do some development remotely for them (lol)....