Any updates for Adobe Reader on WM2003SE?

[Gator5000e]

Has anyone heard if Adobe is planning on updating Reader for PPC to work in landscape mode? Are there any other PDF readers that will work in landscape mode?

Thanks for any thoughts.

[dlangton]

1. Adobe is supposedly working on an update for Acrobat Reader for the PPC. Don't hold your breath.

2. The current Acrobat Reader already has a landscape mode. Use the rotate option.

[Gator5000e]

Didn't realize that. I will check it out. Thanks

[Sven Johannsen]

Where'd you hear that? They seem to have been pretty happy leaving it at 1.0 since it was released. Incidentaly the current reader seems to work OK in landscape as long as you get into landscape before you start it. It doesn't take well to switching while it is running.

[dlangton]

Every once in a while an Adobe representative in the Adobe forums will mention an update in progress. It's been quite a while since anyone from Adobe has left a comment in the forums, however. Maybe I should say that they used to give an indication that an update is forthcoming. They may have dropped the idea entirely.

[100thMonkey]

does it work with native .pdf's? or do .pdf's have to be transformed like in Palm OS Reader app?

[Sven Johannsen]

It works with native pdfs...however...there is a feature available in newer pdf creation software to allow what is termed 'reflow'. The feature is called tagging which helps the reader (application) understand what can be re-flowed and retain legibility. Basically it forces the text into one column that fits your PPC width. I actually works in landscape and fills the width there too.

When you install the Acrobat Reader, the PC that you use to install it gets an ActiveSync enhancement that will attempt to 'tag', untagged pdfs. This allows for a more pleasant reading experience on the PPC in most cases.

If the pdf is not tagged for some reason, you got it in an e-mail, copied it directly to a memory card, used AS on a PC that hasn't had the enhancement done, you can still read the pdf fine, but you will be scrolling side to side, or using a very big magnifying glass.

It might be worthwhile to take a look at Repligo for those of you who want to take reference material with you. It works much like Acrobat in that it is a virtual printer that creates a specific file format that their reader can read. It also does a good job at re-organizing the text to avoid side to side scrolling. The reader is also free, and the writer side, to create your own repligo files, is quite reasonable. It does seem to be quite efficient. It performs better than Acrobat IMHO. It also seems to create smaller files. In fact I took a pdf of a tech manual, 660 pages, 5.1M and ran it through the Repligo converter. That means open the document in Acrobat Reader, hit print, select the Repligo printer and give it a file name. I got the same manual in Repligo format in 2.9M. That's a 43% reduction. Memory cards are cheap, but that is also a 43% reduction in the file size that needs to be opened to read it.

[Janak Parekh]

It does seem to be quite efficient.
Yes - and to me, the speed is the key difference. RepliGo is probably 10 times faster than Acrobat. I'm not really exaggerating all that much. Acrobat is barely useable as it spends so much time drawing on the screen inefficiently.

--janak

[Darius Wey]

I truly agree that RepliGo is really efficient at file conversion. What might be ~100K for a text document in a .DOC or .PDF file format can be easily converted to a mere couple of kilobytes in .RGO, with it's "reflow" function built-in too. Now that's what I call "geek-satisfaction"! :D