Repligo 2.0 For Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone Released

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.cerience.com/pages/news/032404.htm">http://www.cerience.com/pages/news/032404.htm</a><br /><br />I've been a Repligo fan since it came out in early 2003. Release 2.0 takes it to the next level with tons of new features. The only feature I wanted and don't see is when reading reflowed text, images are stripped out, which is fine, but I'd like to see a marker telling me there is an image there that has been suppressed. I could then switch to normal mode and see the image. Maybe Repligo 3.0. :? <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2004/20040324-repligo2.gif" /><br /><b>Repligo 2 showing the full overview and text reflow of the same document.</b><br /><br />It is <a href="http://www.handango.com/brainstore//PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=51208">$29.99 for the full version</a> that allows you to create your own Repligo documents from within any application that is capable of printing. Owners of Repligo 1.0 can upgrade for half price. As always, Repligo Viewers only are free. There is a fully functional 14 day trial available.<br /><br />New features include:<br /><br />• Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition support. Brilliant, high resolution display of documents on Pocket PCs and Smartphones with VGA and QVGA screens. The Pocket PC version is compatible with devices that dynamically switch between portrait and landscape orientations. <br />• New bookmark, comment and hyperlink features. Automatic conversion of bookmarks, comments and hyperlinks from popular desktop formats like Microsoft® Office and Adobe® PDF documents. Additionally, users can add personal bookmarks, notes and highlight text. <br />• New text capabilities. Unicode support allows for text searching, making it effortless to find information. Copying text to the clipboard is also supported. <br />• Higher quality graphics. New capabilities allow images to retain their full 24-bit quality, providing more clarity and greater detail. <!><br />• New printing capabilities. The Smartphone version now supports full color, infrared printing of documents to compatible HP printers. This feature is already available in the Pocket PC version. <br />• Flexible file synchronization. New features allow for direct saving of documents to memory cards or other folders on the device.<br />• Enhanced Internet Explorer Integration. New conversion preview and automatic scaling features allow translation of Web pages with ease and accuracy. <br />• All new Windows Viewer. The new Windows Viewer enables convenient reference and annotation on the desktop while remaining completely portable to any supported mobile device.<br /><br />Note that some of these new features, like bookmarks, will not work on Repligo files created with 1.x. You'll need to regenerate the file. It would be nice if there was a desktop converter that could do that for all of your Repligo 1.0 documents instead of having to go back and dig up old documents and/or web sites.

[SofaTater]

I really like the idea of having bookmarks, but I'm not sure I want to spend $14.95 for an upgrade. Guess I'll wait to see what the consensus on the new version is before I shell out more money...

[CESkins]

The new version of Repligo is very solid move in the right direction for an upgrade. Looks like the changes ones makes to a document like highlighting are stored within the file itself. When closing the document, you are asked if you want to save the changes. If you open the document on the desktop, the changes made on the PPC are there (and vice versa). The new features don't work with the older format Repligo docs. This means I will have to dig up the original files and reconvert them to the new format. I do wish there was a way we could control the degree of compression ala Acrobat. I would like to reduce the level of text compression especially when converting an Acrobat file to Repligo format (as the text in most Acrobat docs is already compressed and adding more compression can make it blurry). If you don't want to spend the ~$15 for the upgrade, just use the 15% off Handango coupon code available on the PPCT Subscribers section...saves you ~ $3. Of course, you have to be a subscriber. A big thumbs up to Cerience for this upgrade. :D It will get a heavy duty workout from me as I have lots of papers to read and having them on my PDA with markup features is a plus. It was a wait but well worth it. Now if only they will add the images to the flowed mode or a placeholder that you can tap on that will show the image (tap on the image and you are back where you left). That would rock. Perhaps v2.1 ;)

[Gator5000e]

If it does not work with Word Perfect (yes there are a few of us left who use WP), then I don't see any advantage to it.

[CESkins]

It may not integrate into Word Perfect but you certainly should be able to print any WP document via the Repligo printer to create a Repligo document. :idea:

[drop]

Give it a try. Repligo would work with WordPerfect. Any app that has the print function should work with Repligo, that is the beauty of it.

It is one of my must-have app. Highly functional.

[GadgetMan]

Wow, this is definitively a substantial improvement over the previous version. I am very impressed by how many wishes from user community were actually implemented into this new release. Definitvely well worth the upgrade price.

Still, I would love to see the following suggestions implemented in the next release:

1. Pictures in Flowed View (or placeholders, as per CESkins' suggestion).
2. Ability to specify defeault Zoom in non-flowed view.
3. Ability for non-flowed view to remember last zoom level used. Say, I am looking at non-flowed view with 75% zoom, then I switch to Flowed View, then I switch back to non-flowed view - right now RepliGo 2.0 will go to Whole Page view, but I would like it to return to 75% zoom view.
4. Right now Pocket PC has to be connected to desktop/notebook if I want to print a document with "Bypass ActiveSync" option enabled. Could you please make RepliGo print document (to a temporary folder on my desktop) with "Bypass ActiveSync" enabled and send it to Pocket PC (e.g. to specified Storage Card location) when I connect it to my desktop later? Being forced to connect my PPC every time I want to print a document is very frustrating.

Other than that it is one of the best applications I have ever used on my handhelds.

Cheers,

[CESkins]

GadgetMan are you sure about #3. If I have a document opened and switch to 75% zoom then switch to flowed text, I can easily go back to the document in 75% zoomed mode...in fact the %zoom is clearly displayed in the main menu bar and does not change until you change it. You have to tap on that number to reactivate the page at x% view. If you tap on the page view icon (icon after right arrow), the page will always be @ 100% (full page view)...I suspect that's what you may be doing. :idea:

[WindWalker]

A beautiful thing indeed....but for those Toshibs e80x users running MyVGA or ResFix and the UnDead hack, you will have to uninstall and reinstall UnDead after installing Repligo 2.0....at least that was my experience.

However, after doing so, everything worked perfectly. Hats off to Cerience for making a great alternative to Adobe Acrobat.

[PR.]

Been using this since v1 great software, upgraded straight away :D

[topps]

How speedy/efficient is Repligo in dealing with PDFs? I have not been happy with either Adobe's client or the other third party one out there (forget its name) - both seem to take too long to load a PDF which my users find so irritating that they don't use it.

[GadgetMan]

If you tap on the page view icon (icon after right arrow), the page will always be @ 100% (full page view)...I suspect that's what you may be doing. :idea:

You are right! I kept tapping the icon, which is intended to always display the document in whole page view. If I tap on the zoom icon, I do get returned to the last zoom used.

Thank you for pointing this out :D

Cheers,

[bvkeen]

Just a heads up regarding a couple of competing produts: MobiPocket Office Companion (by the makers of MobiPocket Reader) and iSilo. While I like (and purchased) the Repli Go 2.0 upgrade, MobiPocket has a much nicer appearance (font-wise) and has support for Access as well as the other MS office apps. iSilo has Much better IE integration (you can save entire web sites in a compressed format), and the author constantly improves the product (check out beta 4.05 on isilo.com). I have all 3 products because each has pros and cons. Just thought some of you might want a heads up to these little-advertised but highly capable 'competitors.' (My first post. Just an FYI since I'm a new subscriber here, though a long time reader: I've been using Pocket PCs for about a year now, and on my third: Axim X3i - prior to that a Palm user for many years and still keep my Tungsten T3 around as a backup and because I love its 320x480 screen for photos, and Repli Go 2.0 on the T3 have a much nicer appearance.)

[CESkins]

topps the reason why everyone is so ecstatic about Repligo is that its speed is very fast. I have tried both of the two apps you are talking about and relative to Repligo they are like molasses (i.e. very slow). I permanently deleted Adobe Acrobat for the PocPC when I 1st installed Repligo and have never looked back (and that was just Repligo v1.x). Repligo v2.x added all the must have features we all insisted on as users over @ the Cerience forums (talk about listening to user feedback) and preserved the speed. Best thing is to try it out and see for yourself as they do offer a trial version.

[rock]

Did they get rid rid of the stupid size restrictions? Can 2.0 preserve 60" by 60" PDF's in 1:1 scale?

[CESkins]

Rock I can't answer that question as I have never seen a PDF file with those page dimensions.

[peppzilla]

• New text capabilities. Unicode support allows for text searching, making it effortless to find information. Copying text to the clipboard is also supported.

Text searching? Sweet. That is the thing that was keeping me from buying it in the first place and forcing me to use Acrobat reader. I'll try it out.

[ctmagnus]

There's a large PDF file here (http://www.calgarytransit.com/Routes/route.html). (Direct link here (http://www.calgary.ca/docgallery/bu/engineering_services/emaps/transitmap_2004.pdf).)

[CESkins]

Well Repligo converted the large file. However, I noticed that elements which on the map would normally be autoscaled proportionally in Acrobat no matter how large you magnified the map were not in Repligo viewer.

[kamikun]

Just a quick note about their customer service...

I registered version 1.2 on Thursday night (Japan time)... 16 hours before they announced version 2.0.

I was only two days into the demo but liked it enough that I knew I wanted the ability to create portable documents. The price comparison to Adobe can be beaten with a stick.

Customer Serv. was great. They recognized that I was just the victim of bad timing and applied my registration to version 2.0.

I am a very happy customer.

[rock]

Well Repligo converted the large file. However, I noticed that elements which on the map would normally be autoscaled proportionally in Acrobat no matter how large you magnified the map were not in Repligo viewer.

Was the original 1:1 image identical though? I'd be satisfied with that. I don't need any extra zoom as long as the 1:1 is identical.

Thanks.

[ignar]

How speedy/efficient is Repligo in dealing with PDFs? I have not been happy with either Adobe's client or the other third party one out there (forget its name) - both seem to take too long to load a PDF which my users find so irritating that they don't use it.

Topps, after I tried Repligo for the first time last July, I converted all of my PDF documents to Repligo format. It took some time, but I have no regret. Converting reduced the size of each document quite a bit, and speed is a lot faster, and most importantly, I can actually read them on my PDA! Now I carry more than 100 journal articles in my 128MB SD card and can read them at any time, any where. Isn't it sweet?

[CESkins]

Rock it looks the same but because the paper size options of Repligo are limited the info has to be scaled down to fit. In the case of the transit map, the info was scaled by a factor of 3 to fit the max paper size of 11"x17". The info is there but the detail is not legible/readable except at a magnification of 200-300% and then the text is blocky b/c of the zoom.

[Brad Adrian]

Maybe I'm making too much of a small thing, but I'm a little peeved that this upgrade is gonna cost me. I realize that developing upgrades takes time and energy, but between Calligrapher and Repligo, I feel like I'm being forced to pay for upgrades only a short while after paying for the original application. I hate basing my decision to upgrade on cost alone, but that's what it comes down to sometimes.

[Ed Hansberry]

I am running across a bug that locks Repligo 2 up on the PPC. They are tracking it down, but for now, if this is a must have app for you, stick with 1. :( I don't know if it is the PPC client or the PC content creation engine causing the problem.

[rock]

Rock it looks the same but because the paper size options of Repligo are limited the info has to be scaled down to fit. In the case of the transit map, the info was scaled by a factor of 3 to fit the max paper size of 11"x17". The info is there but the detail is not legible/readable except at a magnification of 200-300% and then the text is blocky b/c of the zoom.

Damn, same as before. :( Thanks for testing it.

I wonder why they keep this ridiculous limitation. :roll:

[bvkeen]

I am running across a bug that locks Repligo 2 up on the PPC. They are tracking it down, but for now, if this is a must have app for you, stick with 1. :( I don't know if it is the PPC client or the PC content creation engine causing the problem.

Ed, not sure if this is same the problem I had with 1.2 and reported to them, but it would lock up when I tried to use the close-app feature of Battery Pack 2004 5.3.x with a Repli Go document Open. Would lock up everytime. (At one time, I experienced this with an early beta of iSilo 4, but the author solved the problem.) I have not experienced this with Pocket Plus or with any other "app-closer," just with Battery Pack. I notice your site says you use Pocket Plus, though, so not sure if you have a different problem. I have not tried using Battery Pack with Repli Go 2.0, as I have switched to Pocket Plus. I must say I have had good experience with the Repli Go folks, and I suspect they'll do all they can to track and solve the problem.

Bruce Keener

[Ed Hansberry]

Bruce, my issue is in switching to reflow mode and changing the text size to "smaller." It happens to me all of the time with full articles from this site that I've printed using the Repligo 2 engine on the desktop. Repligo 1 files work fine, and less graphically intense sites work ok too. They are looking into it.

[bvkeen]

Bruce, my issue is in switching to reflow mode and changing the text size to "smaller." It happens to me all of the time with full articles from this site that I've printed using the Repligo 2 engine on the desktop. Repligo 1 files work fine, and less graphically intense sites work ok too. They are looking into it.

Ed, I see. I haven't come across this because I use iSilo almost exclusively for saving web pages, partly because I often want to include subpages and it is great for downloading entire sites if one desires (I've done that for a couple of Christian apologetics sites, filtering out the *.rm files and the cgi pages). You might want to check out his latest beta at isilo.com, as it has added some very neat features. Please understand that my "advertisement" of iSilo is not intended as a knock against Repli Go - both Repli Go AND isilo are essential apps for me.

Good luck.
Bruce Keener