My latest PDF adventure

[Barbay1]

Just finished reading "Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons" by Lorna Landvik. I'm impressed how she can create five distinct characters and make them believable. I also like the central theme which is about members of a bookclub, and highly recommend her books to anyone who enjoys Fannie Flagg, or Sherwood Anderson. It's an entertaining read and makes me want to join a bookclub! (I would, except it takes me forever to finish a book!)

"Angels & Demons" is next, and let me tell you about my little adventure trying to get a version to read on the Pocket PC over Christmas.

First, I couldn't find a MS Reader version of this at all on Amazon.com. So I bought the PDF (Adobe Acrobat) version. Then I found out I couldn't download it to my Pocket PC if I have Acrobat Reader 6 because of the DRM (Digital Rights Management). I complained about this to Amazon and they refunded me the money.

Later, I found that I could download the PDF file if I installed the latest version of Acrobat Reader (version 7). Except now I can't "print" the file at all, so I couldn't use RepliGo to read the PDF file anymore. And Acrobat Reader 7 by itself just isn't flexible enough (i.e. not highlights, reflow, etc.)

Fortunately, I found an MS Reader version on Fictionwise.com, so I got that and got rid of my PDF copy.

I'm really fond of RepliGo, but it looks as if Adobe really don't like people being able to highlight or select text in the DRM protected documents.

So my conclusions are: :roll:
Only purchase PDF DRM protected books if you don't mind using Adobe Reader.
If you want to use RepliGo, don't upgrade to Adobe Reader 7 (because version 7 doesn't allow printing).
If you can't find a MS Reader version on Amazon, try Fictionwise also.

[dean_shan]

Or you could just use E-Reader (http://www.ereader.com) and not have any of those problems.

[terrypin]

But don't you have to pay to get an unrestricted version of ereader, i.e. you must first register and buy a book? (I appreciate it's only a few dollars; I'm thinking about the 'principle' here <g>.)

How wide a selection of (popular, modern) books are available in this format?

Digressing, has anyone ever attempted a League Table, ranking readers in order of 'ebook availability'? Sure would like to see one!

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK
Using iPAQ 2210 with WM2003.

[PatrickD]

ereader (aka palm reader, peanut press) have two versions of their reader. A freebie and a Pro version for $9.95. Personally I just use the free version.

As far as selection, they have a pretty good inventory of mainstream books.

[applejosh]

If you want to use RepliGo, don't upgrade to Adobe Reader 7 (because version 7 doesn't allow printing).

Reader 7 does allow printing; just not printing of encrypted or DRM protected pdf's. I think this was the case with at least version 6 (and I think version 5) as I had an encrypted pdf that I wanted to "print" to Repligo, but it wouldn't let me because it was encrypted. And I know I wasn't running version 7 at the time.