Just wondering if anyone has tried reading journal articles on their nook tablet. I'll download several articles a week (.pdf normally) and was wondering how reading this type of document works out. This is probably 50% of what I'd use the nook for so it's fairly important to me. Most common journal I read articles from is probably Journal of Neurosurgery. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks.
It depends on the PDF. For text-heavy content, it should be fine. For text+graphics, it's not.
The problem is the 1024x600 (1.7:1) aspect ratio, in conjunction with the small 7" size. The width is simply not large enough to accommodate standard 8.5x11 (1.3:1) page layout, and manually zooming in/out will be de rigueur. You can turn it 90 degrees to get the width needed, but then the shortened height will cause excessive vertical scrolling. In short, it's a lot of hassle.
For text-only content (most ebooks), the text can reflow to fit the elongated aspect, so there isn't a problem.
IMO, for scientific journals, a 4:3 aspect screen is a must, along with a 10" size minimum. For now, that limits your choice to the iPad, as all major-brand Android tabs have 16:10 aspect. It's not a surprise since these cater to consumers, where movie-viewing is the 2nd-largest use case, after web browsing.
I use the nook as a secondary reader if I'm not at a computer or have my printed copies nearby. So far, I have just been using the stock B&N reader app since you can pull up the page icons by tapping the center of the screen. It makes scanning through easy before I zoom in to read what I'm looking for.
I don't know yet about reading papers through the first time on this device...seems like it would not be as good.
I would prefer another app that has the same overview feature, but lets me add notes that I could sync back and see on my computer. Which does you use?
RepliGo was favored for its annotation feature, but I find it inferior to EzPDF in most other aspects. The recent version of EzPDF now also has annotation, although I haven't used the function enough to give an opinion.
There's also Foxit Mobile for Android which has annotate, which I haven't tried. It's a great reader on the PC, so one would think sync'ing would be an option, although I don't see it yet in the User Guide. The Android reader is 1.0, so that'll likely be added if not already available.
http://foxitsoftware.com/products/mobilereader/android/guide.php
http://foxitsoftware.com/products/mobilereader/android/benefits.php
You're probably right, that spot reading sci/tech journals would probably be OK on the NT. I was referring to long-form reading.
Related
I have ordered a Zenithink ZT-180-102A and plan to use it to view sheet music for the band I play in, and turn the pages with a USB foot switch that sends a PgDn key to Acrobat Reader.
Has anyone tried this before? Any gotchas?
I would think that the tablet will be (just) big enough to view A4 PDF sheet music at 10.1" (would have preferred slightly bigger)
I'm hoping Adobe Acrobat Reader for Android can go full screen and respond to PgDn messages
Battery life seems a bit light, but figure I can run it from the power adapter if required
Hopefully no outside gigs, as I don't know how well the screen would work in sunlight
If I'm reading the foot switch description right, I can configure the key press via the software on a Windows machine, then plug it directly into the Zenithink as a standard HID device. Anyone tried anything like this?
Zilch said:
I have ordered a Zenithink ZT-180-102A and plan to use it to view sheet music for the band I play in, and turn the pages with a USB foot switch that sends a PgDn key to Acrobat Reader.
Has anyone tried this before? Any gotchas?
I would think that the tablet will be (just) big enough to view A4 PDF sheet music at 10.1" (would have preferred slightly bigger)
I'm hoping Adobe Acrobat Reader for Android can go full screen and respond to PgDn messages
Battery life seems a bit light, but figure I can run it from the power adapter if required
Hopefully no outside gigs, as I don't know how well the screen would work in sunlight
If I'm reading the foot switch description right, I can configure the key press via the software on a Windows machine, then plug it directly into the Zenithink as a standard HID device. Anyone tried anything like this?
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Click to collapse
Hi, did you get this set up yet? I was looking at something similar for my band. Does the ZT180 have usb slot in it for the foot switch?
Yeah - that particular tablet is pretty iffy in build quality and design. I posted some details on it here.
The main limitation is the screen size for displaying A4/Letter. Since it's a 16:9 (or 16:10?) ratio, you get black bars at the top and bottom if you display the full page, so it's more like A5 size. For most of my music that is readable, but not ideal.
In landscape the size is about right, but you can only see half the page at a time.
The Adobe Reader software lets you do Cntl-N to move to the next page (dunno why PgDn doesn't work). The cheap footswitch I got of eBay works fine (you set it up once with some Windows software and then plug it into the USB port of the tablet)
I've ordered a 3 pedal one to try though, (cheaper than the 2 pedal ones strangely) so I can do Forward/Backwards, a maybe some sort of Scroll with the middle switch if I have it in landscape mode.
A proper A4 one would be nice though. I think I would actually take an eInk based one in preference - if I could find a reasonably priced A4 one - as the battery life would be so much better. Or maybe a Windows tablet so I could also run GuitarRig or similar for FX/MIDI stuff at the same time. Still thinking about it though. Let us know how you go.
Any update?
I would love to hear how this is going.
I am planning on getting a tablet for guitar music and would love foot pedal options.
Any suggestions? Tablets, apps, pedals etc...
I haven't used it much to be honest. The screen is a bit small, esp at 16:9 ratio for A4/Letter sheet music. The pedal idea works pretty well though, I'm using on my Thinkpad (sitting on it's side on a a music stand) for now.
I'll revisit when some genius invents a tablet which is greater than 10.2", and when a decent build quality model with Gingerbread is out.
I have to admit I'm slightly tempted with the 14" (?) EEE Windows slate that has come out recently. I think it's an i5 or so, and this would allow me to run guitar rig etc while viewing sheet music.
I purchased a Viewsonic G tablet for this very same purpose. I can read my music using Adobe in the Portrait mode ok but I would like to put it in landscape mode and use my cicada by page flip foot pedal to do a page up and page down. Have you come across anyone who can remap the keyboard to recognize page up and page down or as you have found out control N for page down.
I got my Gtablet a few weeks ago and have been playing with a few apps.
Chord Reader (pretty much just a phone), eSongBook and GuitarTapp
The each have nice features but I really need a combination of the three. I don't own a foot pedal but would like to have that feature and hear how that is working for other people.
Features I would like:
1. Change keys
2. Make setlists
3. Nice, big display
How are people mounting this for a stand? Or do you just set it on a music stand?
Best rig would be with a 13 inch macbook I believe. Check out Modbook http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook
New Sheet Music Reader: MobileSheets
For anyone that happens to come to this thread looking for information, I recently released an android sheet music reader app called MobileSheets. It's currently only available for 10'' tablets. The app is designed to let you take images or PDFs you have (either from scanning, taking a picture with the tablet camera, or from files obtained on the internet) and create songs from them. You can organize your library based on album, artist, and genre, and create setlists. It also comes with a built-in metronome, and companion app for your PC. Please check out zubersoft.com/mobilesheets for more information.
One of the best reasons to get a tablet ever! How does the footswitch work?
An update is coming out this Sunday, Dec 4th that's going to add support for any bluetooth pedal for hands-free playback. Examples of supported bluetooth pedals include the Cicada PageFlip and the Airturn BT-105. I'm going to start offering a deal soon where if you buy the Airturn BT-105 through a link on zubersoft.com/mobilesheets, you will be given a free copy of the paid version of MobileSheets.
As for how the pedal works, the previously mentioned devices have two pedals. My app supports multiple modes - the default mode is the left pedal goes back one page, the right pedal advances a page. Another mode is the left pedal scrolls the page while the right advances to the next page (great for landscape mode). Once you try hands-free page turning, you will never want to go back
hmmh... this seems to be just what i was looking for... i am planning on going completely digitla on my students, as in: have 'em watch their sheetmusic on the tablet in lesson (in this case motorola xoom), then afterwards send 'em the sheets for them to print out by themselves. i'm just sick of lugging 10+ kg of sheetmusic around all day actually i was planning on buying an inexpensive printer and hook it up to the zablet via usb, wifi or bluetooth and print the stuff for them on site, but as there's no pc or router nearby and usb doesn't semm to work either, i settled for the paperless approach (which does have it's pros and cons).
one thing i'd like to know about your program though: i've got several realbooks in pdf form that i'd like to use, each containing around 2-300 songs on about as much pages. how would i go about organizing those? simply bookmark each song seperately? or would i have to split the huge single pdf into small, single ones?
[/quote] from blue powder --- one thing i'd like to know about your program though: i've got several realbooks in pdf form that i'd like to use, each containing around 2-300 songs on about as much pages. how would i go about organizing those? simply bookmark each song seperately? or would i have to split the huge single pdf into small, single ones?[/QUOTE]
I use ezPDF viewer. (available on Android Market) It allows me to use my foot switch (cicada page flip) and allows me to mark my .pdf sheets with notes for corrections or whatever. I agree with a previous poster, once you use a foot switch you won't want to go back. I am in a JAM that has about 500 songs. It took two 3 inch binders to carry them every night. Well we have now converted 16 of the 21 members to electronic viewers. It is the only way to go.
As far as organizing my folders I simply created 26 folders labeled "A" to "Z". Then every time I add a new song I simply put it in the appropriate folder. You can leave them all in one giant folder but it takes longer to find the song you want later. I found a little pain up front saved a lot of pain later.
Enjoy
do you mark your pdf's using a pen? if so, which one? if not - how DO you do it? that's one thing i would be missing in a purely digital surrounding, being able to mark up certain things etc. i don't think i'm going to have much need for a footswitch in a teaching situation, though, and as far as gigs are concerned, i play mainly jazz, and most of the leadsheets i get are a page long. if not - tough luck, i'll play better from memory anyway ;-)
the folder a to z folder-approach seems absolutely feasible, i'd probably go even more ballistic and create several mainfolders (like fingerpicking, theory, leadsheets etc), then have the a to z folders inside those. something like that. i'm more worried though that my students will be turned off by not getting physical handouts anymore. may take them a while to get used to it
ezpdf app and boxwave pointing devices
bluepowder said:
do you mark your pdf's using a pen? if so, which one? if not - how DO you do it? that's one thing i would be missing in a purely digital surrounding, being able to mark up certain things etc. i don't think i'm going to have much need for a footswitch in a teaching situation, though, and as far as gigs are concerned, i play mainly jazz, and most of the leadsheets i get are a page long. if not - tough luck, i'll play better from memory anyway ;-)
the folder a to z folder-approach seems absolutely feasible, i'd probably go even more ballistic and create several mainfolders (like fingerpicking, theory, leadsheets etc), then have the a to z folders inside those. something like that. i'm more worried though that my students will be turned off by not getting physical handouts anymore. may take them a while to get used to it
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Click to collapse
OK first I would recommend looking at ezpdf on the android market. The developer has been very quick to make certain changes. I can say that the program has really improved 800 % over the past 4 months I have been using it. The developer updates the product about every 4 days. New features and bug fixes. Granted I don't use all of it's features but I think it is better than Adobe. I tried to embed a copy of the annotations page but I could not so go here "https://market.android.com/details?id=udk.android.reader&hl=en"
Pen - I do use a pen/pointer to write on my pdf's. I use the boxwave products as they were rated the best and most reliable on a capacitive screen. I have bought others but I keep coming back to the boxwave products. I even have one with an actual writing pen on the other side of it so I can take paper notes if I have to.
Folders - I do the same thing with my music folders. I have it broken out to Christmas music A - Z, Our Regular Music A - Z, Then stuff that I am practicing for my self A - Z.
Sheet Music - If you are going to stick to one page and you are young enough to be able to see clearly then forget the foot pedal. It is just one more thing to have to carry. I am 60, the old eyes are not as sharp as they used to be.
Students - I don't know how you are planning on giving them the files or where you teach, ( private classes, class room setting, high school etc) But - Hey when I was learning (still am) I would have loved it if the instructor gave me a downloadable file with all of my music for the semester. Then I could either print it or put it on a tablet. My choice. Most parents today think that if they don't buy their kids the latest gizmo they will be stunted or social outcasts, so I bet most of your students already have tablets.
Another thought - Another thing to keep in mind. My buddy teaches banjo. He was going to get a tablet for himself then we talked and he decided to get a tablet and a notebook and a projector. He then calls up the sheet music on his laptop and projects it on the screen for the class of 6 students. He uses the tablet for private instruction with out the projector.
Hope that helps.
Really take a look at ezpdf
Hello -
My solution to this problem was:
1. Scan in all my sheet music as high resolution files (300 or higher).
2. Use a photoshop technique on each image to eliminate grey and make sure the blacks are black and the white background is white - (there is a great way to do this with the eyedropper tool which you can find on youtube). At this stage I also straighten the image of each page.
3. Use a photoshop action to import the individual scanned image of each page as 'layers' on a single photoshop document --- and then save as a photoshop document.
4. Use a photoshop action to stack each photoshop layer (on a given document from step 4) out in a long continuous sheet of music and then flatten the image and save as a bitmap (so now the image would look like a flat, opened out, long, scroll).
5. Use a photoshop action to set the canvas size the correct dimensions and dpi for your given display/tablet.
6. Manually open each 'scroll' and move around the systems of your music to fit in the window you have made in step 5 ---- and save each window as a high res jpeg. Save the jpeg as the name of the piece followed by the page number.
7. Use a photoshop action to add a text layer of the same value as the file name. Save as a pdf.
8. Combine the individual pdf pages into a single pdf document for each individual piece.
9. All done. I now have 3 hours of music as PDFs that are perfectly viewable in my tablet AND can be searched for using the find feature of the PDF reader (thanks to step 7). What could be easier!
----
The lenovo A4 size tablet is an ugly looking brick - I wouldn't like that compared with this ipad solution
Fakebook
For many of the above reasons my favorite gigging tool is the Fakebook. It does PDF very well (even importing and indexing huge collections like a real book or vocal book), but at the same time it has thousands of built in chord charts (transposable). Nice annotation or scribbling, search, links to YouTube and Spotify performances and great playlist editing.
Best $1.50 spent on my Google Play account! play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skrivarna.fakebook.android
The Adobe Reader software lets you do Cntl-N to move to the next page (dunno why PgDn doesn't work). [/QUOTE said:
Yes. ctrl + n gDn. But what could be the code of PgUp?? If anyone knows the answer, please describe it is very important to me. . And there's a code table of Adobe Reader for Android?
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Click to collapse
Hello,
I'm new to Android and a new Viewsonic user.
Anyways, I'm having an issue getting my g tab to work how I'd like to with a specific application.
The application... viewing PDF's. I can view PDF's fine, the issue is with scrolling while viewing PDF's. I'm not sure if the culprit is the software (adobe reader) or the speed of the machine itself.
To eliminate the latter I'd like to send a file to anyone using Calkulin (from what I've read this is the highest performing in terms of speed).
What I am seeing with the current version of tap n tap/adobe is that only the viewable area is loaded, if you scroll 1-2 pages you have a blank page and have to wait 1.5sec for that image to load. My hope was that it'd be more fluid.
With my desktop at work (which is nothing stellar) I'm used to seeing, while scrolling fast, around 75% of the image is viewable instantly and around 2 secs later the entire image is displayed.
My g tab isn't working the same way. Don't get me wrong, I think it is a great product, but for my application it isn't working as I had anticipated. The ability for me to "preview" 75% while scrolling is a must for me. Without it I'm kind of navigating blindly.
If anyone has insight, suggestions, or willing to help me experiment I'd appreciate it greatly.
The ability to view PDF's on the go is my primary reason for purchasing. I'm a service tech, I hoped for this to be a library of parts/service manuals I could navigate easily.
Thanks,
Jim
sure pm me with your details and I would be glad to help you out
I am using Calkulins G-Tab 1.1 ROM and Pershoots 2.6.32.39 Kernel and can't thank them enough for the great work that they have done. I have downloaded several PDF files and viewed with Adobe Reader. I was able to scroll through a 12 page document in what I would say is a quick pace. If you scroll to fast you get a blank page while it catches up. Takes less than a second for it to catch up but that is depedent on fast you are scrolling. For me I think it is quite acceptable. I have been very impressed with this ROM and Kernel and would highly recommend. It has been very fast and stable. I am getting Quadrant scores around 3500 and Smartbench scores around 4200.
webman418 said:
I was able to scroll through a 12 page document in what I would say is a quick pace. If you scroll to fast you get a blank page while it catches up. Takes less than a second for it to catch up but that is depedent on fast you are scrolling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm getting similar to what you are describing... load times are probably longer on my end. The issue is the docs I am viewing can easily go up to 200 pages and with them being completely blank when i scroll to them, it slows me down big time.
If there was some point of reference that was visible instantly I'd be happy, but being that I don't know the manuals well enough to say what comes after the next page and you times that by 200 it becomes tedious.
After reading your post I think my issue is more rooted in adobe than in the speed of the tablet.
Personally, I like to use the e-book reader "aldiko" to read PDF's. I like scrolling control plus I like the brightness control (slide your finger up and down the left side). To annotate PDFs, I like to use Repligo reader.
Just comparing the PDF documents I have in front of me, I would say adobe is the slowest and aldiko and Repligo are the quickest for scrolling.
Thanks Poy, I'll have to try those.
just a quick question... am I wrong in thinking it is more of a software issue than a hardware issue? I know ram is lower than what i have on my desktop... could that be causing my issue?
when I first picked up the gtab, i thought 512K memory was going to be an issue in general but after I downloaded a system monitor, it seems like it is not a big deal. Two related thoughts: the android apps seem to be fairly lightweight (versus PC apps), and if the OS does swapping, the "disk" behind the scenes is flash-based so it should be quick.
If you are at all technically competent, I say "jump into the ROM pool" and try everything out yourself. If you can follow instructions, you shouldn't have any troubles. It has been a fun couple of months.
I got it working, thanks to all the help.
I tried a variety of PDF readers, I ended up going with repligo. For whatever reason I couldn't get aldiko to work.
That and I installed calkukin.
Works good.
My only complaint is with repligo... if I view landscape it shifts the image so 3/4 of the image is outside of the viewing area. To alleviate this I'll just switch to portrait or zoom out.
Thanks again.
So don't take this as a complaint thread, I love my Prime! I was searching on the forums for why there is a lag with pdfs. I am only talking about that 1 or 2 second lag while scrolling though a pdf. In no way does it make the tablet unusable for reading pdfs. I was just wondering what do you think is stopping it from being like a computer, I can scroll though a pdf on my computer w/o ever seeing it render. Is it a processor, ram, programming, or storage read time problem?
Processor, I dunno too much about this area. I feel it should be fine.
Ram, maybe the computer is loading the pdf in ram and with the prime w/ only a gig is a little under? If that was true then computers back in the xp days would have lagged.
Programming, far far outside my knowledge. One of the reasons for the post, but you would think that someone would have done this by now.
storage, should be g2g too. I would guess....
I have tried ezpdf (love it but some of my pdfs do not have a font embeded and the rendering is ok, but others do it better), Adobe (current winner for me), Foxit (very nice), apv pdf viewer (was unuseable due to speed and render issues), Areader, Quickoffice, and Documentstogo. I have not tried Repligo but i hear good things.
Searching I read a lot about people having problems with pdfs, or a dicussion on which pdf reader to use, most choose ezpdf, adobe, or foxit. I just want to know whats holding it back from being a completely smooth experience.
Also I have never looked at a pdf less than 20meg most pdfs I read are in the 80-120meg range. Text with graphics.
Thanks for reading!
Repligo is a lot better (the best I've tried so far on Android) but still not as good as reading it on the iPad with iBooks. In my opinion, it's just the apps aren't optimised for the transformer prime hardware. Repligo is getting close to iPad iBooks (looks the same too LOL) but still not as smooth. I would to see someone release a pdf reader that is as smooth as Google's very old Play Books app or one that is as smooth and same animation as the ICS App Drawer (That would be amazing and would pay up to $10 to get something like that).
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using XDA Premium HD app
EDIT: Maybe we should open a bounty thread for a tegra3 optimised pdf reader? LOL
Just went and tried it, suffers from the render issues with fonts not being embedded. That's a deal breaker for me, try adobe read and let me know what you think. I just don't like the default fond it renders with.
I feel it was just as fast as adobe for ezpdf.
Thanks for the response!
*EDIT
Also tried the pdfs on my wife's ipad, the experience is a little smoother; just a little but noticeable.
For a living, I pretty much have to read PDF research papers all the time. Unfortunately, when I had the TFP, the PDF-reading, annotating, and research paper/organizing/citation experience was sub-par.
It will only get better over time as more Android tablet optimized apps come out.
But it beats me as to why PDF scrolling and zooming was never really that smooth.
Trying going to developer options in your android settings and force GPU rendering and turn both animations off see if that helps....
But the bottle neck is its using the CPU or ninja core to render it to save power
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk
Ok, just tried:
Forcing gpu render : on
* animation: off
* transition : 1
Forcing gpu render: on
* animation: 1
* transition: off
Forcing gpu render: on
* animation: off
* transition: off
Forcing gpu render: off
* animation: off
* transition: off
No real diffrence, side note I did root my prime (did it for adbock, host file) and saw the over clock app, easy over clock app. I am assume we can link threads that are already inside the forum, if not let me know and I will remove it. The 1.6 oc is nice, but still not a solve.
@tbns what did you end up using if you don't mind me asking.
I just use Mantano, it works perfect for reading PDFs. There is no page rendering(although, I read relatively small PDFs) and it allows me to scale the PDF to fit the screen. Best of all, it stays scaled after I flip the page. I have never used it to make notes within the PDF, but I believe there is a function for it.
iJoey said:
I just use Mantano, it works perfect for reading PDFs. There is no page rendering(although, I read relatively small PDFs) and it allows me to scale the PDF to fit the screen.
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Thanks, I just tried Mantano and it seems great -- by far the fastest PDF reader I've tried. I wouldn't say there is no rendering though -- I find if I zoom in and scroll around within a page, there is still a split-second delay before text becomes clear. It is not a problem at all, and infinitely better than the other solutions I've tried. If you just flip between pages instead of zooming around within a page, the text instantly appears crystal clear.
Having moved from an iPad to a TP I struggled for a while to find an app that could display PDFs without a lag. The best one, oddly, that I've find so far is the comic viewer Perfect Viewer with the PDF plug-in installed!
I currently use my TF for large pdf files and put lots of annotations on them with repligo, but these pdfs are huge. So it runs pretty slow. Is there an app that'll cut specific pages out and make a new pdf of them? I use about 5 pages primarily so of I cut those out I'd be set. Anything? My buddy uses an iPad with good reader and it blazes through the same thing. That upsets me. :-(
Something like this claims to do what you want but no android version and how annotations are handled is not obvious. There may also be issues with pdf security/permissions.http://www.pdfsam.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
So I'm looking for a PDF reader, but I have fairly specific requests. Firstly, it must support annotation (fairly easy to find) Next, it must support bluetooth keyboard arrow keys for turning to next page (surprisingly much harder to find). Last but not least (perhaps more important?), I'd love if it were possible to set different view modes depending on the orientation of the PDF. I use my tablet for university lecture notes, some of which are Powerpoints converted to PDFs, meaning each page is a slide and is landscape. For these, I like full page view, the whole slide on screen at once, go to next page for next slide. Others are portrait pages of notes, which are impossible to read in full page view as it is so zoomed out (7" tab), and so I use continuous for those PDFs. It is annoying to have to change it pretty much every time I open a PDF, seeing as it almost always seems to be in the wrong mode. Ideally, it could also take into account the orientation of the tablet (e.g. full page view when tablet & PDF orientation match, continuous when they don't), but at the very least I really want it to take the PDF orientation into account.
So far I have tried Adobe Reader, ezPDF, Foxit, qPDF, SmartQ Reader, QuickOffice PDF and SmartOffice PDF. Currently I'm using SmartOffice, as it seems to be the only one which does full page view & supports bluetooth keyboard, but it's annotation features are extremely basic, and it's no good for portrait PDFs. (I'd rather use one app for all PDFs so I can set it as my default and not get bothered by prompts everytime I open a PDF).
If anyone has any suggestions (preferably with at least a free trial), I'd appreciate it.
Please try Librera PDF Reader