Xpdf - Fast Pdf Reader For Gp2x Released!

[BitBandit]

Awesome PDF reader!

A few things:

I'd really like bookmarks. I tend to read big books (i.e. computer manuals) and I'll only read a few pages at a time and then continue at a later date. If the program remembered which page you were on for the last 10 PDF's opened, and then jumped straight there upon opening them again, that would be handy.

A couple of times I must have pushed the wrong button or something. I went to open a new PDF and got the list of files, then the "X" cursor changed to an arrow cursor and no matter what button I pressed I couldn't get it to do anything. Had to reboot. I guess this is something to do with X11?

Panning around the screen shouldn't be tied to the cursor, i.e. if I pan down then the panning shouldn't stop when the cursor gets to the edge of the screen.

Otherwise this is an awesome program and will be invaluable to me (if I can get bookmarks or some other way to quickly jump back to where I left off reading).

 

[Parkydr]

Thanks for the comments. Bookmarks seem to be the thing to add.

For the comments I'm not sure if everyone realises that there are now some extra buttons that can be use:

L/R - Scroll up/down
Volume +/- - Zoom in/out
A - Pan left then scroll

I'm not sure how usable A is, comments welcome.

Regarding classic books I still tend to go to Project Gutenberg and use the text reader, there's no problem with scaling then.

 

[scarface]

I am currently trying to view a pdf for my college course and every time I click on it and then click open it just takes me back to the screen with no pdf loading=(. Any idea what the problem would be?

 

[Parkydr]

Do other PDFs load ok?

 

[BitBandit]

Thanks for the comments. Bookmarks seem to be the thing to add.

Definitely! Bookmarks would make it way more useful as most people don't sit down and read a whole PDF in one sitting. I've always wondered why Adobe hasn't added a bookmark feature to Reader, but then it's fairly easy to jump directly to a specific page in Reader.

 

[scarface]

I have tried mutiple pdfs , but they were all downloaded from my eCollege. I'll try another one and re-edit this post.

 

[Parkydr]

Try opening them by double clicking on the file rather than using the open button.

 

[Squidge]

Definitely! Bookmarks would make it way more useful as most people don't sit down and read a whole PDF in one sitting. I've always wondered why Adobe hasn't added a bookmark feature to Reader, but then it's fairly easy to jump directly to a specific page in Reader.

Adobe's Reader has always had bookmark support, but it's not exactly intuitive to use...

 

[firefly2442]

I wonder if you could download the txt from here:

http://www.gutenberg.org

and convert them to PDF? With Open Office perhaps?

Just an idea.

 

[Parkydr]

Or just go here. They seem do do it anyway

 

[firefly2442]

Great application! Would it be possible to have a fullscreen mode?

 

[Parkydr]

I'm not sure if It's possible, I'll look into it

Edit: fullscreen is there by adding -fullscreen to the command line but unfortunately fullscreen is 640x480 on the X server, so you can't get to the buttons

 

[Parkydr]

NEW VERSION

Get version 0.3 with bookmarks here

I've also stopped 'A' scrolling down at the end of the line, I kept losing the line I was on.

 

[BitBandit]

Adobe's Reader has always had bookmark support at but it's not exactly intuitive to use...

Do you want to explain where in Adobe Reader they are? I've just had another look and searched the Reader help for "bookmarks" and all I could find said "Bookmarks provide a table of contents... The creator of the Adobe PDF document determines which bookmarks appear".

A few years ago when I asked on an Adobe forum about being able to set my own bookmarks I was directed to a script that someone had created. The script worked but was awkward to set up and I think it used to vanish after every upgrade, meaning I had to set it up again.

 

[BitBandit]

NEW VERSION

Get version 0.3 with bookmarks here

I've also stopped 'A' scrolling down at the end of the line, I kept losing the line I was on.

Excellent!

Many, many, many thanks for adding the bookmarks. Now I can use it as a PDF reader when I've got a few minutes to spare and it'll save my place.

Where are the bookmarks kept? Within the Xpdf directory? If so then I'll have to be careful not to delete them if I upgrade to any later versions (usually I just delete the directory and then extract a new one from the zip file).

 

[goob]

I'm not sure if It's possible, I'll look into it

Edit: fullscreen is there by adding -fullscreen to the command line but unfortunately fullscreen is 640x480 on the X server, so you can't get to the buttons

All it needs is the 320x240 X server to have a virtual 640x480 resolution ...

 

[reeced]

Parkydr,
Many thanks for the new version with bookmarks.
The site you referenced above - http://manybooks.net/ is a great source.
Moreover, it has the option of "Custom PDF"
I set the dimension of 53 x 70 mm with font size 8 and margin all around of 5mm, and by "rotating counterclockwise" and "continuous view" in GPX2pdf (i.e. I'm holding the GP2X in my right hand with joypad on the top ) I get perfect readable pages which can be scrolled thru, one-handed, by pressing on the "R" button with the inside base of the thumb - perfect !

 

[Parkydr]

Thanks for the tip, I've never tried Custom PDF, only the large print version which didn't really help.

Edit: The bookmarks are help in a file called bookmarks in the gp2xpdfdata directory

 

[nubie]

I'm not sure if It's possible, I'll look into it

Edit: fullscreen is there by adding -fullscreen to the command line but unfortunately fullscreen is 640x480 on the X server, so you can't get to the buttons

All it needs is the 320x240 X server to have a virtual 640x480 resolution ...

When on the TV-Out does the 640x480 work so you can use the buttons?

 

[PSyMastR]

I'm not sure if It's possible, I'll look into it

Edit: fullscreen is there by adding -fullscreen to the command line but unfortunately fullscreen is 640x480 on the X server, so you can't get to the buttons

All it needs is the 320x240 X server to have a virtual 640x480 resolution ...

When on the TV-Out does the 640x480 work so you can use the buttons?

TV-out seems to output 320x240 for me for everything.