[PLUG-TALK] OS Portable PDF Reader

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Tue May 12 17:59:33 UTC 2015


On Tue, 12 May 2015, Paul Mullen wrote:

> A cheap Android tablet. The system is nominally open source, but you can
> install third-party ROM images, such as CyanogenMod, that are almost
> entirely open source.

Paul,

   All I really want is to read technical books. A couple of the Python books
I have run 700+ pages and are a serious PITA to read and transport in their
dead tree edition. This system would be almost strictly for consuming
content, not creating content. What's your thoughts on an android tablet vs.
a netbook running linux?

> Both MuPDF and APV are good PDF viewers:
>
>    https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=mupdf&fdid=com.artifex.mupdfdemo
>    https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=apv&fdid=cx.hell.android.pdfview

   I use mupdf on newer PDF files that the installed xpdf won't accept and
need to re-read the man page to learn how to do with it what I know how to
do with xpdf.

> And FBReader for Android is a decent e-book reader:

   Read that the ePub format is better suited than is PDF for reading on
small screens. I'm sure there are converters that run on linux so I can have
the PDF on the larger hosts and the EPub on the smaller one.

> I don't have any specific device recommendations, but I'm sure there's at
> least someone else on the Internet willing to share their opinion.

   Probably like Israeli politics: get three people together and hear five
opinions. :-)

Thanks,

Rich



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