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pdf reading?

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sunny at laymusic

May 23, 2009, 10:36 AM

Post #1 of 11 (1494 views)
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pdf reading?

I'm finding the interface on the included pdf reader on my Nokia 810
pretty unusable.

My impression is that people on this list have mentioned that evince
might be better, but I can't install that.

At least one of these problems must be fixable. So here are my
questions:

Included reader:

The file selector dialog (not only here but in the file manager
and other apps, but not FBReader) doesn't allow me to select
from the external memory card (mounted as /media/mmc1), although
it does from the internal memory card (mounted as /media/mmc2).
Is there a way to fix this? I worked around it by opening a
terminal and copying the file I wanted to see from external to
internal, but there has to be a better way than that.

As far as I can see, the way to page down is to open the case
and use the down button on the pad. Is there a way to configure
it so that the +/- switch on top (preferable) or the buttons on
the side page up or down?

I have it zoomed to a size where the text area of the page is
the width of the screen, that is, the margins are off the
reader. But when moving down gets to a new page, the reader
resets the position of the page so that the left edge of the
page is at the left edge of the screen. Is there a way to tell
it not to do that?

evince:

This is generally true of a lot of the apps I try to install
from the application manager. It's listed in "Installable
Apps", but when I try to install it, it says, "Unable to install
evince. Some applications packages required for the
installation are missing." When I click "Details", it says,
"Application packages missing: libhildonfm2 (>=1;1.9.49)" Is
there a way to work around this?

If I do install it, will I have the same problems I do on the
included PDF reader?

--
Laura (mailto:lconrad [at] laymusic http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you
give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in
judgment.

J.R.R. Tolkein, _The Lord of the Rings_

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chaiwizard at gmail

May 23, 2009, 4:31 PM

Post #2 of 11 (1446 views)
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Re: pdf reading? [In reply to]

Hi

It seems that you are missing libhildonfm2 (>=1;1.9.49)--the file selection
library package.
In xterm, you can type "dpkg -l | grep hildonfm" to check if the package
existes.
Maybe you can install it by yourself.

2009/5/24 Laura Conrad <sunny [at] laymusic>

>
> I'm finding the interface on the included pdf reader on my Nokia 810
> pretty unusable.
>
> My impression is that people on this list have mentioned that evince
> might be better, but I can't install that.
>
> At least one of these problems must be fixable. So here are my
> questions:
>
> Included reader:
>
> The file selector dialog (not only here but in the file manager
> and other apps, but not FBReader) doesn't allow me to select
> from the external memory card (mounted as /media/mmc1), although
> it does from the internal memory card (mounted as /media/mmc2).
> Is there a way to fix this? I worked around it by opening a
> terminal and copying the file I wanted to see from external to
> internal, but there has to be a better way than that.
>
> As far as I can see, the way to page down is to open the case
> and use the down button on the pad. Is there a way to configure
> it so that the +/- switch on top (preferable) or the buttons on
> the side page up or down?
>
> I have it zoomed to a size where the text area of the page is
> the width of the screen, that is, the margins are off the
> reader. But when moving down gets to a new page, the reader
> resets the position of the page so that the left edge of the
> page is at the left edge of the screen. Is there a way to tell
> it not to do that?
>
> evince:
>
> This is generally true of a lot of the apps I try to install
> from the application manager. It's listed in "Installable
> Apps", but when I try to install it, it says, "Unable to install
> evince. Some applications packages required for the
> installation are missing." When I click "Details", it says,
> "Application packages missing: libhildonfm2 (>=1;1.9.49)" Is
> there a way to work around this?
>
> If I do install it, will I have the same problems I do on the
> included PDF reader?
>
> --
> Laura (mailto:lconrad [at] laymusic http://www.laymusic.org/ )
> (617) 661-8097 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
>
> Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you
> give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in
> judgment.
>
> J.R.R. Tolkein, _The Lord of the Rings_
>
> _______________________________________________
> maemo-users mailing list
> maemo-users [at] maemo
> https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users
>

--
Best Regards
Chai Qiang

marius at pov

May 24, 2009, 5:11 AM

Post #3 of 11 (1443 views)
Permalink

Re: pdf reading? [In reply to]

On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 01:36:26PM -0400, Laura Conrad wrote:
> I'm finding the interface on the included pdf reader on my Nokia 810
> pretty unusable.

It is somewhat painful to use, although much better than the one that
came with the 770.

> At least one of these problems must be fixable. So here are my
> questions:
>
> Included reader:
>
> The file selector dialog (not only here but in the file manager
> and other apps, but not FBReader) doesn't allow me to select
> from the external memory card (mounted as /media/mmc1), although
> it does from the internal memory card (mounted as /media/mmc2).

This is weird. I can select both memory cards in the file selector.

Have you done anything strange, like formatting the external card as
ext2?

> Is there a way to fix this? I worked around it by opening a
> terminal and copying the file I wanted to see from external to
> internal, but there has to be a better way than that.

I think you could create a symlink, e.g.

cd ~/MyDocs
ln -s /media/mmc1 'External Card'

> As far as I can see, the way to page down is to open the case
> and use the down button on the pad.

If you're reading in full-screen mode, you can also press the area on
the middle of the right side of the screen. There are translucent buttons
that show up when you display a new page and then fade out, to give you
a hint of where to press. They work even when invisible.

If you're reading in non-full-screen mode, there are toolbar buttons for
going to the next/previous page.

> Is there a way to configure
> it so that the +/- switch on top (preferable) or the buttons on
> the side page up or down?

I don't think so.

> I have it zoomed to a size where the text area of the page is
> the width of the screen, that is, the margins are off the
> reader. But when moving down gets to a new page, the reader
> resets the position of the page so that the left edge of the
> page is at the left edge of the screen. Is there a way to tell
> it not to do that?

I don't think so.

> If I do install it, will I have the same problems I do on the
> included PDF reader?

If you install Evince, I suspect you'll have an entirely new set of
problems. Last time I tried it, it became unusable after viewing about
three pages because it used up all my memory. It was a long time ago
and maybe someone optimized it for low-memory devices, but I wouldn't
hold my breath.

Regards,
Marius Gedminas
--
Added mysterious, undocumented --scanflags and --fuzzy options.
-- nmap 3.0 announcement

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sunny at laymusic

May 24, 2009, 9:51 AM

Post #4 of 11 (1432 views)
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Re: pdf reading? [In reply to]

>>>>> "Marius" == Marius Gedminas <marius [at] pov> writes:

>> The file selector dialog (not only here but in the file manager
>> and other apps, but not FBReader) doesn't allow me to select
>> from the external memory card (mounted as /media/mmc1), although
>> it does from the internal memory card (mounted as /media/mmc2).

Marius> This is weird. I can select both memory cards in the file selector.

I have the impression I used to be able to, also, but not now.

Marius> Have you done anything strange, like formatting the external
Marius> card as ext2?

No. Or at least not that particular wierd thing. /etc/hosts has it
listed as vfat. It does say "noauto", which seems odd, but I didn't do
it. And it does always seem to be mounted when I check.

>> Is there a way to fix this? I worked around it by opening a
>> terminal and copying the file I wanted to see from external to
>> internal, but there has to be a better way than that.

Marius> I think you could create a symlink, e.g.

Yes, thanks, that works.

>> As far as I can see, the way to page down is to open the case
>> and use the down button on the pad.

Marius> If you're reading in full-screen mode, you can also press
Marius> the area on the middle of the right side of the screen.
Marius> There are translucent buttons that show up when you display
Marius> a new page and then fade out, to give you a hint of where to
Marius> press. They work even when invisible.

I fiddled with this. When they're visible, they do the "wrong thing".
That is, what you want is really (by default, and therefore you would
hope with the most easily accessible button) to read the next bit of
text that's off the screen, and these buttons move to the next page,
even when it's only the top half of this page that I'm seeing.

When they're not visible, I have trouble finding them, but it turns out
that you can reposition the page both horizontally and vertically by
moving the stylus, so that's a better way to "read" than anything I'd
found before. Still not as good for reading in bed as what FBReader
does with the +/- rocker switch on top, but at least you can imagine
reading a (short) book that way.

>> If I do install it, will I have the same problems I do on the
>> included PDF reader?

Marius> If you install Evince, I suspect you'll have an entirely new
Marius> set of problems.

I was going to guess that, too, which is why I didn't do lots of poking
around repositories to see why they're screwed up.

--
Laura (mailto:lconrad [at] laymusic http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

Thus, for instance, the Liberal party (to which I belong) was, in its
period of exile, always saying, "0 for a Gladstone!" and such
things. We were always asking that it might be strengthened from
above, instead of ourselves strengthening it from below, with our hope
and our anger and our youth. Every man was waiting for a leader. Every
man ought to be waiting for a chance to lead.

G. K. Chesterton
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peter.flynn at mars

May 24, 2009, 1:50 PM

Post #5 of 11 (1440 views)
Permalink

Re: pdf reading? [In reply to]

Laura Conrad wrote:
> Marius> If you're reading in full-screen mode, you can also press
> Marius> the area on the middle of the right side of the screen.
> Marius> There are translucent buttons that show up when you display
> Marius> a new page and then fade out, to give you a hint of where to
> Marius> press. They work even when invisible.

Do these exist in the PDF Reader on the N800? I opened a document the
other day and zoomed in a bit (eyesight isn't what it used to be :-) and
two left and right triangles appeared, but when I dragged the page
around the screen, they vanished.

Nevertheless, the << and >> buttons on the top of the device scroll
sideways to the edge of the page, and then one more press goes to the
next page. But as with yours, the geometry repositions the page in the
window instead of honouring the offset that you established on the
previous page.

This seems to be a design misperception: it also existed for many years
on a number of PostScript and DVI and (desktop) PDF readers, but was
eventually tracked down and removed because of user complaints.

> I fiddled with this. When they're visible, they do the "wrong thing".

Usability is about doing the "right thing", and it's really hard to guess.

> Still not as good for reading in bed as what FBReader
> does with the +/- rocker switch on top, but at least you can imagine
> reading a (short) book that way.

What missing on mine is being able to rotate the display 90 degrees so
that you can read a page in portrait orientation. I *hate* having to
flip up and down to see the missing half of a page.

But this will only work "right" when we start to use reflowable PDFs,
where the text within paragraph-level objects re-linebreaks itself
according to the width of the window, like a HTML browser does. That
brings its own set of problems (math, multiple columns) but at least for
normal continuous text it would solve a lot of the current difficulties.

///Peter
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sunny at laymusic

May 24, 2009, 2:13 PM

Post #6 of 11 (1429 views)
Permalink

Re: pdf reading? [In reply to]

>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Flynn <peter.flynn [at] mars> writes:

Peter> Laura Conrad wrote:
Marius> If you're reading in full-screen mode, you can also press
Marius> the area on the middle of the right side of the screen.
Marius> There are translucent buttons that show up when you display
Marius> a new page and then fade out, to give you a hint of where to
Marius> press. They work even when invisible.

Peter> Do these exist in the PDF Reader on the N800? I opened a
Peter> document the other day and zoomed in a bit (eyesight isn't
Peter> what it used to be :-) and two left and right triangles
Peter> appeared, but when I dragged the page around the screen, they
Peter> vanished.

On the 810 they vanish but are still there if you can remember where.
After 10 minutes, I'm getting much better at it.

Peter> This seems to be a design misperception: it also existed for
Peter> many years on a number of PostScript and DVI and (desktop)
Peter> PDF readers, but was eventually tracked down and removed
Peter> because of user complaints.

Actually, I think they put it back in XPDF. I'm sure it wasn't there a
year ago, but is now on Ubuntu 9.04. But I may not have found the right
setting.

>> Still not as good for reading in bed as what FBReader
>> does with the +/- rocker switch on top, but at least you can imagine
>> reading a (short) book that way.

Peter> What missing on mine is being able to rotate the display 90
Peter> degrees so that you can read a page in portrait
Peter> orientation. I *hate* having to flip up and down to see the
Peter> missing half of a page.

Can't you do that at the OS level?

I can't imagine being able to read a normal page of text on a screen the
size of the 8x0, so I haven't even tried, although I do this when I'm
reading PDF's on the laptop.

Peter> But this will only work "right" when we start to use
Peter> reflowable PDFs, where the text within paragraph-level
Peter> objects re-linebreaks itself according to the width of the
Peter> window, like a HTML browser does. That brings its own set of
Peter> problems (math, multiple columns) but at least for normal
Peter> continuous text it would solve a lot of the current
Peter> difficulties.

Or convincing the people who send you ebooks to send html or equivalent
instead of PDF. I have the packet for Hugo award voters, which I was
really looking forward to, but most of the ones I didn't already have
are PDF's. Hence my desire to get the 810 reader working. I'm doing
better than I would have expected.

--
Laura (mailto:lconrad [at] laymusic http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Vergil

This will make a good story to tell the grandchildren, if we live that
long. Conrad Translation.

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peter.flynn at mars

May 24, 2009, 2:23 PM

Post #7 of 11 (1429 views)
Permalink

Re: pdf reading? [In reply to]

Laura Conrad wrote:
> Peter> What missing on mine is being able to rotate the display 90
> Peter> degrees so that you can read a page in portrait
> Peter> orientation. I *hate* having to flip up and down to see the
> Peter> missing half of a page.
>
> Can't you do that at the OS level?

Not with the N800 as far as I know. Unless I have missed something
significant. But I don't want the background and all my applets rotated,
only the PDF Reader app, so it's an application feature, not something I
would expect to find at the OS level.

> I can't imagine being able to read a normal page of text on a screen the
> size of the 8x0, so I haven't even tried, although I do this when I'm
> reading PDF's on the laptop.

I've started producing some PDFs specifically optimised for the N800
screen, just to get a feel for it.

> Or convincing the people who send you ebooks to send html or equivalent
> instead of PDF. I have the packet for Hugo award voters, which I was
> really looking forward to, but most of the ones I didn't already have
> are PDF's. Hence my desire to get the 810 reader working. I'm doing
> better than I would have expected.

I had the same (how many others here are going to Anticipation?).

///Peter

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marius at pov

May 25, 2009, 6:26 AM

Post #8 of 11 (1401 views)
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Re: pdf reading? [In reply to]

On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 12:51:41PM -0400, Laura Conrad wrote:
> >>>>> "Marius" == Marius Gedminas <marius [at] pov> writes:
> >> As far as I can see, the way to page down is to open the case
> >> and use the down button on the pad.
>
> Marius> If you're reading in full-screen mode, you can also press
> Marius> the area on the middle of the right side of the screen.
> Marius> There are translucent buttons that show up when you display
> Marius> a new page and then fade out, to give you a hint of where to
> Marius> press. They work even when invisible.
>
> I fiddled with this. When they're visible, they do the "wrong thing".
> That is, what you want is really (by default, and therefore you would
> hope with the most easily accessible button) to read the next bit of
> text that's off the screen, and these buttons move to the next page,
> even when it's only the top half of this page that I'm seeing.

I misunderstood.

> When they're not visible, I have trouble finding them, but it turns out
> that you can reposition the page both horizontally and vertically by
> moving the stylus, so that's a better way to "read" than anything I'd
> found before.

Dragging with a finger works too.

> Still not as good for reading in bed as what FBReader
> does with the +/- rocker switch on top, but at least you can imagine
> reading a (short) book that way.

I managed to read a long book once or twice, but yes, FBReader is more
comfortable.

Marius Gedminas
--
No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied
occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an
indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining occurrence
different from the one identified by the given indication as an
indication-applied occurrence.
-- ALGOL 68 Report

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maemou at mkcollins

May 25, 2009, 11:33 AM

Post #9 of 11 (1403 views)
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Re: pdf reading? [In reply to]

On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Laura Conrad <sunny [at] laymusic> wrote:
>
> I'm finding the interface on the included pdf reader on my Nokia 810
> pretty unusable.

Indeed.

> My impression is that people on this list have mentioned that evince
> might be better, but I can't install that.

Evince is much better, but it is still a PDF reader. PDF was designed
for printing out documents and IMHO is not suitable for reading, even
on a large screen.

The way to go is to convert to HTML and read in the browser or
FBReader. The latter will rotate, the former will support CSS
formatting. If you flash a special kernel and install the advanced
brightness control you can rotate everything at OS level.

To convert you can use pdf2html from the poppler-utils package. Or
mail the pdf to your gmail account, view in HTML, then save.

You can try installing evince and poppler-utils from
http://www.gronmayer.com/it/index.php
you can also search there for any missing packages.

Martin
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marius at pov

May 25, 2009, 6:05 PM

Post #10 of 11 (1398 views)
Permalink

Re: pdf reading? [In reply to]

On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 12:33:42PM -0600, Martin Collins wrote:
> The way to go is to convert to HTML and read in the browser or
> FBReader. The latter will rotate, the former will support CSS
> formatting. If you flash a special kernel and install the advanced
> brightness control you can rotate everything at OS level.
>
> To convert you can use pdf2html from the poppler-utils package. Or

I think you mean pdftohtml. At least, on my Ubuntu system poppler-utils
has pdftotext and pdftohtml, without any actual digits in the name.

> mail the pdf to your gmail account, view in HTML, then save.

How well does this work in practice?

I'm unhappy with the results I get from pdftotext: it even loses
paragraph breaks. pdftohtml, which I never tried before, is a bit
better, but it considers every line to be a separate paragraph. I'm too
lazy to try GMail now, especially since I don't expect anything better
from it.

Marius Gedminas
--
I noticed that Open Source proponents using MacOS X have developed highly tuned
excuses, similar to those that smokers have about why cigarettes are good for
you.
-- Miguel de Icaza,
http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/archive/2004/Aug-03.html

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maemou at mkcollins

May 27, 2009, 9:14 PM

Post #11 of 11 (1351 views)
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Re: pdf reading? [In reply to]

On 5/25/09, Marius Gedminas <marius [at] pov> wrote:
> On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 12:33:42PM -0600, Martin Collins wrote:
>
> I think you mean pdftohtml. At least, on my Ubuntu system poppler-utils
> has pdftotext and pdftohtml, without any actual digits in the name.

Yes, you're right.

>> mail the pdf to your gmail account, view in HTML, then save.
>
> How well does this work in practice?

Not very. You get an mht file that looks somewhat like the pdf minus any images.
All the elements use absolute positioning so it may not wrap too well.
You need to use the basic HTML version of gmail to get the 'view in
HTML' option. The standard 'view' just gives you an image of the pdf.

> I'm unhappy with the results I get from pdftotext: it even loses
> paragraph breaks. pdftohtml, which I never tried before, is a bit
> better, but it considers every line to be a separate paragraph.

What you get from any of these methods will depend to a large extent
on the pdf and how it was created. Some manual intervention will
usually be necessary to get optimal results: With something like a
novel take the converted HTML, run it through tidy then in a good text
editor search and replace the bold and italic tags (and any other
formatting you want to save) to some non-HTML but equivalent
construct. Strip the remaining HTML with htmltotext or similar. Then
in the editor replace your formatting constructs with HTML, add in
valid headers etc. and you're done.

You can fix the split paragraphs in vim by recording keystroke macros
to join any line beginning with [a-z] to the one above, and any line
ending in [,a-z] to the one below.

It sounds involved but once you have a process each book only takes a
few minutes unless the pdf is really borked. With some knowledge of
sed, awk, perl and/or vim the process can be largely automated.

BTW, I just discovered evince will rotate too. The option is under the
edit menu for some reason...

Martin
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