I need an app for reading large docs (PDF, etc)

[PrinceAlexander]

I can't get over how difficult my search has been. To date, the only word that really sums it up is FUTILE

I need an app that will let me transfer large documents (PDFs, for example) to my iPod Touch, and READ the bloody things in landscape.

I'm more than happy to SSH in and drop something in an appropriate folder, but I've yet to find ANYTHING that will allow me to read the documents properly.

I like to read the odd book or magazine in PDF format. I want to, on occasion, take it with me. Every program I've tried (including Docs, TextGuru, Stanza, etc) simply doesn't work. They either can't handle the file sizes, corrupt the text data, or won't display anything in landscape.

I thought I might get lucky by asking here. If you've found something that can handle the above, please let me know!

 

[soberbrain]

Have you tried Air Sharing?

I haven't used it for LARGE pdfs, but it does view in landscape.

 

[PrinceAlexander]

Have you tried Air Sharing?

I haven't used it for LARGE pdfs, but it does view in landscape.

I'm playing with it, but it keeps crashing when I try to view a document

EDIT: it finally loaded...with corrupted text. I can't work out why, exactly, it renders plain text unreadable, but will display images perfectly fine. Ideas anyone?

 

[LostLogik]

I couldn't agree more. I'm in the same boat and have tried Airsharing and Datacase (the latter being the more stable). However try and open a PDF greater than 1MB and you're stuffed. The only consistent way I've found is to send files to my IMAP email and d/l from there, though of course you then can't view in landscape.

I've mailed the Datacase guys with various details and screenshots of what happens and apparently the info has been passed on to the developers (I don't even bother with Airsharing, as it can't even open the files I send it's way. At least Datacase will open them and I can view some of it) Here's hoping for something soon.

 

[fastbite]

If you also want to edit them try Annotater. It's pretty OK.

 

[odelay]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

try Files. Works for me on PDFs >10MB

 

[LostLogik]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

try Files. Works for me on PDFs >10MB

yeah, funny, I've just been looking at this on olivetoast's website. Heading off to the app store now ....

Edit: Nope, still crashing out on simple enough 3MB pdf (30 page document). Aaaarrrgg! More money wasted.

 

[OneMike]

Just tried a 24mb pdf on air sharing. On first run app crashed but after restarting phone it loaded with no problem.

 

[r6girl]

If you're on a Mac, try FileMagnet. It does PDFs in landscape view and can share/transfer docs between multiple Macs.

 

[plumbingandtech]

Prince,

Annotator is what you want. I was in the same boat:

does landscape
does transfer (but the client could be made better)
allows for annotation
allows for bookmarking <--- this is big once you start reading more on your iTouch/iPhone you will not settle for any tool that does not bookmark.

 

[bbrosen]

PDF Readers

I am a phone tech and I keep large pdf files of tech manuals on my ipod touch, 16gb.. most are 2-300 pages big and some even more! I use Mobilefinder and it does do landscape as well as have a fast scroll bar to move thru many pages fast, I love it. Now tech support, from Apple told me that the iphone and ipod use all available memory left on the device, ie my 16 gb touch has 7 gb left free space and will use that for memory so it you have little space left, it can cause out of memory problems....I have had it crash only twice and i use this app once a day at least to look up stuff..try it if you havnt i love it

 

[BoyRacer]

I've successfully viewed PDFs on my iPhone 3G (2.1) using Stanza. Maybe you'll have luck with it too.

Stanza is available for iPhone and Mac: http://www.lexcycle.com/

Here is my edited version of their official description of how to get your PDF onto an iPhone, from their website:
- launch Stanza Desktop, open your PDF in Stanza
- enable sharing by selecting "Enable Sharing" from the "Tools" menu
- ensure your iPhone is connected to same wireless network as your Mac
- launch Stanza iPhone
- from the top-level library menu, select "Shared Books"
- You should see your computer name in the menu that appears
- tap your computer name
- Stanza Desktop will notify you that your iPhone is attempting to connect
- once you have granted permission, Stanza iPhone will display the books
- clicking on the book will then download it onto your iPhone
- it is imported into your library for later reading

I hope this helps.

Update (only a day later):
I forgot to mention that by default Stanza can mess with the format of some PDFs. Its necessary to adjust the layout of your PDF in the desktop version of Stanza before sharing it to your iPhone. Its a one-step, once-click process so its not a big deal; you simply have to select whether you want it single column / vertical scroll rather than multiple columns / horizontal scroll (also, there are a few more choices than that, thankfully)

 

[PrinceAlexander]

Thanks everyone!

There are a couple there I haven't tried. I think that part of the problem is that I'm dealing with PDFs that are, in some instances, quite image heavy. I might also have a crack at shrinking them with adobe (not sure why I didn't think of this before...but it may help).

I'll give them a go and let you know!

PA

 

[mappyman]

Why doesn't any of the pdf viewers let me zoom in close to my stations in this map:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/standard-tube-map.pdf

It's not a big map.