[ChrisMay]

So, I have copied an electronic manual set onto my PB. It is essentially a load of hyperlinked pdf files. I have installed qPdf reader which can handle the links. It works well, the only problem is that to get started, I have to navigate to the 'root' / main menu pdf file using something like Ghost Commander. I just wondered if there was a way of putting a shortcut to this root file on the PlayBook icon grid somewhere?? I can't just put the actual file there because then the hyperlinks won't work.

Thanks.

[RoboticGolem]

I dont have my playbook handy, but could you use the browser to hardlink to it, then, once it's loaded bookmark it to the screen?

file:///where/the/file/is.pdf in the browser?

OR...

Could you make a quick and dirty html file with links to the files that you could click on in the browser and have that bookmarked to the screen?

[pacoman03]

You can only bookmark files to the desktop that can be opened by the PB's browser. So you can bookmark audio and video files, image files, text files, html files, and maybe a few other types, but it's no go for PDFs, since the browser can't open these files itself (it can only send PDFs out to be opened by Adobe Reader). But, to make things a bit easier, you can add the folder that these files reside in to Ghost Commanders "Favorites", which makes getting to them easy. Just navigate to the folder in Ghost, then press and hold on the folder, then choose "add to favorites".

[ChrisMay]

Thanks to Golem and PacoMan for their replies.
It's a shame that there is not an easier way.
I'm trying to build a convincing case that we could use Playbooks in the workshop rather than laptops for the manuals, but I think trying to get the engineers to open GhostCommander, and then favorites then tapping on the menu pdf file, and selecting qPDF (and not the stock reader) to open it etc etc. rather than just clicking on the icon marked 'manuals' is just going to cause too much confusion. I can see someone tapping on the wrong thing in GC (it is quite a complicated screen to an inexperienced user) and the whole thing getting in a bit of a mess. Or opening the file in the stock PDF reader by mistake, and then demanding to know why none of the links work...

[pacoman03]

Well, if you're trying to idi0t proof the process, there probably is an easier way. One way would be to use ES File Explorer (needs to be sideloaded) rather than Ghost Commander. After installing ES, go into settings (swipe down from top) and choose "Home Directory". and then enter the full path of the folder where the PDFs reside (for example " /accounts/1000/shared/documents/PDF files/ " - case sensitive and without the quotes). After you do this, ES should automatically open to your PDF folder. From here, now tap on one of the PDFs and you'll get the familiar android "Open With" dialogue. This will give you the option to open with Adobe Reader, qPDF, and any other android PDF readers you may have installed. Before choosing qPDF to open the file, tick the box "Set as the default app", then choose qPDF. Now when you choose to open any PDF with ES, ES will automatically open the file with qPDF.

Thus, set up this way, opening ES will take you straight to your PDF folder, and tapping on any PDF will automatically open it in qPDF. Pretty simple.

[karen qpdf]

How about setting the file as a favorite in qPDF? You can tap the star to the right of the file name and it will be saved to your favorites list in our app

[ChrisMay]

How about setting the file as a favorite in qPDF? You can tap the star to the right of the file name and it will be saved to your favorites list in our app

Ahh, now that might just work. Will give it a go.
Thank you!