[Fuzzballz]

Just tried QPDF... so slow that it was unusable. Tried to open a 5 MB file and I couldn't even scroll up and down the page it was so slow. Literally took a full minute to scroll from the top of a page to the bottom.

[estro22]

For the OP, I'd recommend Repligo Reader as the best solution. It is not available on App World, unfortunately, but can be downloaded as a BAR from playbookbars.com and then sideloaded to your PB using DDPB on your PC or a similar sideloading program. Once loaded, the program runs within the PB's Android launcher. I've found it to be very stable, it has crashed only twice in the past 2 months, and this was probably due to another Android program running concurrently.

I'm an aviator that has a library of technical flight manuals, the largest of which is about 1700 pages long, 20MB large with both raster and vector illustrations embedded throughout.

Repligo renders pages relatively quick, noticeably quicker than QPDF, which seems to lag noticeably on illustrated pages.

The program recognizes and can expand bookmarks on all of my PDFs, as well as any highlights and comments. It also allows me to create and save bookmarks, highlights and comments. The program does take some time to find all of the highlights/comments in my largest documents when I access them, but the thinking process is pretty transparent and can be interrupted when I see the markup I'm looking for. In a 1500 page book with about 406 comments and highlights it took the program less than 40 seconds to index them all.

It also recognizes internal links, which is awesome because many of my manuals link to illustrations two or three pages away.

A search function searches and lists results. Each result provides one sentence of context around the word.

A built in file browser goes pretty much anywhere within your PB's file system and also has a 'recent files' tab.

You can zoom using multitouch and select text for action by pressing and holding.

Other features: a night time darkened mode, a page-view/reading-view toggle, and a page surfing bar at the bottom which renders miniature versions of the page (this bar is a bit annoying with larger documents, though, as it gets laggy with all the page renders it must perform).

I do not know how Repligo handles DRM files, as I do not use any such files. Also not sure if it handles other formats such as EPUB; don't think it does. In any case, I highly recommend checking it out. I plan to purchase it whenever Cerience puts it on App World.

Thank you very much for this info. I guess I'll some work to do [non trivial install of Repligo Reader], but it seems this is the best solution.

[karen qpdf]

The Red X for images is unfortunately due to the port from Android - the Playbook doesn't support all of the image rendering code that Android does at this point. We're hopeful that they'll expand support for this, but we're looking for long-term solutions at the same time.

Well
I too bought the playbook thinking that I would read a loads of pdfs on it ...
So I tried both the android qpdf viewer and native adobe reader and this is what I think..
Comparision test is based on a pdf book which is about 30mb in size and contains loads of images and text....

qPdf

-ve

The first limitation was that qPdf failed to load images on the pdf ... all I got was red X cross where ever the image was suppose to load... The only image that it was able to load was the book cover ...

+ve
Was able to load password protected pdfs
However it has a better interface than the adobe one..

Adobe Reader
-ve
Cant load password protected pdfs
Interface still needs to be worked on .. ( i wish they had a stack where i could just bookmark a page, or the reader recognizes the last page read, also a way to view two pages simultaneously since there could be reference on the back page.)

+ve
Was able to load the pdf without any problem I could sweep through the pdf without any lag and it load all the images perfectly well.. love the landscape mode for pdfs..


So my conclusion is you need bothe the readers.
qPdf for password protected pdfs.
and adobe for reading other normal pdfs..


Regards

[Skimpy]

The native Adobe Reader still gives me the best experience in terms of smoothness and fluidity. qpdf and Repligo both lags when I'm scrolling a ~30MB PDF magazine. But like others mentioned, the native reader is pretty barebone.

[cavemen]

The Red X for images is unfortunately due to the port from Android - the Playbook doesn't support all of the image rendering code that Android does at this point. We're hopeful that they'll expand support for this, but we're looking for long-term solutions at the same time.

Well m not a playbook geek... But the same pdf with the same image opens perfectly well in the native adobe pdf reader... I'll be happy to share the screen shots...

[karen qpdf]

Well m not a playbook geek... But the same pdf with the same image opens perfectly well in the native adobe pdf reader... I'll be happy to share the screen shots...

Adobe gets to use different code than we can since they're a native app. We're limited by what BlackBerry has made available for use in the Android Player...

[FF22]

Adobe gets to use different code than we can since they're a native app. We're limited by what BlackBerry has made available for use in the Android Player...

It is too bad you canNOT use them and Adobe which can, has NOT effectively used them. The World is UNFAIR!

[karen qpdf]

Hahaha! I totally agree!

[estro22]

Adobe gets to use different code than we can since they're a native app. We're limited by what BlackBerry has made available for use in the Android Player...

Sorry, but this reply doesn't make sense. [I know a thing or two about software developing...]
And if you're not happy with the Android layer, then write dedicated software for the PlayBook OS, customers want quality and practical software for their money.

[karen qpdf]

Sorry, but this reply doesn't make sense. [I know a thing or two about software developing...]
And if you're not happy with the Android layer, then write dedicated software for the PlayBook OS, customers want quality and practical software for their money.

See this post for more details about the limitations: http://forums.crackberry.com/playboo...ctions-655159/

We know that writing a native Playbook app is the ideal solution for the device and everyone who has one, but as I mentioned upthread, we're still evaluating the benefits of creating a native Playbook app vs taking time away from our other development projects to work on it

[estro22]

I was able to test qpdf today with one of my books, and I was very unimpressed. [totally unpractical: slow, many graphs don't load well and etc...]

[Foreverup]

See this post for more details about the limitations: http://forums.crackberry.com/playboo...ctions-655159/

We know that writing a native Playbook app is the ideal solution for the device and everyone who has one, but as I mentioned upthread, we're still evaluating the benefits of creating a native Playbook app vs taking time away from our other development projects to work on it

Well to help make your decision almost every playbook owner would buy a copy of qpdf, even if it is $9-$10 range, just so we could ditch the absolutely horrible adobe app.

[mdsf]

I do have to mention that the perfect PDF reader is GoodReader. I have it on my iPad2, and it smokes anything else I've tried.

Yup, best doc /file reader out there. Been using it for years. I wish there was a version for Playbook. However, the devs @Goodreader say they're sticking to iOS only.

Anyone tried ezPDF (Android) on their PB?

[Just Me]

Yup, best doc /file reader out there. Been using it for years. I wish there was a version for Playbook. However, the devs @Goodreader say they're sticking to iOS only.

Anyone tried ezPDF (Android) on their PB?

That is really too bad. Does @GoodReader allow you to annotate your copy? Can those annotations be turned on and off. Those are the features I'd like to see for a .pdf reader.

[boblinds]

I've never gotten ezPDF to work properly on my PlayBook.

[mdsf]

That is really too bad. Does @GoodReader allow you to annotate your copy? Can those annotations be turned on and off. Those are the features I'd like to see for a .pdf reader.

Yup, even PDFs. And they keep improving it at least once a month.

[11pts]

just tried qpdf reader, its pretty decent! not as laggy as some people make it out to be.

Thanks for the port Karen qpdf!

[jeffreytoronto]

Repligo is the way to go...it's awesome and install is easy. Use it daily to read 15mb downloads of the globe and Mail in pdf. The paper has lots of images of course and Repligo handles them well. Review above covers features well.