Database Users

Viewing Web-based PDF files within app

Hey all-
I am very new to developing (and Java). Currently working on my 2nd android app so be gentle here. Is there a way, or a good work-around to display web-based pdf files with android? Basically I am trying to have one of the buttons in my program pull up a website that happens to be a web-based pdf. I don't believe WebView will support that.
I have tried converting the pdf files to .png but I loose all the resolution I need as I need the user to be able to zoom in and see the detail.
Is there anyway to either host the pdf file on-line as something else and/or convert it to something else to make it available off-line?
Thanks for any help

Just throwing this out there, but why not have the link download the PDF file to the user's phone.
Only downside I see to this is in the even that the user doesn't have a PDF "viewer."
Otherwise, I'm not aware of any real way to display a PDF within the browser.
If someone can work this out, I'd be interested in learning his/her technique as well.

Thanks for the reply- I did think of doing it that way but I didn't want to make use of my app dependent on another app- It sounds like that's what I will have to do though as I have searched high and low without finding a solution. I had wanted to make two versions of the app- in the free version the user would need web access, in the paid version the user could have off-line access.
With Adobe's pdf viewer on the market for free and most new phones coming stock with pdf viewers, I suppose it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Is there no graphic format I can convert a pdf to and then host on-line? Thank you again

OREGONMX said:
Thanks for the reply- I did think of doing it that way but I didn't want to make use of my app dependent on another app- It sounds like that's what I will have to do though as I have searched high and low without finding a solution. I had wanted to make two versions of the app- in the free version the user would need web access, in the paid version the user could have off-line access.
With Adobe's pdf viewer on the market for free and most new phones coming stock with pdf viewers, I suppose it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Is there no graphic format I can convert a pdf to and then host on-line? Thank you again
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Yeah, I know exactly what you are saying. Having an app-to-app dependency can cause quite a hysteria with users. They'll complain that the app is faulty and rate it 1 star.
My other suggestion would be to screenshot the PDF, page by page, and paste them into Photoshop and save the files as jpg's with the highest resolution. It will definitely take up a lot of your time if you have a lot of PDFs with many pages. Granted, you'll be taking up much more space, and the image will be loading a lot slower but you'll have pretty neat quality.
You'll have to weigh the factors on what you find more important - speed or quality.
If you don't mind me asking, what type of app are you making.

Thanks again- well just a few minutes ago my friend who is a bit more proficient with the whole coding thing came up with an idea that might just work-
he suggested taking the PDF and splitting it up into several different images and just creating an arrow button on the sides or top or bottom (depending on where in the image you are looking) and then applying an onClickListener to the buttons which will call up a different image view, which would be the next corresponding image/area of the pdf. I'm hoping that by cutting the pdf into small pieces like that and saving them as either jpg or png files I can retain the resolution I am after AND host them on-line myself for the free-app and give users the option to download the pdf to their SD card in the paid version- which would make my original idea a possibility.
My app is a program aimed at dirtbiking enthusiasts- surprisingly there is not a lot of crossover between the dirtbiking community and the developing community- I am all alone Ha!
I don't imagine I stand to make a bajillion dollars but learning android and java and actually seeing what I am doing work (sometimes) has been a fantastically gratifying experience. Just wish I had more time to do it- a 4-year-old and 5-year-old + wife + full-time job make it hard. I'm in no hurry though

That sounds fairly similar to what Facebook has on their "Touch" version of their site (touch.facebook.com)
If you view pictures within an album, you'll notice you get the arrows on the bottom left and right to keep switching between pictures.
Sounds like that would definitely work.
Keep me posted on your app. I give you props for even being on your 2nd app, as I've seen many people in your same situation (wife, kids, job) just give up after downloading the SDK.
But yeah, I'm interested to see how it turns out.

Thanks hopefully my vision will come together sooner rather than later. I'll keep you posted
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Powerpoint Presentations on Xoom without Format Issues

So there are a couple Powerpoint Apps for the Xoom. Unfortunately, like allot of Office Suites there is some rendering and formatting issues when it comes to Powerpoint Documents. So if you are looking for an app to deliver your Powerpoints on, you might have to look elsewhere because they most likely won’t look the same. Unfortunately there isn’t allot of options out there, in fact I couldn’t find any. Please someone prove me wrong . However I have been going through a couple solutions. One solution is one I use at work because formatting problems even occur going across different Microsoft Powerpoint versions. So we convert to PDF and then present with a PDF viewer in fullscreen. An app like this doesn’t seem to exist yet. Again please someone prove me wrong . I dug a little deeper and came up with this Workaround. You can save your Powerpoint as Pictures on your computer. Its very easy in Microsoft Powerpoint and then you can load them in a folder on the Xoom and use the stock Gallery App to view them. And you know what… It Works!!! It has a very nice full-screen effect works great on the projector, and really isn’t too many additional steps. Its not the best thing in the world. But if you want to deliver powerpoint on your Xoom without worry about format getting messed up, this is a workable solution for now. I apologize if this was already suggested on the Xoom forum, I didn't come across it. I have a video also showing this in action.

I mentioned that in a very early thread but not as detailed. I also posted a comprehensive comparison between three different office suites (will post links later). Downside with PDF conversion is that animations are lost and I am not sure that the PDF rendering on the Xoom is 100% accurate.
[sent with Xooming Android technology]

Actually docs to go is much better at displaying power point then quick office pro. Ironically I had docs to go first. Then I bought the xoom and found that the native quickoffice app was better and accurately displaying excel compared to Docs to Go so when I got an email about quickoffice hd pro for tablets I was all over it. Excel was wonderful. Then today I had a presentation in a meeting and I thought great I'll play the slides on my xoom. It was a video conference. Anyway the slides were aweful. Formatting was a mess even on simple slides. I thought maybe it was a bug in quickoffice hd pro and tried the regular quckoffice. Same results. Finally I tried Docs to Go and low and behold the pages were perfect.
BTW word also displays more correctly in quickoffice then in Docs to go. Looks like the quickoffice guys just dropped the ball big time on power point. I'd say that Doc's to Go is better all around office program.

ethion said:
Actually docs to go is much better at displaying power point then quick office pro. Ironically I had docs to go first. Then I bought the xoom and found that the native quickoffice app was better and accurately displaying excel compared to Docs to Go so when I got an email about quickoffice hd pro for tablets I was all over it. Excel was wonderful. Then today I had a presentation in a meeting and I thought great I'll play the slides on my xoom. It was a video conference. Anyway the slides were aweful. Formatting was a mess even on simple slides. I thought maybe it was a bug in quickoffice hd pro and tried the regular quckoffice. Same results. Finally I tried Docs to Go and low and behold the pages were perfect.
BTW word also displays more correctly in quickoffice then in Docs to go. Looks like the quickoffice guys just dropped the ball big time on power point. I'd say that Doc's to Go is better all around office program.
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Sounds like an embarrasing situation with ppt and quickoffice. You should report that to them!

[Q] Best PDF viewing app with Metadata support?

I am looking for a PDF viewer that will display Title information scrapped out of the metadata rather than the filename. The filenames of the files I am interested in viewing are the document number (i.e. 52343234245.pdf) and the Title is much more user friendly (i.e. LRU User Guide).
When I import PDFs into iBooks on the iPad, this information in automatically scrapped out. Any apps with similar functionality on Android?
Even a desktop utility that does the renaming would be better than nothing.

Lumiread that comes with the A500 shows the metadata, and it also allows you to fetch the metadata from the Internet, too. On 3.0.1 Lumiread is a tad slow, though, but I hear it's gotten some performance improvements in 3.1.

I've been looking for a good pdf viewer with two simple features; remember the page when closing a book and the ability to create bookmarks. Never thought of Lumiread until you mentioned it
Thanks

ezPDF is another one that's absolutely great, offers bookmarks, allows you to highlight selections, add your own notes etc. to PDF files, and it's really fast. It doesn't sport a bookshelf like the Lumiread though, nor does it show metadata.
EDIT: Just asked them if they have any plans to add similar support for metadata and a virtual "bookshelf" to ezPDF, I'll try to remember to mention here when I get a reply.

WereCatf said:
Just asked them if they have any plans to add similar support for metadata and a virtual "bookshelf" to ezPDF, I'll try to remember to mention here when I get a reply.
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Thanks, I was going to e-mail them, but the firewall blocks their site for being high risk/malicious.

I'm not getting any reply from ezPDF folks, absolutely none. But after having tried a few other ebook readers Mantano Reader and Aldiko Book Reader both seem pretty good and both also support metadata. So far I lean towards Mantano myself, but I can't really find any specific issues with Aldiko either, just that the bookshelf view is slow to scroll.

Apart from showing metadata, which software is the fastest to flip page?
I found ezReader quite slow
When I flip page using Ipad 2, it really fast & smooth
I need such software for my Iconia as well
Thanks

[Q] best way to convert .pdf ebooks to .epub for reading in aldiko or asus library...

I have a seemjngly endless collection of ebooks in .pdf format that i have been trying forever to convert to the .pub format for easy reading, and also (please forgive me for this and don't flame) in the style of I books on the I pad (which the Asus reader does very well, with the page turning animations and all)
My problem is this... when I use calibre to convert the .pdf document to the .epub format, certain characters like apostraphies or even quotation marks end up turning out like a square with an x in it... almost as though there was a problem transcoding the document. The page turn animation is all there, but the formatting has been lost and is nothing like the source material at all...
If anyone else has run into this at all, please share with me your solutions for getting the desired result. Alot of these books were digital downloads from either the publisher of the books I own, or strategy guides from either ign or Brady games...
Thanks for all the help that, hopefully, I am about to receive.
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I am reading my .pdf files in Polaris Office. Found it the best experience, even though two big issues: no jump to page, no pdf bookmarks (got to re-create my own). But the zoom, fonts, smooth page transitions are great.
I do not have a good program to convert .pdf to .epub. I found when I tried to read .epub I created myself the Asus TF programs complain about some potential security issues and will not work.

I've tried several, but there's one which really stands out from the crowd. Calibre can convert from a wide variety of formats, it can do batch converts, and is quite intelligent about the way it reformats the text to fit the destination device. I had some trouble originally which came down to problems with the Asus reader application, but on the Honeycomb 3.1 build they are perfect. I have converted literally thousands of books (suprisingly quickly too) and am loving it. You can get it at calibre-ebook.com. Hope this helps.......

Give this one a try...
http://ebook.online-convert.com/convert-to-epub

If you guys haven't tried it out yet, eZPDF Reader is by far the best PDF reader on Android. Supports page cache (thank the lord), super cool page turn animations, speedy overall performance, really nice user interface/page selector thats always available.
It was free about a month ago off Amazon appstore.

Sounds like you need Calibre... it should take care of all your converting needs.
calibre-ebook.com/
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[Q] pdf read experience

Not sure if this is an appropriate forum to post… but here goes.
I am looking to buy Nook Color primarily to read pdfs. I would say part of my work requires spending a lot of time reading (and put comments in) pdfs.
My concern is how is the pdf reading experience on NC with 7" display. I'm especially looking to hear from anyone who uses NC to read pdfs.
Are all kinds of pdfs with different settings comfortabley viewable (that is, you don’t have to constantly zoom in and zoom out a page on a pdf book).
Thanks a lot in advance for your valuable insight.

I've read a few PDFs on my nook and it's mostly good. The thing is, it depends very much on the formatting of the individual PDFs themselves. Since they're fairly static, the ones I've used don't reflow well (ie. you lose formatting or images) if you try to use that option. If they are mostly text, then it shouldn't be as much of a problem. The ones I have read most are formatted in a 4x3 aspect ration, so on the Nook's 16x9 screen, they are very small with a border on the top and bottom in portrait mode (unless you zoom and scroll), but in landscape mode they are very readable aside from some extra scrolling required. All in all, it's really not bad. By the way, I mainly use the ezPDF reader app instead of Acrobat.

I've been using ezpdreader. It works for me, since I'm a grad student I read a lot of pdfs just like you. With this app you can do all sorts of annotations (comments, highlights, etc). It takes a little time loading big pdfs, for now it is the best app I have found for my needs.
It works better if you have your pdfs ocred. I use Acrobat Pro to ocr files before uploading to NC. Once it's ocred you can use the autozoom (full screen view) by double tapping the screen and you can read on landscape or portrait.
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Yeah, same here, grad student reading papers as pdfs with ezPDF reader. I've found it works great for new pdf's, where you can auto-zoom to fit columns and figures and use text reflow. For older pdfs (eg. scanned images) it's not that good. But I've not tried to run optical character recognition (ocr) on them either, I'll have to try try that. The best benefit though, is the fact that it keeps a full file cabinet of papers so I can always jump back to my 'favorites' or primary references, and if I'm at a conference I can find and add new ones.

NCKevo said:
Yeah, same here, grad student reading papers as pdfs with ezPDF reader. I've found it works great for new pdf's, where you can auto-zoom to fit columns and figures and use text reflow. For older pdfs (eg. scanned images) it's not that good. But I've not tried to run optical character recognition (ocr) on them either, I'll have to try try that. The best benefit though, is the fact that it keeps a full file cabinet of papers so I can always jump back to my 'favorites' or primary references, and if I'm at a conference I can find and add new ones.
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Yeah I have lots of scanned pdfs and I used, as I said before, Acrobat Pro in my PC to recognize text. As we all know ocr isn't perfect but at least it will let you highlight the words in the pdf (even when it didn't correctly identified the right word). So you might not be able to copy paste a sentence correctly, but you will be able to make annotations on the pdf.

I haven't tried ezPDF so I can't comment but I do strongly recommend you to try out the Mantano PDF Reader.

I mostly use ezPDF too. I've looked at Mantano because people seem so enthusiastic about it, but it doesn't do the fit to the screen or column that ezPDF does.

popsnorkle said:
I mostly use ezPDF too. I've looked at Mantano because people seem so enthusiastic about it, but it doesn't do the fit to the screen or column that ezPDF does.
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You meant it auto zoom to fit the page on screen?

popsnorkle said:
I mostly use ezPDF too. I've looked at Mantano because people seem so enthusiastic about it, but it doesn't do the fit to the screen or column that ezPDF does.
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Mantano allows fit to screen and several varieties of zoom, and can zoom on a column with the appropriate gesture. A number of solid ezpdf users have switched to mantano recently. However, if you want to do a lot of different types of annotations, repligo is still the way to go.

skwalas said:
Mantano allows fit to screen and several varieties of zoom, and can zoom on a column with the appropriate gesture. A number of solid ezpdf users have switched to mantano recently. However, if you want to do a lot of different types of annotations, repligo is still the way to go.
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I had repligo before ezpdf but it wouldn't let me highlight ocr pdfs. So I switch and ezpdf hasn't failed me yet, it also has all type of annotations even free hand
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