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DownEaster
03-15-2018, 08:36
I've got guides in PDF form to carry on my phone (AWOL, ALDHA, & c.). What's the best tool for viewing these? I've been using EBookDroid because I already had it for reading books in various formats (including PDF). There's probably something better. Recommendations?

ldsailor
03-15-2018, 11:51
Adobe makes an Adobe Acrobat Reader app for Android. Going to the company who designed and implemented the PDF format is probably your best bet.

DownEaster
03-15-2018, 14:50
Yeah, that doesn't fit my experience. Adobe programs tend to be bloated and buggy. They're the ones who gave us the security nightmare which is (was) Flash, after all.

Venchka
03-15-2018, 15:43
I can’t speak for the Droid platform, but the Adobe PDF software has been stable across the umpteen platforms that I’ve been associated with since PDF came into being. Windows and Apple universes.
Wayne

Leo L.
03-15-2018, 16:03
I have yet to find an app that can read PDF and be set to white letters on black background, in order to save battery?
My Android Kindle app can read PDF, and while I've set it to read Kindle content white on black, the PDFs stay black on white, unfortunately.

Venchka
03-15-2018, 17:07
The programmer kids can’t think of everything.
Wayne

soumodeler
03-15-2018, 19:43
Google Drive has a built in pdf viewer.

blw2
03-15-2018, 21:14
i'd take a look at bluebeam. I don't know the app, but their software packages for computer are very good. I use it everyday at work reviewing and marking up architectural drawings in pdf and other drawing formats. Maybe their app is good, I don't know might be worth a shot if you want more than just the basic viewer....

Leo L.
03-16-2018, 03:48
The programmer kids can’t think of everything.
Wayne

Spending my whole worklife by operating CAD software, I have the impression the code kids hardly ever think of anything beyond their core task of coding.

The inverse color scheme that comes with the Kindle app, but I have not yet found in any PDF reader app, seems to be a non-topic to the code kids in modern CAD as well.
The same bright-white screen screaming at me all day long in CAD, the same while reading outside of the Kindle app on the smartphone in the dark of the tent.
Its not only the battery saving, its also about ergonomy.

AllDownhillFromHere
03-16-2018, 08:55
Maybe pre-process all the PDFs with ImageMagick? Of course then you'd need 2 copies of each file, but at least you'd have the inverted ones.

Zed
03-16-2018, 14:39
I use ezPDFReader. I like it well enough to have the paid version.

Leo L.
03-16-2018, 15:45
The online description is speaking about a night mode, without explaining it any further.
Does this provide an inverted display?

AllDownhillFromHere
03-16-2018, 16:06
https://superuser.com/questions/449724/is-it-possible-to-invert-text-and-background-colors-in-a-pdf-when-printing

Starchild
03-16-2018, 16:24
iPhone has a inverse color option in settings - I assume Android would have it too, IDK how it handles PDF's with respect to that.

As for saving battery life, that depends on the display technology. If it's LED then no savings as the backlight is always set to on, to get darker you block that light. OLED would save some battery life. Though inverted colors may be easier on the eyes at night. iPhone also has a red shift mode which is suppose to help in that respect as well.

Leo L.
03-16-2018, 17:43
Sorry, couldn't read the answer out of the linked superuser thread.

Android has an inverted display option, but it did not help the real problem, but actually made reading worse. Lots of display problems in that setting.
I'm not so sure about battery saving WRT display technology. My Sony doesn't have an OLED, but can run the Kindle app set to inverted display mode for many days. It definitely does save lots of battery (but I lack of any knowledge what else the Kindle app does to save battery life).

Grasshopper15
03-16-2018, 18:04
On my Nexus 6 P pdf files are downloaded in to settings/storage/files/download folder. And they are directly readable from there. Hope that helps.

Zed
03-16-2018, 18:55
EzPDFReader has a night mode to invert the display.

rickb
03-16-2018, 19:01
Kindle is a non starter?

DownEaster
03-16-2018, 19:28
Kindle is a non starter?
I'd say so, yes. On PDFs Kindle reverts to full-page display on every page change, which means if I want to read anything with details I have to do the expand "reverse pinch" on the touch screen a zillion times. Kindle is designed to work with e-book formats where it determines the size of the page. On files with predetermined pages it's just a pain in the neck.

AllDownhillFromHere
03-16-2018, 21:44
Sorry, couldn't read the answer out of the linked superuser thread.
Android has an inverted display option, but it did not help the real problem, but actually made reading worse. Lots of display problems in that setting.
I'm not so sure about battery saving WRT display technology. My Sony doesn't have an OLED, but can run the Kindle app set to inverted display mode for many days. It definitely does save lots of battery (but I lack of any knowledge what else the Kindle app does to save battery life).

Basically you need a copy of ghostscript and ImageMagick, and the guy in the superuser thread provided a recipe where you get inverted-yet-greyscale versions of the maps. You have to prerender all the maps that way, so it would be double the storage, but they look like this:
https://flic.kr/p/22tUaVU

Leo L.
03-17-2018, 03:37
Thanks, looks good!
Would be quite some work to convert all files though.

This is no straight answer to the original question, but honestly I'm really happy with the Kindle system.
Works really great on the Kindle Reader as well as on the Smartphone (and the synchronisation between both devices), and I can easily get new books anytime I have a signal. Perfect for travelling (hiking included).