Programs for iPad: GoodReader: waste paper in the house will be less

Reading PDF on the small screen - it's weird

I'm always amazed people trying to read the PDF-files, and even scans of magazines on the tiny screen of portable devices. It is natural that in his time and he was trying to join this occupation, but quickly realized that even convenient for scrolling iPhone finger this is not an assistant. Pointing fingers to the screen holes, trying to read the article in a PDF are not "breaking the eye" - is not for the faint of heart, and function pulling text from the document and convert it for easy reading (called Text Reflow) is not always It helps. Especially when working with the same scanned magazines is useless. Although this is only my personal opinion, and many of the familiar happy to use iPhone for reading large PDF-files. As for the software for this case, it is usually the choice falls on GoodReader. In addition, it is one of the first PDF-reader adapted for the iPad, and for him I would like to talk about in this article.

iPad and the new interface GoodReader

Well, the 9.7-inch iPad display with a resolution of 1024x768 pixels - this is not 3.5 inches and 320x480 pixels. Already it is possible to talk about reading a PDF with real comfort, especially if you use the tablet in landscape mode. In terms of functionality GoodReader for iPad virtually identical to the version for the iPhone, except that all the additional modules are included, while in the phone's options they need to buy more. The annex was seriously modified and adapted to the larger diagonal display interface that looks good in either a horizontal or vertical orientation.

The left side of the screen is the browser with the available files and folders on the right - the preview window, or any other work items, depending on the selected menu item. Among them:

• search for files by name, date of opening, adding to the collection and review of these documents;
• work with files and folders (also includes content protection option password);
• downloading files from the Internet (has its own web browser);
• Connection to local or remote servers to download the documents.

In the bottom right of the screen there is a small panel with additional options, including access to the iPad photo album menu button to activate HTTP-server (you can and connected via Bonjour), menu, application settings and its individual modules, access to online help section and the lock button automatic reversal screen.

Functionality and

Before talking about the functionality of the program I want to note opportunities for the delivery of content in it. You can run on iPad HTTP-server and load the file via a web interface, to connect using the FTP-client of any, for example, Cyberduck, via Bonjour protocol to download files from the web or through the iTunes interface in the program section iPad. The latter method is the fastest in terms of loading large amounts of content at once, but it requires a wired connection, and there is the opportunity to work with folders. Create them and move the files to have in the program, although the process is not difficult and quite fast. Working through the FTP-client directory tree can be formed very directly on PC or Mac, but in this case, the download speed will not be very high (in my case about 1 MB / s).

The name of the application reflects its essence. GoodReader can read not only PDF files, but also a number of others, including media content. They were tested MS Office documents and iWorks, MP3 music files and video MP4, text in TXT format and web archive Safari (HTML is supported too). All of them were opened without any problems. Among the features I note that the music player is designed as a small window, the movie is set to full screen, and thus use the opportunity to play and player iPhone OS (though, the movie plays in a small window Preview). Excel document with a huge bunch of pages and giant list opens for a long time, up to 30 seconds, but after the discovery of any slowdown was observed, the table is easily scaled, open the page fast. Word Documents and Pages opened almost instantly, as well as a text file, only the latter have to specify the correct text encoding. Web Archive also load faster, and zooming on the page works just like in Safari. Excellent opens a JPEG image file at 1920x1200 pixels, which then can be saved on the iPad photo album, if desired.

I should add that the application is well integrated into the operating system and can open attachments to emails, which is also important. GoodReader file with an unknown extension is proposed to open with a few built-in modules, suddenly some of them a ride. Unfortunately, comics, packed in a CBR, the program does not understand, but the attempt was not torture.

Work with PDF

Despite the opportunities GoodReader, for me remains the main PDF reader function. Large multi-megabyte documents (50-200 MB), including scans of magazines, opened fairly quickly, in just a few seconds. The same second or two and drop off at the transition to the next page. Not very quickly compared to some competitors, such as free BookmanBut last in terms of functionality and even work with PDF and sloppy in GoodReader. There is not the possibility of a normal zoom documents or functions work with bookmarks, and if the latter are not so important, the lack of zoom function kills the app on the vine. In GoodReader with it all right. You can manually resize the famous gesture of two fingers - this is not as smooth as in Safari, but in general more or less convenient. And it is possible a couple of times tapnut in portrait or landscape mode, and the document is automatically adjusted to the screen size. Tap with two fingers again will return the page to its previous size.

A single tap on the screen with one finger raises or hides the menu viewer PDF-fayov. Among the options is, switching to day and night mode (night brightness is greatly reduced), move to a specific page (you can and use the slider on the right side of the screen), working with tabs, activate Text Reflow (extraction of text from the document and converts it to a more convenient reading), rapid scaling, lock horizontal scrolling and lock function automatically turning the image depending on the position in the gadget space.

Navigating through a PDF-document is performed with either a simple finger scroll or tap through the zone, to work with which is very convenient. This makes it easy to move the screen up, down, left or right. Particularly well-tap zones proven scans when viewing logs in landscape mode.

Also compared the quality of the so to say "pirate" scanned magazines and official paid editions in PDF format. The first image enlarged fragment of the scanned pages of one of the old rooms, "fantasy world", on the second - a fragment of a purchased magazine "Home PC" to PDF. The difference is visible to the naked eye.

It is a pity that there are not many publications practice issue electronic copies of their magazines, simultaneously with the paper. Possessing such a tool as the iPad with the appropriate software on the paper can be easily forgotten, and save too. A paper version and is more expensive, and in my city on layouts traders often also a good wind the excess of the recommended amount. PDF-is purchased from the publisher directly, without intermediaries tricky.
A small fly in the ointment

Unfortunately, ideal products do not exist, and that with respect to GoodReader. About not very smooth zoom I mentioned, although automatic adjustment under the page size in this case helps. Sometimes it closes the application for no apparent reason while watching a particularly heavy PDF. On some pages, the program also flew commercial PDF (however, these pages just a couple for more than hundred normally open), and if they pass and move immediately to the next - it was possible to watch magazine further. When viewing these files on your PC no problems have been encountered. That is, we wait further development by the application developer.

Eventually

At a cost of $ 1 GoodReader can be attributed to the «Must Have» Programs category for iPad users. It allows you to not only enjoy the comfortable reading large PDF-files, but is also the perfect companion for working with attachments in emails may act As an application for reading e-books in TXT (although iBooks coupled with EPUB will be more pleasant) and to export certain image tool album. What else I would like to, so it's support for the most common formats and CBR comic CBZ, which are actually only files with JPEG-images. Hopefully in the future this functionality in GoodReader also appear.