Reading Wowio’s free books (and other PDFs) on a PDA
PDF is a horror on PDAs and other handhelds in most cases—given the lack of reflowability. You may find yourself scrolling from left to right, for example, if the file isn’t tagged for PDA reading or otherwise tweaked.
As much as I hate PDF, however, I want to read free copyrighted books from Wowio, as well as other publications in that horrid format. Now I may have found an almost satisfactory workaround, at least for nonDRMed titles (see more details later on). It’s actually a product, Documents to Go Premium, Version 8, available for $29.99 as an upgrade of the DTG that came bundled with my Palm TX. At various prices, DTG comes in versions not just for Palm OS machines but also Symbian devices (I’m not sure about Windows Mobile). Yes, this is for cellphone users as well as us PDA types.
Word wrap: An awesome positive
DTG’s awesome positive is that at least on a test book, Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., the reading software managed to do word wrap not just when I was in the TX’s landscape mode but also the portrait one. And the text was sharp and, with a quick adjustment, easily large enough to see. There is a price, however. At least on the Palm TX, you have to wait several seconds between pages, as defined in the original text, and of course there is another expense—the $29.99 upgrade cost.
So, no, I’m not exactly going to turn into a raving PDF booster, especially since I doubt that DTG will work on DRMed books from major publishers. Still, DTG strikes me as one way for PDA and cellphone fans to cope with the challenges of PDF. Moreover, it lets you read Word and other Office programs on your mobile device and won a thumbs-up from the Wall Street Journal’s gizmo reviewer, Walt Mossberg—even before improvements such as the PDF capability.
DRM details: On DataViz’s site, there is an encryption reference here. Still, a DataViz page doesn’t specifically mention e-books. What’s more, I struck out when I tried DTG on the DRMed edition of Beach Music from the Fairfax County Public Library. Oh, the fun of the Tower of eBabel. This is what happens when Adobe controls DRM for the PDF format. We’ll never have true e-book standards unless they encompass DRM–through a standard system or seamless interoperability–rather than just core formats.
Question: How are you reading PDFs on your handheld? What’s more, if you want to compare notes about DTG but aren’t running it already, trial versions are available from DataViz.
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