[erasef301]

I have an iPad and routinely download PDF files (tech magazines mainly). I use the iPad app "GoodReader" to download the PDF as well as read it.

Today I tried downloading a PDF file from the website www.storemags.com on my Pre2. This was the first time I tried downloading a PDF on my Pre 2. To my disappointment the grey download box showed up on my Pre 2, but the file never downloaded.

My questions are this (and there may be no answers yet)...

1.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre using Forums

[erasef301]

1. Will the touchpad be able to download PDF files? If so, will this be done in the browser or through an app like iPad's good reader?

2. Does the touchpad improve on the PDF functionality of the Pre? If so, can you turn pages using a swipe motion, or do you have to use the arrows as you do on the Pre?

Thanks

-- Sent from my Palm Pre using Forums

[woodmaster]

webOS is certainly able to download PDF's...I do it all the time. Did u click on the download bubble after it finished loading? If not try again and do so. That is all u should have to do.

[erasef301]

Well, I discovered why the pdf wouldn't download. I was on wifi and the speed was less than 1mbs. I re-set my router and it downloaded fine.

However, after the file downloaded I clicked on the grey balloon box at the bottom of my Pre's screen. It wouldn't open and instead said file not supported.

Can someone try and download a PDF magazine from www.storemags.com and let me know how they got it to work? Please note many of these magazines are 18+ only.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre using Forums

[abegee]

if you must sign-in the pre can't download pdf's from the site

[erasef301]

if you must sign-in the pre can't download pdf's from the site

Try a US Weekly. It's free and does not require a login.

I wish this would work because I use this on my iPad all the time... Would rather have a touchpad though.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre using Forums

[ToniCipriani]

Open the file with the PDF reader, then in the menu tap Save As. It'll be in the downloads folder on the internal drive. If it doesn't open then that's different.

[Sapient2k7]

PRe- does not have great support for PDF files. It opens a lot of them but for some it struggles. I think it may be tied to the amount of memory available as my iPAD1 with goodreader struggles with big files too. I have >4 programs on my ipad to read PDF files alone and while a majority of them open in good reader (my fav) it becomes a hassle trying to find another app to open if good reader fails. QuickOffice works better.

Touchpad should not have any of these issues. I tried one in BestBuy and while it was able to load a pdf file with 1300 pages fine, navigation was a pain. Adobe app lacks features e.g. no find in page or jump to which makes reading a real pain. I believe QuickOffice version may be better (it is included free with every touchpad) but I did not get a chance to try it out.

[Sapient2k7]

I found this article that shows PDF capability on the Touchpad.

HP TouchPad Vs. iPad 2 In PDF Smackdown Test | Mike Cane's xBlog

For the record while thumbnails of each page worked when I checked out touchpad at my local bestbuy, it is still no substitute to actual "Jump to page number" option.

[Abyssul]

I just pulled up the WebOS 3.0 emulator, and went to a download site for the US Weekly PDFs. I downloaded the PDF from a mirror link (depositfiles.com) where the file began downloading. The 3.0 emulator doesn't have a pdf reader so it wouldn't load.

I never ran into problems with my Pre for PDF downloading either. The PDF viewer sucked, but I could always download the file.

[AeroJim]

I downloaded the TouchPad user's guide from the HP site. It saved on the TP and shows in the list of documents for both the Adobe App and Quick Office. Until I saw this forum, I hadn't put it through any paces...
I went to a couple of random sites (Rhino 3D, and the FAA regulatory and guidance library). Downloaded a users guide and an FAA advisory circular (awesome!)
Both showed up in the Adobe reader app list of documents, and both loaded fine.

The reader needs a little help. The text isn't re-rendered on zoom, so it's not very crisp at higher mags. Embedded bitmaps look ok, but same issue. You can scroll to the next page, but you have to drag most of the way up the screen to get it to jump to the next page. I'd rather flick to the next/prev page using a right or left motion like turning a book page. I'd also like to be able to smooth scroll to the next page up and down, rather than have it 'jump' up or down when scrolling page to page. This may be a feature of how the PDF is created... I'll test it out with some custom PDFs when I get a chance.

Thanks for this thread! I learned a lot that I'll be able to use at work right away!

[clevin]

The reader needs a little help. The text isn't re-rendered on zoom, so it's not very crisp at higher mags. Embedded bitmaps look ok, but same issue.

Is quickoffice handling zooming better?
---
galaxy tab tapatalk

[4ogba]

How do you transfer PDF document in the computer to the touch pad. I did copy and past but it is not viewable on the touch pap.

[AeroJim]

Is quickoffice handling zooming better?
---
galaxy tab tapatalk

Just tried it and oh yeah, QO has MUCH better text scaling, impressively so (10 pt type max zoomed to about 24 pt with barely any edge blur or aliasing). Bitmaps look better too. One issue, QO won't recognize RTF files.

I e-mailed myself a doc, docx, and rtf file. The email app recognized all of them as "word" files (the "W" icon). I tapped and held on each attachment to save them. The QO document list didn't show the rtf file. I tried to open the rtf from e-mail. QO started, but all I got was a blank window (all white, and the QO menu didn't respond). I think i'm going to try some other files and post this in another thread.

UPDATE:
I ran some test documents through Quick Office:
1 - QO does not recognize rtf or csv files, but WebOS does, and assigns them the appropriate icon and allows you to save them to the TP.
2 - Office 97-2003 versions of Word and Powerpoint documents preserve more content, image cropping, rotations, etc than 2007-2010 versions. Powerpoint was pretty bad, the pptx file saved all the cropped data, but QO didn't apply the cropping, it just stretch/shrunk the image to fit the assigned size, so annotations (arrows and markings) pointed to the wrong portion of an image.
3 - Excel files don't zoom out very far... It appears to be limited to about 7 columns by 16 rows. It will allow you to see a cells equation when selected.

In general, QO is a bit slow on dragging, page rendering, zooming. This seems to get better the longer a document is open, so I think its cache related within QO. Document quality was good, font conversion was more or less limited to serif or san serif, but bold, italic, super and sub scripting, strikethrough, and colors were well preserved. Line feeds were not converted, but paragraphs, line spacing, lists, headings, outline numbering, and bullets looked good. Word graphic elements and equations did not come through at all.

It's a good "out of the box" solution for office documents, and better than my blackberry,but I need better performance before I buy the full version (when available).

[AeroJim]

How do you transfer PDF document in the computer to the touch pad. I did copy and past but it is not viewable on the touch pap.

I've been e-mailing files to my TP... I've heard that others have had issues using USB to transfer files/pictures/music... Seems to be a problem with knowing where to put the data and possibly having to reboot.

From your PC/mac, e-mail a PDF (or other file type) to yourself (to an account that's setup on your TP). From e-mail on your TP, open the e-mail with the attachment(s), tap and hold the attachment until the menu pops up and select save attachment to save it to your TP. The saved PDF will appear in your list of documents when you open Adobe reader or QuickOffice.
If you e-mailed a bunch of attachments, tap the attachment line once to see the files listed individually, and then download each one separately as above.

[ToniCipriani]

PRe- does not have great support for PDF files. It opens a lot of them but for some it struggles. I think it may be tied to the amount of memory available as my iPAD1 with goodreader struggles with big files too. I have >4 programs on my ipad to read PDF files alone and while a majority of them open in good reader (my fav) it becomes a hassle trying to find another app to open if good reader fails. QuickOffice works better.

Touchpad should not have any of these issues. I tried one in BestBuy and while it was able to load a pdf file with 1300 pages fine, navigation was a pain. Adobe app lacks features e.g. no find in page or jump to which makes reading a real pain. I believe QuickOffice version may be better (it is included free with every touchpad) but I did not get a chance to try it out.

It's definitely not memory, but rather the PostScript renderer.

I have TEXT files (more precisely, receipts from my ISP), that don't open neither on my Pre, Pre Plus nor Veer.

I recall someone actually looked deeper and actually caught the renderer error in detail.

[AeroJim]

Posted a new thread: "Quickoffice Stuff" in Touchpad Apps. First post has a starter overview list of features/limitations. Need help fleshing it out... Thanks!

[axthereo]

When I was testing the TP at the store, I was wondering the same. When I went to a pdf link, tapped it, it downloaded the pdf and a right side panel appeared showing the download progress. When completed, tapped it again and the PDF opened. Same with power pptx files (power point). It was associated to QuickOffice, being the app that controls the viewing of the documents.

If the PDF isn't hi-res, and you zoom in, it looks pixelated, and fuzzy. The pptx file was jittery, and lagged some. And instead of sliding left to right for a new slide, you slide through the screens up and down. QuickOffice didn't feel as responsive compared to the version I've used on the iPAD v1 and 2. But those are full editing releases... so I am hoping the performance will be better when the full release comes out.

[mkroll]

How do you transfer PDF document in the computer to the touch pad. I did copy and past but it is not viewable on the touch pap.

I had this same issue, after a reboot of the touchpad the copied files were all visible.

[mdwy62]

Some sites seem to supply a "download.php" file. Changing the extension to pdf allows me to open (read) the file I downloaded with my Touchpad. The browser put it in /media/internal/downloads. I changed the name with the Gemini File Manager.