Talk:Read

The screenshot (the sharks page) has a typo in it -- "it's" should be "its".

It looks like the content was originally taken from this page about sharks, although I can't find information there for the other animals mentioned in the screenshots, so I assume that it's just a mock-up and isn't something that ships with the laptops. —Joe 12:28, 21 October 2007 (EDT)

Downloading

The following anonymous question was posted on another page. —Joe 10:50, 20 January 2008 (EST)

Read seems to be missing from "preinstalled" activities. How do I retrieve a U.S. English version?

Feature Requests

please make it read other formats as well...I don't think it's very useful to read plain text and html books in the web browser and pdf in the Read activity...and also, it really needs a page up/page down setting on one of the game buttons...scrolling line by line isn't really comfortable in ebook mode... 62.47.162.246

More formats are on the drawing board, and you can press the 'x' game key to skip to the next 'page' of text.

The Read Etexts activity can read plain text files.

I hate to mention this format, because I find it gross, but: multi-page TIFF. This is commonly used for scanned books. TIFF is crummy for most things, but actually does a damn fine job for high-resolution black-and-white text when using the Group 4 (T.6) two-dimensional fax encoding. AlbertCahalan 00:59, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

A sequence of JPG's would also be useful as this is a fairly standard format for comics and other, more visual, scanned works.

The View Slides activity can do both of these formats if the files are stored in a Zip file.

ability to write on a pdf or type comments and save it

Hello. I would like to suggest a feature that "remembers" the user's last-read document page number. The next time the user opens the document, the page view will "jump" to the last viewed page. This feature exists on the Apple Newton, and it is quite handy.

Read already does this in the joyride build, and will be part of Update.1

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Hi, There is a message on the article saying that read can ONLY read PDFs and not rtf/txt/html. Is this still the case? I think the #1 feature would be the ability to open txt (at the very least) so that public e-texts (from Gutenberg and others) will be available. So that's my biggest feature request.

See the Read Etexts activity.

Other feature requests:

1. A way to select and save portions of text to a clippings file for later review... and ideally I'd be able to grab portions of that clipping file easily when working in Write.
2. A way to annotate or create a margin note, then later review a list of my margin notes and underlined text...
3. A really quick and easy way to increase the font size while reading. Maybe even while in ebook mode.
4. It is unclear to me how I would access files stored on an SD card in Read. Does Read have an "open" function?

--Beagley 12:01, 13 December 2007 (EST)

The "clippings file" feature is already supported. Copy text to the clipboard, then save the text to the Journal. The "View" menu lets you zoom in on the document.

I only managed to read PDF files with it, on Suguar build 650, using File:Read-32.xo, and couldn't open txt, rtf, etc. I'm not sure if it is supposed to be able to, so I wrote "it can currently open PDF files", as this seemed the most accurate user experience at the moment... Also, the Write activity can open rtf and txt I think. --Tomhannen 12:19, 13 December 2007 (EST)

Regarding point 4 above - I think you would access the SD card from the Journal (it would appear as an icon in the bottom of the frame), and then choose a PDF to read. --Tomhannen 01:26, 19 December 2007 (EST)

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Feature Request - the ability to open password protected PDF files

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Anyone else having trouble reading pdfs? When I tried, I got an inordinately long-lived "Loading" message on each page. Even when they loaded they often reverted back to the blank "Loading" page. Tips to get around this would be appreciated. --Gusandrews 12:56, 26 February 2008 (EST)

There is a problem with the Journal activity that prevents activites from being able to load large files (over 15 mb or so). You can correct this by getting a developer key and updating the OS.

Implementation Discussion

Uses the Evince document viewer to render ebooks.

Document Limitations??

Are there file size, memory allocation, PDF version or other known limitations to the PDF read functionality?

Both large PDF files I'm using in a college course downloaded ok but did not display properly. The 17x11 textbook chapter (two-up layout - 14 double-width pages) crashed the viewer when I tried to scroll to page two at 200% magnification.

The other (WM 66pages)displayed the cover image and page footers, but said "loading" on the other pages for a half hour.

Chapter 3a, Inside Reporting by Tim Harrower 2.2mb

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0073526142/363043/Chapter3a.pdf

We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information 3.2 mb http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/download/we_media.pdf

Give them a try...Robby 23:34, 26 January 2008 (EST)

I tried both on the latest Release Candidate for Update.1 (future update) build, and neither crashed at 200% and showed correctly, if a bit slugish. HoboPrimate 09:30, 27 January 2008 (EST)

Thanks! That's good news. I think it still would be a good idea to document any size or format requirements, especially for Library developers collecting documents. (Pointer to that update or its release date?) Robby 12:59, 27 January 2008 (EST)

This Roadmap gives some info on the changes of update.1, and I'm sure once it is released there will be release notes for users. As for downloading it, you'll need to request a developer key (open Browse, and click "About your XO" to find the link) and then use olpc-update.HoboPrimate 21:46, 31 January 2008 (EST)