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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: runequester on April 06, 2011, 06:54:46 AM

Title: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: runequester on April 06, 2011, 06:54:46 AM: Are there any fundamental reasons a more modern / compatible PDF viewer than Apdf (or an update of such) could not be made?

Basically, I am wondering if it'd be worth trying to pursue some sort of bounty for this, if programming talent could be unearthed, but I don't want to waste time dreaming, if there's some inherent reason it wouldn't be possible at all.
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: Darrin on April 06, 2011, 06:58:39 AM: What's the legal status of PDF viewers and creaters these days? Once upon a time you couldn't go near a PDF with anything other than official Adobe software for fear of getting your arse whacked, but now there are free PDF writers available for download (I use "PrimoPDF" on my PC)?
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: Gulliver on April 06, 2011, 07:21:49 AM: The best PDF viewer on Classics is IMHO, EasyGS from AmigaKit (It is freeware).
It requires you to have GhostScript for Classics.

EasyGS can be downloaded from http://shop.amigakit.com/easygs/EasyGS.lha
GhostScript 8.70 can be downloaded from http://www.whoosh777.com/
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: runequester on April 06, 2011, 07:23:15 AM: I had tried setting up ghostscript but I think I jacked it up, as it crashes without mercy. I'll give it a shot.

How compatible does it get?
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: Gulliver on April 06, 2011, 07:26:40 AM: It is less resource hungry than Apdf and does its job pretty decently on an Amiga with no RTG.

BTW, Installing GhostScript is a pain in the butt due to the not so clear website page layout of whoosh. But once done, it does it job pretty well. At least I had no crashes :)
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: runequester on April 06, 2011, 08:09:23 AM: yeah, I think I'll have to print this out and go over it step by step :)

That might be for tomorrow though
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: fishy_fiz on April 06, 2011, 10:02:03 AM: The best option OS3.x users have for a more modern PDF viewer would be a port of AROSPDF (which is open source)
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: amigakit on April 06, 2011, 10:32:10 AM: If there is a demand for it, I will release a new version of EasyGS (http://shop.amigakit.com/easygs/EasyGS.lha) package with a few new features that have been added in the last year.

I just haven't yet go around to testing it due to work on other projects.
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: mfilos on April 06, 2011, 11:04:54 AM: That would be awesome Mat!

Cheers
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: Gulliver on April 06, 2011, 01:04:04 PM: Quote from: amigakit;628960
If there is a demand for it, I will release a new version of EasyGS (http://shop.amigakit.com/easygs/EasyGS.lha) package with a few new features that have been added in the last year.

I just haven't yet go around to testing it due to work on other projects.

Please do it!
And thank you for making this program available for everyone. :)
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: Amiga_Nut on April 06, 2011, 01:05:03 PM: Quote from: Darrin;628906
What's the legal status of PDF viewers and creaters these days? Once upon a time you couldn't go near a PDF with anything other than official Adobe software for fear of getting your arse whacked, but now there are free PDF writers available for download (I use "PrimoPDF" on my PC)?

Pain in the ass that thing, I dump my page scans into it and it rotates them 90 degrees BEFORE creating the PDF out of all the pages hmmmm
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: Darrin on April 06, 2011, 01:34:06 PM: Quote from: Amiga_Nut;628997
Pain in the ass that thing, I dump my page scans into it and it rotates them 90 degrees BEFORE creating the PDF out of all the pages hmmmm

Have you updated it recently? I've never had a problem with it. I just "print" PDFs to my desktop with it. For scans I use the supplied software from HP and Canon.
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: Amiga_Nut on April 06, 2011, 01:56:09 PM: Quote from: Darrin;629004
Have you updated it recently? I've never had a problem with it. I just "print" PDFs to my desktop with it. For scans I use the supplied software from HP and Canon.

Ooof HP printer drivers are horrible, once the ink tanks went dry I binned the printer/scanner (scanner lasted 80 pages!)

Well documents are fine but for some reason my Win 7 PC just rotates the images 90 degrees to the left after you highlight them and send them to Primo PDF. Latest version but this is the fastest PC I have so might have to piss about with an XP install.
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: Darrin on April 06, 2011, 02:02:53 PM: Quote from: Amiga_Nut;629016
Ooof HP printer drivers are horrible, once the ink tanks went dry I binned the printer/scanner (scanner lasted 80 pages!)

Well documents are fine but for some reason my Win 7 PC just rotates the images 90 degrees to the left after you highlight them and send them to Primo PDF. Latest version but this is the fastest PC I have so might have to piss about with an XP install.

I went through a week of hell last month when HP's automatic update installed a new driver for my All-In-One wireless printer and then Windows could no longer keep connected to it long enough to print. HP blamed Windows 7 for the issue, but it worked perfectly for 8 months using the old driver. Our rigs use HP printers and several of them had the same issue. Don't these buggers test their updates before inflicting them on the public?

Eventually a new patch came out and fixed it (granted it was a Microsoft patch).
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: runequester on April 06, 2011, 05:20:22 PM: Quote from: amigakit;628960
If there is a demand for it, I will release a new version of EasyGS (http://shop.amigakit.com/easygs/EasyGS.lha) package with a few new features that have been added in the last year.

I just haven't yet go around to testing it due to work on other projects.

There's demand from me at least :)
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: mongo on April 06, 2011, 06:21:44 PM: Quote from: Darrin;628906
What's the legal status of PDF viewers and creaters these days? Once upon a time you couldn't go near a PDF with anything other than official Adobe software for fear of getting your arse whacked, but now there are free PDF writers available for download (I use "PrimoPDF" on my PC)?

PDF is an open standard now.
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: Hattig on April 06, 2011, 06:55:18 PM: Yup. Here's the specification of ISO32000-1 that anyone can implement: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html

If you want to see an example implementation, then you could download PDFClown (Java or .NET) and take a look.

Creating a user interface around it is the tough part.
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: amigakit on April 02, 2020, 11:15:57 PM: Hi All

I know it has been a while (almost a decade!), but if there is still demand for an upgrade to EasyGS (http://amigakit.amiga.store/easygs/easygs.lha), I can take a look at it again.
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: sean_sk on April 03, 2020, 01:07:16 PM: Yes please. Most PDF viewers I have tried for AOS3 are pretty much out of date and lacking.
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: pVC on April 03, 2020, 07:57:45 PM: Have you tried RNOPDF (http://aminet.net/package/gfx/show/RNOPDF_OS3)?
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: sean_sk on April 03, 2020, 09:36:57 PM: Quote from: pVC on April 03, 2020, 07:57:45 PM
Have you tried RNOPDF (http://aminet.net/package/gfx/show/RNOPDF_OS3)?

Yep. But unfortunately it's slow to load documents, even on a vampirized machine, and docs will often load incomplete. I can tolerate the long load times, but it's frustrating when it just completely stalls when trying to go to the next page.
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: 10MARC on April 04, 2020, 08:15:58 AM: My 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast this weekend is all about PDF files on the Amiga, and Amigakits EasyGS is one of the featured products. I would love to see a more powerful front end for opening PDF files on the Amiga.
Take a peek at the video this weekend and then we can all give Amiga Kit awesome ideas for what we want from a PDF viewer.

And now the video is out! Take a look at the cool PDF options!

https://youtu.be/IJXbuUivs08
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: pVC on April 04, 2020, 11:01:37 AM: Quote from: sean_sk on April 03, 2020, 09:36:57 PM
Quote from: pVC on April 03, 2020, 07:57:45 PM
Have you tried RNOPDF (http://aminet.net/package/gfx/show/RNOPDF_OS3)?

Yep. But unfortunately it's slow to load documents, even on a vampirized machine, and docs will often load incomplete. I can tolerate the long load times, but it's frustrating when it just completely stalls when trying to go to the next page.
Oh, never heard that. I assumed it would work pretty well on Vampires. It may stall if you run out of memory, but hmm.. how much RAM and graphics memory do you have on your setup? Does it help if you disable the "Preload next page" option from the Settings menu? Maybe launch the program without loading any document before trying to set that option, and load a PDF file after that?
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: CMTX on April 05, 2020, 02:17:55 AM: I also use RNOpdf in Vamp, it works fine for me (Is slow on large documents, but i think this is to be expected due to limited cpu power?) except for one detail, when view mode is set to fullscreen and then i zoom into the document, when the document comes back to its normal size the zoomed document still shows (freezed in the last position) in the borders of the screen. I don't know if I explained the issue very well, my english is limited :)

Best regards and thanks for this up to date pdf reader btw
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: pVC on April 06, 2020, 05:52:21 PM: Quote from: CMTX on April 05, 2020, 02:17:55 AM
I also use RNOpdf in Vamp, it works fine for me (Is slow on large documents, but i think this is to be expected due to limited cpu power?) except for one detail, when view mode is set to fullscreen and then i zoom into the document, when the document comes back to its normal size the zoomed document still shows (freezed in the last position) in the borders of the screen. I don't know if I explained the issue very well, my english is limited :)
Yeah, this is quite CPU intensive stuff, some PDF files can be slowish even on PPC.

The program still works otherwise but some leftover graphics on borders after zooming? I'll have to test more with slower systems if I can reproduce it... never seen that on my main setup at least.
Title: Re: Better PDF viewer for classic amiga's. Possible?
Post by: my_pc_is_amiga on April 11, 2020, 01:33:52 AM: Can the AmiPDF reader from OS4 and I believe there is a newer version on the Enhancer Pack for 4.x be ported to the 3.x Enhancer Pack?