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Ask HN: How do you read long PDFs?

82 points| jvilalta | 5 years ago

I tend to prefer to read PDF files on a regular monitor, but moving up and down a page is wonky and most readers don't save your place on the document. Also, sometimes the font is too small when you fit to page and fit to width suffers from paging up and down that doesn't take into account the last visible line.

I'd like to hear what you do to read long PDF files, like one of the Springer textbooks. Do you use any readers that support bookmarking and/or note taking and sane pagination? I'm wondering if there is a reader that offers an experience comparable to the experience of reading an ebook on a device like a kindle.

105 comments

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[+] eigenvalue|5 years ago|reply
Best I’ve found is to read PDFs on an iPad Pro using an app such as IAnnotate. Instead of scrolling, I display one page at a time in portrait orientation, and then you can swipe to flip the pages. Highlighting, underlining, and short notes are quick andeasy. You can keep all the documents in Dropbox for convenient synchronizing of notes.
[+] aasasd|5 years ago|reply
A great illustration of how, to read PDFs, you need a letter-size medium (14", usually portrait).

Anyone reading PDFs on a regular monitor should ask themselves why they're putting a portrait peg in a landscape hole.

[+] jcpst|5 years ago|reply
If it’s long and dense material, I print it. Especially if I’m taking notes. Double-sided, three-ring hole punch, put in a binder.

If it’s not worth going through that effort, then I either don’t read it or I’m scanning it for information.

[+] pugio|5 years ago|reply
I use Polar Bookshelf (getpolarized.io). It has nice, exportable, annotations as well as incremental reading and spaced repetition (via Anki) support. It's still a bit rough around the edges, but it has a very active pace of development and is open source.

It's not perfect yet, but it's the closest thing I've seen that has a chance of getting there.

[+] john4532452|5 years ago|reply
Anyone spending a lot of time on pdf's should definitely checkout emacs pdf-tools mode https://github.com/politza/pdf-tools . In the past i was recommending polar app, but emacs pdf-tools trumps in comparison. Emacs pdf-tools mode has lesser memory footprint is much faster and above all does not have restrict any features.
[+] harperlee|5 years ago|reply
Unless I happen to use Windows, where emacs is very slow for me to use comfortably.
[+] immy|5 years ago|reply
Speaking from friends opinions, reMarkable tablet is the way to go for folx often working with PDFs. Great annotation and highlighting. E-ink display. https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable
[+] Libbum|5 years ago|reply
I wouldn't recommend this. PDF support is horrible, particularly if you have a two column layout file. You cannot correctly zoom in far enough in most cases - in the sense that zoom is possible, just absolutely impractical. Without that, you generally need a magnifying glass to read the text on the display.

Very nice hardware, just awful software.

[+] microbass|5 years ago|reply
Is there any way to get files onto it, besides their cloud service?
[+] cosmie|5 years ago|reply
As others have mentioned, a vertical monitor helps.

I use one of these[1] as a second monitor, as I was able to get a surplus one from work for ~$30. The stand it comes with has a 90° swivel, allowing you to rotate it from landscape to portrait orientation (the product images on that page show it in that orientation). It's fantastic for keeping up any long-text materials I need to reference (docs, PDFs, email, spreadsheets, etc). I also use Magnet[2] to make it easy to divide the screen into thirds or halves when I don't need any references up and want to use things that work better in a more standard landscape orientation.

If you want to use a monitor that doesn't have standard support for swiveling, you can get an after-market VESA mount such as this[3] one which supports it. The key to look for on product pages is Swivel being listed in the specs, with a Swivel Range of at least 90° being what's needed to turn it from landscape to portrait mode.

[1] https://www.dell.com/hr/business/p/dell-p2217h-monitor/pd

[2] https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/

[3] https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=5402

[+] jvilalta|5 years ago|reply
Thanks for the idea of an after-market swivel. Am going to try this out.
[+] jay-aye-see-key|5 years ago|reply
If you like keyboard centred applications I can't recommend zathura enough, visually it's very minimal with no buttons, definitely not everyone's style.

It supports vim like marks, and powerful movements to manage a lot of pages in a reasonably sane way. My favourite feature is it maintains a jump list so pressing ctrl-o after following a link takes you back to the link.

https://pwmt.org/projects/zathura/

[+] rffn|5 years ago|reply
Last time I checked Zathura did not support annotations. This is too bad. It would be a nice program otherwise for reading. I need annotations though.
[+] leephillips|5 years ago|reply
Also, it remembers where you were last time you read the document; one of the poster's requirements.
[+] onyva|5 years ago|reply
I read and annotate in Emacs mostly, using pdftools + org-noter.

Specifically org-noter can synchronize its buffers with the pdf you’re reading. It’ll also create a skeleton from an outline, if available in the PDF, and even extract highlights and notes in for you. It’s really quite useful tool.

On iOS I read and annotate using PSPDFKit’s PDF viewer, which is incredibly featurefull in the free version, but even more so with subscription (too expensive IMHO).

One nice feature it has, for readers of Hebrew and Arabic, is flipping the edge to right or left. Also editing meta data etc.

In respect to your question, also keeping position in file, bookmarks etc and it uses iOS’s file picker, so you can store your PDFs anywhere accessible (for me on Nextbloud WebDAV share).

[+] feifan|5 years ago|reply
A monitor arm with rotation support helps with this! Useful if you're planning to have a long read session, since there is a bit of setup cost (physically rotating the screen and then updating your OS's display settings).

An iPad and an app like GoodNotes or LiquidText is a great alternative.

[+] gnicholas|5 years ago|reply
You can convert PDFs to epub, which would allow you to use a reader that supports text resizing/reflow and automatic bookmarking. I use the SensusAccess converter,[1] which seems to be free for personal use.

I also use the BeeLine Reader PDF extension for Chrome,[2] which helps make long documents easier to read. But I'm probably biased, since I'm the founder :)

1: https://sensusaccess.com/convert-a-file

2: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader-pdf...

[+] dunefox|5 years ago|reply
How well does the conversion work for arbitrary pdf files?
[+] D13Fd|5 years ago|reply
PDF Expert for Mac and iOS is excellent. Really nice UI, great annotation, good performance on big PDFs.

It doesn’t save your place, but the bookmark interface works well enough for that.

It’s a native app on both OSes.

[+] yummypaint|5 years ago|reply
I find a vertically oriented monitor to be a big improvement. A full page fits nicely without scrolling, and i prefer the narrower width for quick reading. Ill sometimes set my laptop on a table sideways when traveling. I also set the color temperature to ~1300K, about as low as i can stand. When i read physical books i usually just need a single bookmark or finger to help jump between sections quickly. To replicate this i just open two copies at once, and then i can make due with whatever pdf reader is on the machine im using without having my workflow broken. If i need to make editing suggestions, konqueror has always met my needs. For my work, if those tools arent enough to communicate edits, then pdf markup isn't the right medium anyway and the document should be edited directly in LaTeX with version control.
[+] zigzaggy|5 years ago|reply
In order: 1. Print 2. Desktop monitor 3. e-ink reader

No other options work for me.

[+] captn3m0|5 years ago|reply
I have an old iPad 2 (downgraded to iOS8[1]), where I run KyBook 2. KyBook works great for annotations, highlights, and lets me easily download content from my OPDS server. Kybook 3 is much more featured, but I can't run it on my iPad.

Ocassionaly, I try the reflow mode on KOReader on my Kindle, but it is a hit and miss. Works good for single column PDFs, but adding figures, equations and any more complexity trips it up.

[1]: https://captnemo.in/blog/2019/08/11/ipad-downgrade-ios-6-8/

[+] wsh|5 years ago|reply
For reading books in PDF, I use a Sony DPT-RP1 reader. Its e-ink display can show an entire letter-size page at once, with the original formatting. You can use a stylus to take notes or make highlights; there is no backlight or web browser.

The software has improved since the early releases: for example, you can navigate using a table of contents, if the document has one. I use the dpt-rp1-py program to transfer files; I’ve never tried Sony’s included Digital Paper App.

[+] xtiansimon|5 years ago|reply
I second the Sony Digital Paper system. I’ve had mine for 3 years.

I had been looking for e-ink display for years, before the price came down on the Sony product. Completely satisfied. Also, has 10g memory.

Well. There is one thing I wish they would improve. The stylus lets you mark the page, and a search feature lets you search the document for only two hand-drawn marks—asterisk and star.

I use a set of 9 simple margin marks when reading large documents. Wish I could add custom marks.

[+] f3lheadhunter|5 years ago|reply
I wrote a program which splits it in pieces and then later proceeds to send me an email daily with a chunk. this idea has been helpful
[+] rct42|5 years ago|reply
My use-case is large (1000+ page) datasheets. Fortunately these pdfs tend to come with chapter bookmarks. I also search for keywords and/or just look at the section I'm interested in at the time. I'll often print out key pages. I have also found using a mouse with an infinite scroll wheel (e.g., Logitech M500) to be invaluable.
[+] cik|5 years ago|reply
I bought a Surface Pro 2 on eBay for ~200 USD a couple of years back. I literally use it only for reading PDFs, and run Xournal on it, so that I can annotate them. I save all PDFs in my Syncthing shared storage, along with their annotations, so that I can share back to a real computer for when I want it.

This way I can comfortably read in a hammock.