Free PDF !

May 22nd, 2009

“Extra, extra, read all about it – get your free PDF creator, free pdf converter, and free PDF reader!”

Check out the freebie low-down on free pdf creators we’ve listed over at 4xPDF — we’ve covered off the top eight that don’t include hideous watermarks, ordered according to the stats on Download.com.

Trial PDF output

Of course, it wasn’t always that way — there was a time when you actually had to pay $50 for a copy of Adobe Reader as well as $2,495 for a copy of Acrobat Distiller – wow, back in the good ol’ days. 

Acrobat 1.0 Software

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Posted in Adobe, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, Flashback, Rant | No Comments »

PDF does not open!

May 21st, 2009

Drop by our sister site, 4XPDF for a quick top 7 reasons (and solutions) for what to do when your PDF will not open:

1. The display in browser feature is a dead duck.

2. Your PDF corrupted when you downloaded, and it’s stuck in the cache.

3. The PDF was damaged in the conversion process.

4.  You only have part of the file.

5. Your email scanner/spam agent renamed the PDF for security reasons.

6. Your PDF has an open-password.

7. Your PDF needs a custom security plug-in (usually for ebooks, corporate documents…)

Maybe next time, you shouldn’t leave it until the last minute to complete your IRS tax forms!

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Posted in How To, PDF File Size, PDFs & the Web, Rant | No Comments »

Newspapers Continue The Quick March To Oblivion

April 14th, 2009

Prepare yourself for a ton of headlines this week that include the words “newspapers”, “advertising”, “down”, “fall”, “decline” and “oblivion” as publishers begin to report their first quarter results for 2009. As this New York Times article reports, industry executives and analysts expect to see advertising declines as high as 30% for some newspapers.

 They are expecting declines sharp enough to wipe out profit margins at many papers that, despite two years of battering, had stayed comfortably in the black, and to push already-weak publishers closer to bankruptcy, perhaps even closure. “I think over all we’re going to see a decline somewhere in the mid-20s” compared to the first quarter of last year, said Edward Atorino, a media analyst at the Benchmark Company, a research firm. “There have been a lot of signals that things have gotten much worse in the last couple of months — the furloughs, the pay cuts, the layoffs.”

The demise of newspapers has been quick, but not surprising, and it goes without saying that the killer has been the Internet and the online news aggregators, such as Google News, that it spawned. Simply put, these online news aggregators are just too good. They provide you with quick, easy access to an unimaginatively wide range of news sources, from both well known news outlets and smaller niche outlets — and even bloggers. You only read what you’re interested in and after you’ve finished reading you just close the browser, there’s certainly no pile of old newspapers that need to be recycled.

Compare this with newspapers, which provide you with yesterdays news today and articles from the same writers and “opinion makers” day in and day out and it’s not hard to see why people start looking for other sources of news. But no one really has time to read multiple broadsheets these days, so they start looking online.

Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy reading newspapers (the old variety) some days. But it’s usually on weekends, when I’m intentionally trying to avoid using the computer. The problem with this is that, I don’t know any of my contemporaries who do the same. Which makes me think that if the newspapers aren’t dead by the end of this decade… well, they’re living on borrowed time.

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XPS: Sense Of Something Coming

February 24th, 2009

Guest contributor, Nick De Roeck, has written a very detailed article over at 4xPDF on the topic of XPS and how it fits into the world of electronic documents (and also, quite a bit about how it stacks up against PDF).

We are living in economic turbulent times, and everybody is into Web 2.0 (2.5?), social networking, new cloud services and rich Internet application platforms and yet I want to talk about something so relatively low tech as an electronic document format. More specifically about an electronic document format with the boring name ‘XML paper specification’, or XPS for short.

I understand that you would like to tune out, but hold on for a minute and let me finish my introduction here, and then decide.

Read the full article here: XPS: Sense Of Something Coming.

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Interview: Foxit Discusses The Upcoming Release Of The eSlick Reader

January 29th, 2009

foxit-eslickI recently interviewed Foxit CEO Eugene Y. Xiong about the upcoming release of Foxit’s eSlick Reader — which we first covered back in December, 2008.

A quick recap: the eSlick Reader is an e-reading device and competitor to Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader, amongst others. Its focus is on providing support for ebooks that use PDF as the file format of choice and includes reflow technology which ensures that the content you’re reading fits the screen in the best way possible. Like the Kindle and Sony Reader, it uses E-Ink technology for the display and has a 600 x 800 pixel screen.

Enjoy the interview and please add a comment if you would like us to ask a follow-up question.

What was the motivation behind creating the eSlick Reader?

Whilst there are other ebook reader devices that support PDF, we believe that they fall well short in the area of usability, features such as reflow, document creation and editing. We wanted to bring an ebook reader to the marketplace that was built primarily around PDF.  You may not be aware, we have been developing software for ebook reader devices for more than 2 years as “Foxit Powered”, it was quite a natural transition to move to “Foxit” branded.

What’s the aim with the eSlick?

We are trying to simplify the reading experience, especially when it comes to PDF documents.  We focused on this rather than on “fancy features” like wireless network connectivity. 

What’s the reception been like to the announcement of the eSlick amongst your Foxit Reader use-base?

Excellent.  A lot of our desktop users believe that we will bring the best PDF reading experience, something current ebook devices lack.

You’ve gone from a software only company to a software/hardware company, was this a difficult transition to make?

Sure, we had to deal with things like stocking, RMA, shipping, and so on, it’s a new experience for us. But we have been working closely with our partners, they have provided a lot of support for our transition.

Do you have any plans for other electronic devices in the future?

Not at this stage.

What types of formats can you read with the eSlick?

Right now we support text and PDF. We’re working with other vendors to support more formats, including those with DRM.

How long is the battery life for the eSlick?

8000 page turns.

What is YOUR favourite feature in the eSlick?

Reflow of PDF pages.

What challenges do you foresee competing with the likes of Amazon and Sony in the e-reader space?

I don’t see ourselves as competing head-to-head. We are positioning ourselves differently, we focus on the reading experience itself.

Have you planned to team up with any eBook-retailers?

Yes, most certainly.

Finally, what countries do you plan to sell in first and where can I purchase an eSlick Reader from?

We will start from US and Canada, we are talking with distributors all over the world in order to distribute eSlick to other countries.

The eSlick Reader can be pre-ordered now for US$229.99 from here.

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Posted in Electronic Reading Devices, Interview, ebooks | 4 Comments »

The Kindle 2.0 Roundup

January 29th, 2009

According to a Brad Stone blog post at the New York Times Bits blog, Amazon will introduce the next generation of its popular Kindle reader in New York City on February 9. It’s great to see that the release of the new Kindle, and other electronic reading devices, are getting so much attention at the moment. Here’s a roundup of some of the news relating to the Kindle 2.0: 

Bad economy or not, as newspapers decline, we are going to see a lot more interested in electronic reading devices in 2009. It is the future (as if anyone needed reminding).

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Posted in Electronic Reading Devices, ebooks | No Comments »

First Video Of The Foxit eSlick e-Reading Device

January 27th, 2009

Previously we’ve covered the announcement of the Foxit eSlick, a competitor to Sony Reader and and Amazon’s Kindle — now we have footage of the first prototype of the Foxit eSlick to share with you.

Foxit Software has also posted a video on YouTube demonstrating the hotly anticipated reflow feature in the eSlick.

The reflow functionality is important because it means that the text in the PDF document can automatically be reorganized to fit the screen size. More information about the eSlick Reader can be found here.

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Posted in Electronic Reading Devices, Paperless Office, ebooks | 1 Comment »

A Closer Look At The XPS Viewer In Windows 7

January 17th, 2009

The evolution of the XPS format continues. With the release of Windows Vista users were able to view XPS documents in a viewer that was hosted within Internet Explorer 7. A separate independent viewer was also available for download as part of the XPS Essentials Pack (supported on XP and Vista), however, this independent viewer did not include support for features like digital signatures. It felt like a somewhat sloppy introduction to the XPS format that reflected the formats infancy. It was certainly an experimental beginning.

The good news for those of you who are keen to see Microsoft’s vision for XPS become clearer is that an independent XPS viewer, with support for digital signatures, has been included with the early betas of Windows 7.

xps-viewer-windows-7

In comparison to PDF — a fair comparison to make since both formats are fixed-layout document formats, designed to preserve document fidelity — the feature set is quite limited (that’s an understatement). The XPS Viewer in Windows 7 only allows you to search an XPS document for a word or phrase, zoom in and out, digitally sign documents and set document permissions. Not exactly a PDF killer at the moment, but hey, PDF took close to a decade to mature, so XPS has got some catching up to do.

In addition, the Microsoft XPS Document Writer printer driver is now included with Windows 7 (correction: the XPS printer driver was included with Windows Vista) — no extra download necessary. I wonder if they will also include a PDF printer driver by default? No word on that yet as far as I can see.

xps-printer-windows-7

With the release of Windows 7 and its enhanced support for XPS it would be nice if Microsoft also presented a clear vision for the XPS format. The biggest hurdle they will need to clear in order to get people to adopt XPS is the why question. Why should I use XPS over PDF?

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Posted in XPS, XPS News, XPS Viewers | 9 Comments »

Plastic Logic Reader Prototype 2 Demo’d At CES 2009

January 9th, 2009

Patience makes the heart grow fonder, as they say. Perhaps that’s why I’m longing after the Plastic Logic Reader. We first got to see a short demo of this nifty electronic reading device back in September of last year and now a few more videos of the new prototype have shown up.

These videos are from CES 2009 in Las Vegas. They give you a pretty good idea of the quality of the display screen that the Plastic Logic Reader uses and it’s size.

 

The last video is from CNN and can be seen on the home page of the Plastic Logic website (I wasn’t able to embed it in this post due to technical problems unfortunately).

Teleread.org has a more detailed wrap-up on what is know about the latest version of this electronic reading device.

More coverage of Plastic Logic Reader at CES 2009:

I’m really looking forward to the release of the Plastic Logic Reader and other devices like it. In my opinion they will make the paperless paper dream a reality. Just have to wait until 2010. Hmm.

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Posted in Electronic Paper, Electronic Reading Devices, Paperless Office, ebooks | No Comments »

Everyone’s Going Paperless These Days

January 7th, 2009

I get daily Google Alerts sent to me for the keywords “paperless” and “paperless office”, as you might have noticed, it’s a topic I’m interested in.

Through this I have noticed a strong trend towards people embracing the concept of a paperless office; people openly acknowledging that paper is inefficient and costly and that a move to an electronic orientated system would save them time and money.

I thought I’d put together a small preview of the various businesses and Government departments that have decided to “go paperless” over the past few months.

  • Prosecutor to Go ‘Paperless’: The Ohio County Prosecutor’s Office may soon get some relief from the ”overwhelming” amount of paperwork staffers must sift through every day.
  • LIC marches towards a paperless office: Moving towards a paperless office, the policy records of all the 32 lakh customers of Life Insurance Corporation of India’s Madurai division (as on November 30, 2008) would be digitized by this fiscal.
  • The day the set went paperless: The paper virtually disappeared during filming of The Day the Earth Stood Still. The art department went completely digital, posting photos and designs on a website in order to cut down on wasteful printing. The wardrobe people moved to digital photography to monitor their costume fittings. Storyboards and notebooks were reborn in the computer.
  • NCSBN Nursys.com to Launch Completely Paperless Verification: The National Council of State Boards of Nursing’s (NCSBN®) Nursys.com Web site will implement paperless verifications beginning Jan. 1, 2009. As of this date, paper Nursys verification request forms will no longer be accepted by NCSBN.
  • Circuit clerk has visions of paperless filing system: Kanawha County Circuit Court is piloting an electronic filing program that will first ease the process for some mass litigation and pave the way for computer filing of many other legal papers in the future.
  • In ‘green’ effort, schools go paperless to promote events:  Schools have long relied on one emissary to deliver paperwork into parents’ hands: students’ backpacks. But driven by environmental and economic concerns, many schools now are posting notices online, instead, to remind parents of next week’s dance recital or alert them to a new program at the local library. One school described the effort as taking back the backpack for academic concerns.
  • Dentist office goes paperless: In what Robert Wood calls “the old days,” the team at Dr. Robin Wood Dentistry would sit around one computer in the conference room and print out the day’s schedule.

As you can see, there is lots of action in this area and 2009 is promising to be an exciting year for the advancement of the paperless office.

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Panasonic To Launch World’s First Fully Paperless Fax Machine, But Why?

January 2nd, 2009

According to a report on CrunchGear, Panasonic intend to launch the world’s first fully paperless fax machine in Japan on January 23, 2009.

Just like sending emails on a cell phone, users can use the built-in keypad to type messages.

Alternatively, it’s possible to send documents saved in Word or other formats without having to use a PC. All fax messages can be read and forwarded through a built-in screen without having to print them on paper first.

I’m all for any effort that contributes to a paperless office, but this seems a little bit odd to me. It might be the worlds first paperless fax machine, but it certainly isn’t the first product to let you send and receive faxes electronically, without a single piece of paper involved at any stage.

There are in fact many existing online services, that have been around for a decade or more, that let you send and receive faxes electronically.

As an example, for the past 6+ years we’ve been using a service from jConnect that lets you send and receive faxes using your email account. We find the service so useful – a physical fax machine seems very 80’s doesn’t it? Not to mention inefficient – that we’ve previously written about this service on our companies blog.

As you can see, I don’t quite understand why anyone would build a paperless fax machine when there are already better solutions available, but perhaps there is a part of the puzzle that I’m missing?

Update: The  paperless fax machine is copping quite a bit of ridicule — as it should — but some of the comments I’m reading along the lines of “who on earth uses a fax machine these days?” seem a little uninformed. Who uses fax machines? Schools, corporations and Government departments to name a few. How many of these institutions let you “email” in your application forms or required documentation? Not many — you can either fax or use mail (the slow kind).

For a lot of people fax-to-fax is dead, but email-to-fax and fax-to-email is alive and kicking. That’s not necessarily the way I want it, but it’s the way things are for now.

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Posted in Electronic Faxing, Paperless Office | 4 Comments »

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