In article ,
Dick Grady AC7EL wrote:


My only experience with reading a magazine electronically was a few
years ago when World Radio stopped paper publication, CQ bought it,
and published a PDF version on their web page (free for a while, they
charge for it now).

I downloaded a couple of the free issues. The problem I had was that
I don't have contiguous blocks of time to read an entire issue at
once. And there was no way to bookmark in the PDF file where I left
off.

I don't have the PDF files you write about, but if they are standard PDF
files and if you use Adobe Reader, at least on a Mac when you re-open a
PDF file if you have made the right Preference choices for Adobe Reader
the file will open to the very same page you were looking at when you
closed the file. Perhaps Windows machines behave differently.

In Adobe Reader Preferences, select the "Documents" category and click
the "Restore last view settings when reopening documents" choice. Then
the same page will show up that you were looking at when you closed a
PDF document. You just have to make this preference choice once, and
then it will hold for all PDF documents you look at in the future.

I've been using PDF files and Adobe Reader ever since they first became
available, and in particular during the past ten years or so while doing
pre-publication accuracy checking for John Wiley, Inc. of mathematics
textbook files written by others. That's ever since Wiley realized that
it would be easier for me to download a PDF file than for them to ship
100 pages of paper or so per chapter by UPS from New Jersey to
southwestern Canada, and for me to ship marked pages back to them. (I
had to laugh when they e-mailed me and asked "Do you know what a PDF
file is, and can you open them?" I had been using them for years and
years before that.) The ability to go back to the same point in a
manuscript where I left off reading the night before has been essential.
And being able to search for a word or two rather than to scan visually
through 100 paper pages until I found it has been essential also. But
the 27 inch screen in front of me does help.

As to ancient eyes and ease of reading, my 77+ year old eyes manage
pretty well. The 27 inch screen does help! But when away from home I
make do with a 13 inch screen on our laptop, and it's OK. With Adobe
Reader you can choose whatever magnification ratio you want.

One strong suggestion: If you use Adobe Reader, disable JavaScript for
it, again in the Preferences. (There is a "Javascript" item in the
Preference Categories list.) Frequently Adobe's implementation of
Javascript has opened up entry points for malware. They'll find this
out, cure it with an upgrade to Adobe Reader, and then a new entry way
will be found by the bad guys. I just permanently disable Javascript in
my copy of Adobe Reader.

David, ex-W8EZE

--
David Ryeburn

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