Test reports

2. Softwaretest: PDF-Viewer Apdf v2.2 (by Uwe Pannecke)

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The Portable Document Format (PDF) from Adobe Systems Inc. has spread over various computer systems as a platform independent format. PDF is a file format that can contain not only text, but also embedded pictures, graphics and links. Adobe Systems Inc. freely distributes his documents viewer, the AcrobatReader, for several operating systems. Unfortunately, the Amiga is once again not among them. But the Amiga (still) has some very talented programmers. A few of them opened the PDF world for the Amiga a few years ago. They could build on efforts made by another bunch of enthusiastic programmers from the UNIX world. Derek B. Noonburg [1] wrote an PDF reader called xpdf, the current version is 0.9, whose source code is open for anybody interested.

Emmanuel Lesueur, author of the lastest Amiga port of xpdf, called his conversion practically Apdf. Already the first version was very convincing and subject to a test in [2].

The recently released verson 2.x is build upon xpdf 0.9 and supports therefore contrary to Apdf 1.x also PDF files up to version 1.3. Apdf ,version 2.2, was tested under AmigaOS 3.5, CyberGraphX 3.x, 36 MB RAM and a 68040/40-CPU.

System requirements

Apdf needs at least AmigaOS 3.0, a 68020-CPU and MUI 3.8. Furthermore you should have GZip 1.2.4 [3] installed on your computer.

Depending on the size of the documents more or less RAM is required. The general rule is (as so often): The more RAM you have and to faster your CPU is, the more fun you will have. Apdf supports graphic boards and PPC's, both will help you to enjoy viewing PDF files.

Installation

Emmanuel Lesueur hat in der aktuellen Version 2.2 die notwendigen Dateien in mehrere Archive aufgesplittet. Das macht auch Sinn, da je nach vorhandener CPU im Amiga nur die notwendigen Module heruntergeladen werden muessen und so die Download-Zeit minimiert wird.

In the current version 2.2, Emmanuel Lesueur has splitted the necessary files into several archives. That makes sense, because you just have to download the modules necessary for your CPU and thus can minimize the download time. You can get the archive from Aminet [4] or from the homepage of the author [5]. In any case you will need "Apdf_common.lha" and, depending on your CPU, either a archive "Apdf_680x0.lha" or "Apdf_ppc.lha". To be able to display the documents as close to the original as possible, Apdf uses Type 1 or TrueType fonts instead of Amiga Bitmap Fonts. If you already have GhostScript installed, then you can use its Type 1 fonts with Apdf, too. If not, and if you don't have suitable fonts >from anywhere else on your system, you can download "Apdf_fonts.lha" from the same sources as the other archives.

Apdf in its compiled form (as found in Aminet as well as the authors homepage) cannot handle encrypted PDF files. Not that it would be impossible from programmers side, it's just that laws in some countries (in this case France resp. USA) limit the export of encryption software. And this could severely limit the usability of Apdf (as in V1.x), because a lot of commercial documentation reach customers/potential reader as "encrypted pdf". But contrary to Version 1.x, the author has come up with a very elegent solution: Who want to display encrypted PDF files can find the clue on E. Lesueurs homepage.

In [6] you can find a suitable module for 68k and PPC's. Just copy this module to the apdf directory and "encrypted" PDFs are readable. If you have all necessary archives, you have to extract them in the same directory and double click the Install icon. After a short while and few questions, the installes has done its work and Apdf has taken its place. If you are using the web browser Voyager 3.x from Oliver Wagner, you have the opportunity to install a PDf plugin called "Vpdf" for this browser. You can find more on this topic in the Voyager test report in this issue.

Usage

Apdf can be started either from Shell or from the Workbench. The integration into a file manager like DOpus is also possible.

The first thing you should do is to display the included test-PDF file. If you can see all standard fonts there (with the Apdf_font.lha package this should in any case), you should be able to view all PDF documents that obey the standards wihtout problems.

If the document contains links, you can use them by simply clicking on them, just like in an HTML document, to just to the referred part of the document. Of course you can also view the files page by page thruogh a slider in the lower part of the window or jump to any page by entering the page number. You can zoom in and out of the document. Thanks to an search function, you can easily find words even within huge documents.

If you want to print or save certain pages, you can select them through a menu entry. During this output, no matter if to the printer or to a file, you can rotate the page in steps of 90 degrees.

The appearance of the document on the screen can be modified in some ways. So you can, when rotating, exempt some parts, regardless if they are text or graphics. The menu entry "View/Information..." gives you some details about the current document. If you want, you can replace all fonts defined in the document with your own fonts. In the gloabl preferences you can set several options to fit Apdf optimally to your system. With an installed Decrypt-module, you can use encrypted files without problems.

Result

A conclusion is not ahrd to find. Apdf is THE PDF viewer for the Amiga and shouldn't be missing on any computer that is or is going to use PDF files.

Emmanuel Lesueur has delivered a software pearl, that is even Freeware and therefore free, but not for nothing.

Uwe Pannecke <Uwe.Pannecke@t-online.de>«