By Bob Draper
When I was in high school--last century in the mid-1980's--I remember reading copious science fiction and fantasy stories that prognosticated about our future. One advancement that was supposed to revolutionize the world of information was the electronic book. More than any other idea that was floated about in that genre, the ebook captured my imagination. Well, okay, that and interstellar space travel.
Understandably, when I first held a Palm handheld, its potential to replace the volumes of paper I dealt with daily was foremost in my mind. So I'm sure you can understand my disappointment when I discovered that most Doc readers only handled text-only documents. AvantGo brought me closer to the ebook nirvana I sought, but saving files in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), uploading them and the accompanying images to my personal Web site, and then synchronizing them to my Palm handheld was decidedly tedious.
Earlier this year, though, I finally discovered what could very well become the ultimate ebook application: Adobe's Acrobat Reader for Palm OS. I discussed the public beta in a PalmPower Tip in early May, and by the end of that month, Adobe had released the final product. Finally, I had found an application that would allow me to view documents with images and other visual elements, such as tables, and the program used an industry standard format, PDF (Portable Document Format), as well! True, to get optimal performance you should use PDFs created with Acrobat 5, but you can view all types of PDF files with varying results.
"With its extensive support for graphics and tables, it can be a powerful enterprise tool, allowing mobile professionals to carry and share valuable, easy-to-read information."
You can find Acrobat Reader for Palm OS and all the sundry details at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readerforpalm.html. While you're there, you ought to download the four sample files that were created with Acrobat 5. These files will allow you to experiment with the many features that Acrobat Reader for Palm OS offers, and they also show various uses for this versatile program.
Of course, Acrobat Reader for Palm OS is much more than just a fancy ebook reader. With its extensive support for graphics and tables, it can be a powerful enterprise tool, allowing mobile professionals to carry and share valuable, easy-to-read information.
Getting with this program
Acrobat Reader for Palm OS consists of two components. Naturally, there's a Palm OS application that allows you to view the files on your handheld, but that program wouldn't be worth its compiled code without the Windows desktop conduit, pictured in Figure A.
