Mobile Ministry Magazine

If you have used a Palm, Handspring, or Sony Clie PDA (all of these use the Palm Operating System), then you know that PDF viewing is something that has not been your device's best strength. And due to the countless PDF manuals, magazines, and other documents availiable, there was a big hole in PalmOS offerings until recently. Now there are two products that fill that need, and depending on your budget and needs, may fulfill that need more quickly.

The first product is a freeware prodcut called PalmPDF. PalmPDF is a free native PDF file viewer for Palm OS 5 devices. It a viewer of PDF documents only, but enables you to save the PDF to your device's SD card and quickly read it. There is also an option to export the text to plain text and use a presentation mode for viewing with presentation software and hardware. MMM endorses PalmPDF in part because of cost (free), and also because of the developer's attention to this application (its only been 4 months in development and is quite stable and feature filled). Click here to download PalmPDF; and dont forget to download Issue 3 to read as one of your first PDF documents :)

The second program is shareware ($$) and from Dataviz. The prodct is called Documents to Go 8 (DTG8), and in its latest release has a PDF reader that also would read native PDFs saved to one's memory card. Like PalmPDF, DTG8 offers the ability to quickly view PDFs, and reflow the elements to fit to the screen for easier reading. DTG8's PDF reader is bundled with the rest of their DTG Word/Excel/Powerpoint package. If you are in the market for a complete office solution, DTG is one of the most comprenhensive out there. I cannot recommend going to version 8 just for the PDF feature, you are better off saving your money and using PalmPDF (there is a reduced cost to upgrade if you have a previous version fo DTG). But if you need the ability to work with multiple office document formats and need a modern solution, DTG8 is best here. Download DTG8 from the Dataviz website (there is a trial available) and also add MMM Issue 3 to your list of items to read.

Note: There is also available Acrobat Reader for PalmOS devices. This solution has not been updated by Adobe in many years and does not offer the ability to read native format PDFs - they must be converted before reading on one's handheld via the desktop conduit program - and many other features that PalmPDF and DTG8 have. We do not recommend it as a solution for viewing PDFs unless your PalmOS PDA does not have a SD memory card slot with which to hold unconverted PDFs.