Can I Read Google Books With Moonreader

		Show HN: Sioyek – PDF viewer for reading research papers and textbooks (github.com/ahrm)
		238 points by hexomancer sixteen days ago | hide | past | favorite | 81 comments
		Some of the features: * Rapidly preview or jump to figures/references/equations/etc. (even if the PDF doesn't have links) * Search paper names in google scholar by center clicking on their name * Searchable table of contents * Searchable highlights/bookmarks * Browser-like history navigation * Marking locations for quick navigation (Vim manner) * Synctex back up Video demo of some features: https://www.youtube.com/scout?v=yTmCI0Xp5vI

For research piece of work I prefer LiquidText on a 12.9" iPad with an Apple pencil. Information technology'south disquisitional for me to brand notes and annotations. It'southward crazy how far pen calculating has come. I was an early adopter of this as a college student back in the 2000's. I had a Toshiba laptop which had a screen that would rotate effectually and fold on itself to become a tablet. Information technology had a pen for writing and ran a special version of Windows designed for tablets. (https://the-gadgeteer.com/2006/04/27/toshiba_portege_m200/) There weren't many good sources of PDFs so I made my own. I would accept my textbooks to Kinkos where they had an industrial paper cutter that was able to slice off the bounden, leaving me with a bunch of loose pages. I would employ a double sided auto-feed scanner to scan all the pages into searchable PDFs. Sadly the technology wasn't ready for prime number fourth dimension. The software wasn't good plenty, cartoon was limited and non many apps took advantage of the pen. The hardware was heavy, bulky, and I always had to be around an outlet because the battery life was abysmal. An iPad + pencil is a truly remarkable experience compared to that previous setup.

> It'due south critical for me to make notes and annotations. What notes and annotations do you usually make? I tin can empathise notes when you lot're at a lecture discussing a paper, but my experience is that the lecture rarely pertains to one specific paper. I don't really accept a lot of notes, so I wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

It depends what you lot are reading and why. Check out "How to Read A Book" past Mortimer Adler. The volume is quite old but still extremely relevant. (He'due south i of the best philosophers/thinkers I've ever read BTW. I advise "How To Think About The Corking Ideas", but that'due south for another topic.) On the subject field of annotation taking a professor once told me "don't accept notes, make notes". Note taking is basically writing down what the author (lecturer) says. In college so many people would just blindly copy what the professor wrote on the board. That is note "taking". Note "making" is adding you're thoughts: what is the writer maxim (in my words) and do I agree with the ideas? What would other authors call back, are in that location counter points, supporting examples, etc. Is this bespeak elaborated elsewhere in the book? What terms, words, or concepts need more explanation? I found this blog (https://fs.blog/how-to-read-a-book/) information technology has a good summary of Adler's ideas. For example, on using the margins in a book: When you purchase a book, you establish a belongings right in it, but equally you do in clothes or furniture when you buy and pay for them. Only the human activity of purchase is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a volume. Full buying of a volume only comes when you accept fabricated it a role of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a function of it— which comes to the same thing— is past writing in it. Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake— not simply conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot limited it usually does not know what he thinks. Third, writing your reactions down helps you to retrieve the thoughts of the author. Reading a book should be a conversation between yous and the writer. Presumably, he knows more about the subject than yous do; if not, y'all probably should not be bothering with his book. Only understanding is a two-fashion operation; the learner has to question himself and question the teacher. He even has to be willing to debate with the instructor, one time he understands what the teacher is saying. Marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author. It is the highest respect y'all can pay him.

I just write my opinions on the margin, or general thoughts, especially something new that tin can stalk from there? I more often than not write connections that I make while reading a paper.

I don't have notes, but use a pen and newspaper as a scratch pad. If the newspaper has some math, I can sketch it out and try to break it down, allowing me to understand it better. Or if there's a weird concept, I tin can describe it out and visualize the issue. It's also useful when the information is actually dense and there are sure things I need to go back and recollect merely don't desire to search my short term retentivity for.

Could yous delight tell me what generation is your 12.9" iPad? I am thinking near getting an older model for annotating papers, taking notes, and to use as a whiteboard during Zoom calls. I am trying to figure out what is the oldest model that would be appropriate for these tasks. Would the outset gen be performant enough?

I have a 2nd generation, which has the dwelling house button. (I got my wife the 1st generation when it was beginning introduced and it's still functioning. The battery doesn't charge well but it's even so adept for surfing the web and playing games.) Apple changed the pencil. I wouldn't get whatever iPad that wouldn't support the new pencil, which I think is from the tertiary generation when the removed the dwelling house button and introduced rounded corners. The old pencil has a lightning connector and plugs into the iPad to charge. The new pencil magnetically attaches to the iPad and charges. Apple should release the side by side generation soon. (Perhaps in a couple weeks.) Hopefully you can get a used one at a good rate when that happens.

It would be great to reflow the document in unmarried column style, non to curl back from the bottom of the left ane to the meridian of the correct one. Actually, if these certificate are mostly consumed on screen, just write them single cavalcade, half of an A4 or Letter, or plain HTML. Do they keep creating PDFs because publishers sell newspaper journals?

I prefer PDFs hundred times over obviously HTML, both for research papers and books. HTML can only reproduce proper structuring with great pain and it is essential for most scientific content. I rather curlicue sideways over not having the essential equation displayed correctly.

PDFs are much better to distribute. Yous get a consistent rendering on whatsoever device, which is peculiarly important for mathematical expressions, tables, and figures. I don't want to navigate the zillion libraries I tin can use to do this in HTML, which volition break anyway considering the viewer won't have the right version. PDF works simply fine for scientific papers.

In my field, almost no one actually buys paper journals. I recollect it's generally a matter of tradition at this point. However, PDF does besides mean the author gets control over what the document looks like. Of course it's possible to produce similar quality piece of work using HTML, but many authors and publishers are merely so accustomed to the existing stack that a lot of it is tradition. Fortunately, it'southward becoming fairly common for IEEE to provide HTML versions of papers generated from the LaTeX source that are unmarried column. They're not perfect, merely they can exist a nicer reading feel in some cases. Personally, if I'1000 doing whatever serious paper reading, I'thousand often doing it on my reMarkable so I like a nicely formatted PDF.

I haven't tried this even so, but the idea that I can click on a reference and have a window popular up to testify me the equation/figure/table without actually taking me in that location is awesome. I've been trying to figure out how to practice this pop-upward thing in latex so information technology would do this in regular pdf viewers but the current methods I've seen are all also clunky. To exist able to exercise this purely in the viewer is fantastic.

I usually read PDFs in Firefox, with two tabs open for the aforementioned certificate. I use the second tab to scroll effectually without loosing context. This also possible to achieve in Emacs with pdf-tools, and with just i instance of the document, past setting marks and following hyperlinks.

Which, if anyone is not enlightened, is the default gnome pdf viewer. Evince is pretty good software -- simple and does the job well. However, evince only does it if the references are actual (hyperref) links.

The preview feature, in particular, is uncommonly important. I cannot overstate what a divergence it makes when reading deeply cross-referenced material.

This looks great. It was evidently created by someone who reads technical papers, and figured out how to make the process more than convenient. Going to install every bit soon as I finish enjoying the videos—which are likewise well done.

A overnice feature would be the power to say from which page, page counts starts. Many books label the showtime page of chapter 1 as page 1, and the preceding pages I… XI … My solution is to dissever the pdf into 3 - before page 1 - main content - index (everything after main content) This makes information technology possible to blazon the page number and go to that folio.

Since this topic is likely to garner people who do or use research I hope to discover an reply to the burning question of why on Earth don't researchers put a freaking publication year in their newspaper. Sometimes it's almost impossible to learn if the paper is 20- or 2-years quondam. For something that matters quite a lot I always find this "tradition" a bit nonsensical.

I don't know, but usually searching for the paper championship online, due east.one thousand. in google scholar or (for CS papers) on dblp, will turn up the venue where it'due south published, including publication date. In fact, if it'southward in dblp, information technology volition prove the year right on the results folio.

One reason is the lag between a paper being "online first" vs. existence included in an consequence. I've seen as much as three years (paper published in its accepted course in 2017 but not included in an issue till 2020).

How can the researchers exist 100% sure in what year the newspaper will get published? I imagine that at all-time they could put the year of submission into the paper, but that'due south about it.

You mean in a preprint or something? Because in any published version, of class, the year is right there.

I take, quite oftentimes. But, for instance on arxiv, the date is on the page that lists papers and that has the links to the various versions of the paper. And, in instance the author has neglected to include the date in the PDF, arxiv adds the date, embedded in the PDF, vertically at the left of the beginning page. Added: Only you lot're right that authors often neglect to include date on the the manuscript or preprint versions, and this is a problem. I approximate because journals ofttimes don't want this, equally they will add the submission and publication dates.

Are the notes and highlights stored in the PDF? Asking because I use Zotero in several machines and I demand annotations and highlights to be synchronized without much hassle. Zotero is quite close to provide a PDF reader itself (available in the Beta release, AFAIK), just squeamish to see alternatives with academic documents in listen.

No, however, we have a command which exports a version of PDF file with embedded notes and highlights.

This looks really neat. I hope to make use of information technology. I noticed a small error in the tutorial under Basics: "scrolling downwards half of screen width" should be something like "scrolling down half the window height". Animating the scrolling would make it much less disorienting. Is there a fashion to see a list of marks? Slices of the screen similar the reference preview would exist dandy, but just a listing of defined mark names and page numbers would be useful. I'd love proper touch on support. It's and so much faster for zooming in on figures or scrolling through pages chop-chop. I ofttimes view PDFs with ii pages side by side in Adobe Reader or Sumatra, and that'due south great for looking for things (move through documents with left and correct arrows). I'd miss that.

Installed using the zilch file, and it works great. Fantastic job! Merely I idea yous'd like to know that I couldn't become information technology to compile on a Debian system. I followed your instructions, but institute I also had to install libglu1-mesa-dev libxi-dev libxrandr-dev and and so the build script failed with Project Fault: Unknown module(s) in QT: core gui sql opengl widgets quickwidgets 3dcore 3danimation 3dextras 3dinput 3dlogic 3drender openglextensions I accept QT installed, but I couldn't figure out which packages are missing.

I have been using this as the PDF viewer on Windows for few months at present, and like it. Thanks for creating this. I like the fast bookmark lookup (t+showtime typing), vim like bindings. Night mode also works well. Real manor is maximally used for the content. In that location were couple of features that I missed - and needed to fire upwards a different viewer: 1. View PDF properties ii. Enter a slide-show mode, where a total page is shown and arrow keys advance (non scroll) the page.

What well-nigh notes? Is in that location a way to add notes to highlights? It would be nice if they are also displayed on the side.

The bookmark feature is basically notes, though they are not currently displayed on the side.

What I like nigh about this is the the thought of clicking a reference to display a floating preview of the concerning paper information, figure or table. That seems like a really prissy solution! Any idea which other PDF viewers implement this beliefs?

If you're on Linux, GNOME Certificate viewer (aka evince) does this when you hover over a link. It doesn't work for non-linked references afaik though.

Skim is awesome. A great, unassuming picayune app that keeps doing its job perfectly ten years later.

Pdfs often have huge margins, so a feature I'd like to have is soft crop - simply for viewing, without modifying the file, like goodreader has. Although it's not as important on desktop as it is on a tablet.

So I employ Moonreader on Android and it preserves the zoom level as y'all scroll/flip through pages and then it kind of does this. Not sure if that'south relevant for you.

What would be the benefit of using this compared to something like Sumatra?

I used to use sumatra myself, in fact before I started developing sioyek, I tried to add some of the features to sumatra here: https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/pull/869 . Anyway, I don't think sumatra has these features: * Marks * Preview links * Jump to figures if the PDF doesn't have links * Portals * Searchable highlights And some other features which are shown in the video and github folio. Also sioyek is bachelor on linux and macos.

Does it fit page correctly according to each page size, rather than the max page size? This is i bug in zathura that bothers me.

Yes, there is a "smart fit folio" shortcut which automatically fits to screen width equally y'all gyre.

This looks peachy. Now I need information technology in emacs. pdf-tools could probably emulate some of these features with enough work…

It'd be nice if it would automagically discover the PDF's BibTex corresponding entry...

I wonder how far from Linux-equivalent of Marginotes we are. Seems like a lot

From a earth-form enquiry university, I hold a Ph.D. in math and am pretty good with D. Knuth'due south math word processing software TeX. I don't similar trying to read PDF files of math on a estimator screen: Typically the fonts are way, Fashion, WAY besides minor unless I magnify the display of the file a LOT, but then the lines are Fashion also long to fit on the screen forcing me to use the horizontal curlicue bar as the main endeavour in reading the math. Or put another way, in PDF files of math documents, most ever there are Way too many characters per line. The state of affairs seems to exist that the journal wanted to save on paper and ink!!!! When I develop a document with TeX, I use the TeX commands to magnify the fonts past a LOT. Bluntly, without a screen at least four feet wide with perhaps 16,000 pixels per line, reading the usual PDF file of math is a Hurting. So, sure, I'm eager for better ways to read PDF files of math. My reactions to this OP (original post): (i) I have no thought what is meant past a "centre click", nor would I have whatsoever idea where to look up the meaning. In that location might be a dominion in technical writing -- never, ever, but NEVER, not even once in a whole career, on adventure of horrible pain, e.grand., a barbed wire enema, use terminology that is not very, VERY, essentially universally, well understood without explanation or at to the lowest degree a reference. This rule would also utilize to acronyms. (2) For searching a PDF file of math, I accept no thought how I would type in the math expression to be searched for. Maybe the software is accepting TeX syntax -- I can approximate that even that arroyo would have issues. (3) For the video, the text is far, far as well modest to read and goes by far too fast to get any information at all. Broadly I can't brand whatever useful sense out of the OP at all. I'k eager for better means to read PDF files of math papers, and maybe there is some expert work and good utility here, but I accept nix, cypher, zip understanding of what is being attempted or how information technology would work -- nichts, nil, nothing, none. Uh, this is not nearly the merely identify where some technical cloth could use improve technical writing.

Goes to bear witness you someone tin get a PhD in math, do enquiry at a "earth class institution", not know what a middle click is, and still exist a dick near your technical writing. Does wonders for y'alls imposter syndrome eh?

Technically yep, but the vast majority of us have met him before. He, or someone like him, teaches Cal I to first-years (considering he'south gotta teach something beyond his quaternary-year 5-pupil moon-man seminar on his inscrutable research focus). Forgive him; he learned TeX before mouses had a scroll-wheel. I had to work with this prototypical young man once, when I was already out of university; his abilities -- and inabilities -- were stupefying, in both senses of the word.

Just call back, in 20 years, nosotros'll be bemoaning the neural interface existence unusable because it doesn't piece of work just like computers did in 2005-2015ish and we don't go it and kids these days with their jargon like "middle recollect" beingness confusing. Hell, it's already started with "the kids" beingness all-in on baroque shit similar using Discord for everything, and, well, anything about crypto, NFTs, unironically having Internet-capable dishwashers or, indeed, almost anything to exercise with mobile apps.

> I have no idea what is meant past a "middle click", nor would I have any idea where to look upwardly the meaning. Clicking the heart push button on a mouse. Searching for [middle click] on Duck Duck Go or Google would tell y'all what it is.

So, y'all did a search at some of the search engines and found some explanations for the calculator jargon "middle click". Here is a point: Before doing such search, tin can't exist sure will notice a good reply. That was my point: At that place was no way for me to know before doing such a search that such a search would exist successful. That is, the search engines are not guaranteed glossaries for all technical jargon in all technical fields. So, my caption that I didn't know where to notice a description of "center click" was correct -- before trying a search at some search engines quite literally nosotros did non "know" where we would find an explanation. Now that such a search has been successful, sure, we exercise know, but that fact is a fleck weak as justification for using undefined jargon. Then, since the search engines are not comprehensive glossaries for all technical jargon in all technical fields, given some technical jargon, a user has to make in effect shots in the dark, has to make these shots dark simply to read a description of some production. I suggest that product developers should avoid asking their audition to make such shots in the dark just to read their product descriptions.

"Middle click" is primary school level reckoner knowledge, not obscure technical jargon. I didn't need to do the searches to know they would work, and people writing technical software don't need to avoid such bones terms.

> "Centre click" is master school level computer knowledge, While I spend well over twoscore hours a calendar week at a keyboard looking at a screen driven by Windows with data mostly from the Cyberspace, I have not heard of or used the mouse eye click in years. The terminology "middle click" but isn't very useful and hasn't been very common for maybe twenty years.

Thanks for your feedback. 1. I meant mouse middle click, I think this is pretty standard terminology. iii. You are correct, the video could be a lot better. You are not really supposed to read the texts though, the master purpose is to showcase the features.

> one. I meant mouse heart click, I recall this is pretty standard terminology. Well, for a lot of people, eastward.g., a large fraction of the HN audience, sure, okay. But: Yup, fashion back when personal computers were starting to use a mouse, there was no "center click". And so there was, every bit a step forrard -- I remember that. Now here is a surprise: While I spend well over 40 hours a week at a keyboard looking at a screen driven by Windows with information mostly from the Internet, I have not heard of or used the mouse middle click in years. The main reason is that on Windows, at least with the options I have, all the middle click is expert for is a fast version of vertical scrolling on the contents of a window on the screen, and I don't find that fast scrolling to be useful. So, I have just forgotten virtually middle clicking. I'grand up on a LOT of old stuff in computing, a lot of it from way back before middle clicking, just not centre clicking -- I just didn't find it useful. Here I'1000 using my experience equally bear witness for a Lesson: In making assumptions about what is "pretty standard" for your users, information technology is tough to exist authentic and for a solution work to err on the side of bold less, a lot less. There is i more than point: It is totally obscure to me how fast scrolling could play much function in tracing references in PDF files of math. Maybe the Windows Win32 API permits programs to care for the middle click and curlicue cycle whatsoever way information technology wants. If so, then that is something else tough to presume users know and be accurate. E.g., from my feel, I've written a lot of software and a lot for Windows .NET only so far I've never written any code that directly called the Win32 API. So, I have no skillful noesis on what might be in Win32 for middle clicking. Lesson: "pretty standard terminology", I wouldn't assume that. More generally I claim that computing is being badly hurt by way likewise little in definitions for way also much technical jargon. In that location is a elementary solution: When in doubtfulness, and even if not, work to define or at least requite a reference for technical jargon. E.g., here at HN (Hacker News) patently (although I've seen no statement) OP abbreviates "original postal service".

I start used a computer mouse as an adult over 30 years ago and have been 'eye-clicking' for near 28 of them.

This PDF reader look beautifully done. It will undoubtedly make reading papers more convenient. I have a trackpad with two buttons. How to I make a middle click? I'1000 sure the answer is in the documentation, simply I'm being lazy, since you're hither.

Thanks. I'll try that afterward I install information technology, which will be afterward I finish watching your very nice videos.

This is incredibly valuable feedback directly from the intended audience, provided for complimentary. Awesome! A middle click is the middle mouse button, typically clicking with the curlicue bike these days. I don't use a Mac touchpad/mouse merely Google says it tin be washed with a triple finger tap, possibly requiring a setting to be enabled under Accessibility. I'm glad tools exist to find more details nigh terminology that I don't already know. It's e'er a balance to decide what needs explaination and what a reader probably already knows.

My guess for the meaning of a "heart click" was to click on a reference somewhere in the middle of the text of the reference, say, subsequently the authors but before the periodical. My second guess would be something having to do with a "middle finger". Click on the middle mouse button? Okay: With an Amazon mouse, tin can just press downwards on the curl wheel. With an HP laptop with Windows 10, I just did that: What I got was a circle with a dot in the middle, in a higher place the dot an upwardly arrow and beneath the dot a down arrow. Research is still in progress in an endeavour to observe how this might be used to search for, say, the Radon-Nikodym theorem! Or for something simple y(t) = { y(0) b e^{bkt} \over y(0) \big ( east^{bkt} - i \big ) + b} Maybe could do a heart click on an iPhone and then utilise a scanning, tunneling electron microscope to read the screen image -- give me a few minutes to fix that up!!!

> Or for something uncomplicated > y(t) = { y(0) b e^{bkt} \over y(0) \big ( eastward^{bkt} - 1 \big ) + b} TeXmacs finds that, by the manner. I just tested it. And each piece of it: I tested the denominator.

Cheers. Have not heard of TeXmacs. Volition wait at the URL. A lot of people could like WYSIWYG for annihilation similar TeX. Thousands times more people similar and expect WYSIWYG. The TeX I utilize has 100+ TeX macros I wrote. I type the TeX input using my favorite software tool, the one I apply for most all my typing, my favorite text editor KEDIT. It is a Windows programme version of the editor XEDIT for IBM'south operating organization VM/CMS and written on his own time past an IBM guy in Paris. For KEDIT I have 100+ macros and write new ones frequently. E.g., KEDIT has some good string manipulation tools, and, e.g., I can parse some files, rip out the data, then pull information technology into, say, Excel and draw a graph or pull it into some compiled linguistic communication, Fortran, C, C++, C#, etc. and practice some analysis. Sometimes the analysis is statistics, but typically I derive my own statistical methods and program and use those, methods not in the usual statistical packages, SPSS, R, etc. That is, I want to work at the level of the data and some code I wrote and not endeavor to use college level software intended to be easier to use. To me, I desire to work at the correct level for me. E.g., I don't use LaTeX -- regard it as at too high a level. I don't want their macros and don't want to learn them or fight them. Knuth'due south TeX documentation is very well written; I find the LaTeX documentation less well written and much longer -- bummer. Some of my KEDIT macros are to help in typing TeX files. E.thousand., a neighbor gave me a cake for Valentine'southward Mean solar day, and I only typed a letter of the alphabet of thanks, in TeX, using KEDIT, and using a KEDIT macro to insert the current date in the TeX syntax I wanted. And then I have a KEDIT macro that runs the spell checker, Aspell, I got with my TeX software, and do spell checking -- too used that for the Valentine's Mean solar day letter. And I like Aspell much improve than any WYSIWYG spell checking -- Aspell does better at figuring out how to correct badly misspelled words and one reason for that is that I accept my own spelling lexicon additions. Also since I apply just Aspell for nearly all my spell checking, I get to employ my ane dictionary for all my work -- that is, the lexicon should exist particular to me and not separately to email, software, letter writing, etc. To address the envelope for the letter, certain, I used KEDIT for that. Yup, lots of people like WYSIWYG and, if they were to use TeX or anything like it, would definitely want WYSIWYG. Uh, going way dorsum, for annihilation similar typing, particularly for TeX, writing email, writing software, I like KEDIT and don't just dislike WYSIWYG only deeply, profoundly, bitterly detest and despise WYSIWYG and virtually all it values and attempts. In the simplest terms, I tin't programme WYSIWYG input, that is automate the input. Not everyone likes WYSIWYG!

I am surprised that you recollect that you can't program WYSIWYG input: I fifty-fifty doubtable that the idea depends on addiction of thinking, and not on consideration of the matter on its ain merits. I did non bank check the things that you do---described in your message above---i by one, only I expect you can do all of them using TeXmacs, as it is completely programmable using Scheme (which of course I similar much more a macro expansion linguistic communication ;-) ).

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