Hi Tony, I'm sorry to hear you're having a difficult time reading the Objective C book on your Mac. I went back to look at the Objective C book in PDF format that you referenced, and this is readable in Preview provided that you remember to interact with the material. I can get this to work with Adobe Reader (shudder). Stanza (on your Desktop) is really not designed for this. If you're reading the material in Safari, you may find it easier to use the web page version of the manual rather than the PDF file, but this is all doable. However, I think it will be easiest for you to get started with this on your iPod Touch, since the controls and navigation are already familiar to you. This also means that I can get you started progressing more quickly with what you want to read.
First of all, let me say that now, having actually downloaded the PDF version of the book, looked at the HTML version at the Apple Developer's Site URL that Barry gave, and downloaded the free ePub version of the book from iBooks, these are all the same book! So, if I go back to my original post that stated that since you mentioned in your introduction that you had an iPod Touch, you could download the free iBooks app onto your iPod Touch from the iTunes App Store and then find the free ebooks from the Apple Developer's connection there, this was perfectly true. On your iPod Touch, go to the following App Store URL for iBooks: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibooks/id364709193?mt=8 If you read this post on your iPod Touch, you can open the link to go directly to the free iBooks app in your App Store. "Purchase" it by double tapping on the "Free" button, and supply your iTunes Store password to let it download. Then, from your iPod Touch: 1. Launch the iBooks app on your iPod Touch 2. When the app opens, double tap the "Store" button in the top right corner to go the store. 3. Double tap the "Search" button (4th of 5 buttons on the bottom of the screen). 4. In the search field at the top of the screen, double tap and enter "apple" using the virtual keyboard. If you move your finger down from the search text field, or alternatively if you flick past the "Clear text" and "Library" buttons to the list of results, you'll hear "Apple Inc." and then "Apple Developer Publications". 5. Double tapping on "Apple Developer Publications" will bring up a list of the 6 free publications in ePub format that can be read in the iBooks app. 6. Flick right to the 5th of these books, which will be "The Objective C Programming Language" and double tap. You can read reviews, etc. and the brief description of the book, but since you already know you want to get this book, just navigate (flick right) to the "Download" button and double tap. I'm going to paste in an excerpt from a recent viphone list post that describes how to use bookmarks and searching in iBooks. You can also use the Table of Contents to navigate to pages. If you want to read by characters or words, change your rotor setting and then flick up or down. Reading works pretty well if you're using a paired Bluetooth Keyboard, and you can use QuickNav keys to adjust the rotor (e.g., enter QuickNav mode by pressing the Right and Left arrow keys on your keyboard, then use the arrow keys in conjunction the command, control, and option keys to navigate.) <begin excerpt> From: Esther Date: April 19, 2011 Subject: Using iPhone User Guides in iBooks [was Re: What's that new command for changing screenpages] Hi Cher and Others, You can also get a copy of the User Guide for the iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad from iBooks. This is just the same version of the manual you can access under the bookmarks in Safari, but in ePub format. You have to download iBooks as a free app from the App Store, since it isn't loaded onto the device by default. Once you have launched iBooks, just go to the Store of iBooks and type "Apple Inc." into the search field. There are six user guides -- two each for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. If you want the one for the latest version of iOS, make sure the title is "iPhone User Guide for iOS4.2 and 4.3" (or "iPod Touch User Guide for iOS 4.3" or "iPad User Guide for iOS 4.3"), since there are also version of each guide for iOS 4.2 only. These are free, and you can download them onto your device. When you have opened the book, you can either use the search field or the table of contents to navigate to the section you want. For example, the buttons on the top of the screen are "Library", "Table of Contents", "Brightness", "Fonts", "Search", and "Add Bookmark". So I could flick to the "Search" button, double tap, then type in "VoiceOver gestures" into the search field. I'll get a list of matches to my search, listed in order of appearance, along with the page number and a bit of context. I can flick through the list of results, and double tap when reach the result I want. The main discussion of VoiceOver gestures actually starts with the third of the listed matches, which only returns this as the name of the section. To go to the page I want from the search, I double tap the entry I want. Then, I can use the two finger flick down to start reading the section. If I decide that I want to bookmark the page, I can stop reading (two finger tap), and double tap the "Add Bookmark" button in the top right corner to create a bookmark. Now, let's say that at a later time I want to open the book and return to my bookmark. iBooks will normally remember the last page you read, and open to that location, but let's assume that I started reading another section and now want to return to where I set the bookmark. I'll either touch the "Library" button in the top left corner or use the gesture to go to the first element of the screen (now a 4 finger tap in the top of the screen, used to be a four finger flick up -- which I prefer), then flick right to the "Table of Contents" button and double tap. This screen has two tabs: one for viewing "Table of Contents" and one for viewing your "Bookmarks". Flick right to the button for "Bookmarks, 2 of 2" and double tap. I'm now presented with a list of bookmarks I have set listed in page number order. I flick right to the bookmark I want, which is given with a chapter identification, page number, and date I set the bookmark. To navigate to the bookmark I double tap the entry. If I want to resume reading, I move back to the first element of the screen (touch left corner or do your four finger tap on the top of the screen), and flick right to where the "Table of Contents" button has turned into a "Resume" button. Double tapping "Resume" takes me back to the page I was last reading. <end excerpt> HTH. Cheers, Esther On Apr 23, 2011, at 12:46, Tony Hernandez wrote: > Hi all. > > I've ben trying all day to get various programs to work well reading PDFs on > the Mac and have gotten no where fast. The programs I've tried are Adobe > reader 10, Stanza, Skim, Preview, Safari, and Text Edit. These each have bugs > that either make the document unreadable or difficult to read, or get hung > up. Skim completely freezes when I reach the end of a page and forces me to > close it out, which is unacceptable. Stanza does weird things with the > spacing and makes the information incomprehensible. Safari doesn't let me > interact with the text properly and insists on taking me to the very first > page no matter what part of the file is visible when I try to interact with > the text. Adobe is completely inaccessible. Text Edit just renders the file > as garbage characters. Preview doesn't track my location properly when I read > by line, so if I have to start reading by character, I'm completely lost > there too. I don't wish to pay for a pdf to text converter because I don't > have fond memories of such converters and I don't want to view the > information as text. Is there a program out there for the Mac that reads PDF > files, doesn't hang up or have quirky and distracting problems tracking the > cursor, etc.? So far my experience with viewing pdf files on the Mac has been > unhappy and worthy of 1 star. It's quite discouraging. I really, really don't > want to have to read all my Objective C stuff on Windows machines. I'm at my > wit's end with this and quite disappointed so far. > > Tony Hernandez > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. 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