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Posts Tagged ‘Main’

Showcase of 20 Mobile-Friendly Popular Design Blogs

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Roughly 3-4% of our readers view this site via a mobile device and that percentage is growing week-to-week. They aren’t very high percentages but it was certainly high enough to prompt me into action – I started considering a mobile version of this site.

Let me start by saying that I didn’t want it look like an entirely stripped down version of the full site. I did want to keep the overall layout of the hompage (thumbnails and excerpt), I wanted the internal post images to be re-sized per screen rather than cropped, and most importantly, I wanted the essence of the site, albeit in smaller mode, to reflect on the mobile version.
I experimented with a few Wordpress plugins, for some sites these plugins may be powerful enough, but not for me, I wanted more functionality. I also tried a few web services, I wasn’t too happy with them either.

Eventually I chanced upon the solution while browsing WebDesigner Depot on my HTC Hero (much better than the iPhone!), and there mobile site just looked amazing. It has the appearance of a mobile app while still maintaining the integrity and functionality of the full site. I went digging and found out that they were using Mobify, a web service were you can design a mobile layout for your website exactly how you want.

I since discovered that a lot of design blogs were also using Mobify (Smashing Magazine and Abduzeedo to name a couple), so I jumped in and tried it. You can see from the screenshot below what I have built, and it actually wasn’t that hard nor did it test the patience. Speckyboy-Lite looks not too bad:

Mobile Speckyboy Design MagazineMobile Speckyboy Design Magazine

Mobify Overview

In case you were wondering what Mobify is all about, have a look at this short video below.

Below you will find 20 mobile versions of popular design blogs designed with Mobify. Its best if you view this page with a mobile device as to get the full viewing benefit and fully experiencing there mobile versions. Why not bookmark them all as well.

Abduzeedo

Mobile AbduzeedoMobile Abduzeedo

Smashing Magazine

Mobile Smashing MagazineMobile Smashing Magazine

SitePoint

Mobile SitePointMobile SitePoint

Veerle's blog 2.0

Mobile Veerles blog 2.0Mobile Veerles blog 2.0

Webdesigner Depot

Mobile Webdesigner DepotMobile Webdesigner Depot

Yanko Design

Mobile Yanko DesignMobile Yanko Design

A List Apart

Mobile A List ApartMobile A List Apart

TheDieline

Mobile TheDielineMobile TheDieline

I love Typography

Mobile I love TypographyMobile I love Typography

Jeffrey Way

Mobile Jeffrey WayMobile Jeffrey Way

Six Revisions

Mobile Six RevisionsMobile Six Revisions

Avatar NY

Mobile Avatar NYMobile Avatar NY

DesignM.ag

Mobile Designm.agMobile Designm.ag

WebmasterRadio.FM

Mobile WebmasterRadio.FMMobile WebmasterRadio.FM

kristarella.com

kristarella.comMobile Kristarella

CSS-Tricks

Mobile CSS-TricksMobile CSS-Tricks

Just Creative Design

Mobile Just Creative DesignMobile Just Creative Design

Amy Stoddard

Mobile Amy StoddardMobile Amy Stoddard.com by Mobify

MyInkBlog

Mobile MyInkBlogMobile MyInkBlog

You might also like…

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How To Turn Your Nintendo DS Into An iPod

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

how to turn ds into ipodSince its release in 2004, the Nintendo DS handheld console has seen four iterations (original, Lite, DSi, DSi-XL) but some of them haven’t included certain features that one might expect from a handheld device with touchscreen functionality. The Nintendo DS is capable of functioning as a PDA or handheld multimedia device, but Nintendo has chosen to keep it mostly focused on video games.

Meanwhile the Sony PSP, a direct competitor to the DS, has the ability to not only play games, but watch movies, play music, and more. This has left some Nintendo DS owners feeling a little left out.

This article will explain basically how to turn your DS into an iPod so that you can add music playing functionality to your beloved dual-screened handheld console, so you may not need to buy that shiny new iPod.


Although the new Nintendo DSi does have native support for AAC, users with the older iterations or those wishing to play MP3s are left in the dust. However, there is a relatively easy way to unlock the hidden potential of the Nintendo DS.

Buy a Flash Card

how to turn your ds into an ipodThe first thing you will need to do is buy a flash card to use with your DS. A flash card is a game card containing flash memory that you plug in as if you were playing any other game. It enables you to add more functions, such as running the application that lets you play MP3s, Ogg Vorbis, and AAC files. The nice thing about flash cards is their convenience, ease of use, and they won’t void your warranty like some other methods do since it’s just a card and no hardware modification is required. With that said, Nintendo does not condone the use of flash cards, so do it at your own risk.

There are many different brands of DS flash cards and all of them have their own set of features and quality. Notable brands include the CycloDS, the M3, and Acekard. In this tutorial, we will use the Acekard 2i, which is known for being an inexpensive quality card. Acekard’s official web site has a list of recommended distributors to buy from. Unless you already have a MicroSD card to use, I suggest you purchase a package that contains both the MicroSD card and the Acekard.

I bought my whole kit for less than $35, which is around the price of one game. The kit will include simple instructions to prepare the card for the DS, which is basically just downloading and copying some files onto the card using the included USB stick.

Download & Install Moonshell

Now that you’ve got the flash card, you need an application to play the music. This is where Moonshell comes in. Moonshell is an unofficial multimedia player for the Nintendo DS. It can be used to play music, watch videos, view photos, read text, and some other things.

To install Moonshell, follow these instructions:

  1. Mount your MicroSD card into your PC using the USB loader from the Acekard kit.
  2. Download Moonshell from the official web site.

    how to turn your ds into an ipod

  3. Run or unzip the files to a directory and then run the setup.exe file. It will ask you to select a language.

    how to turn your ds into an ipod

  4. Choose your mounted card. For me, it’s “Removable Disk J:”.

    how to turn my nintendo ds into a ipod

  5. It will begin to copy the files.

    how to turn my nintendo ds into a ipod

    After it’s finished, you can also go ahead and copy over a MP3 to the Removable Disk as well. Then safely eject the USB reader and card.

  6. Plug the Acekard into your DS and power on. Choose to load the Acekard from the main menu.

    how to turn my nintendo ds into a ipod

  7. Select the Moonshell program to run it. On your first boot, it will ask you to select a language.
  8. After it loads (takes a few seconds) you’ll see a file explorer on the bottom screen where you can select the MP3 you want to play. On the top screen you’ll see instructions for how to play tracks, change volume, and so on.

    how to turn ds into ipod

  9. Now simply select the song you want to play, and if all goes well, it will begin to play immediately. Continue to add more MP3s to your SD card as needed. You can organize them using file directories, just like you would on your PC. Note: With Moonshell version 2.10, I’ve noticed MP3s with very high bit-rates may not play correctly, but most MP3s work fine.

Was this tutorial easy to follow? Have you used your Nintendo DS to play music? Do you have any tips to improve the experience? If so, please leave us a comment below!

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Remains of the Day: The Best Jobs in America Edition [For What It's Worth]

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Step inside for lessons from the life of Albert Einstein, more snazzy HTML5 demos, and an infographic look at the best jobs in America. More

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Mac Giveaway Tweetie Winners!

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Wow, we’re happy to have gotten a huge response for Tweetie! Here are our lucky 10 winners!

  1. Neal Tucker
  2. Colton Redwine
  3. Bruno Casarini
  4. Chris Kopyar
  5. Chris Tromp
  1. Fitz Busher
  2. Lee Sui
  3. Javier Samaniego
  4. Amy Lew
  5. Andrew Woodbury

License information will be sent via email. Thank you for participating. Catch out next giveaway in an hour’s time!

MakeUseOf would like to thank Loren from atebits for her generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email.

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6 Cool Widgets For Myspace

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

I have had just about enough of MySpace, Friendster, Facebook and the rest of them. I guess it is just me growing up and settling into my ways. I am 30 years old and I blog and tweet all the time.

But I do recognize that a huge part of the younger population are into Myspace and that is why I will be running down 6 really cool Widgets for your MySpace page.

Aibek covered a huge amount of additions, widgets and more for your MySpace page back in 2006 here.


The first widget I will cover is a game called Age of War. Learn the Art of war. Buy turrets, fight and evolve. This is an epic game and will bring people back to your page over and over again! I found this widget here at WidgetBox

cool widgets for myspace

To install the widget on MySpace your best bet is to grab the embed code and insert it where you want it like so:

cool widgets for myspace

The next widget is called My Flash Fetish and is a MySpace comment widget as you can see below:

cool widgets for myspace

There are lots of customizations to color and styling so you can make it fit your page. Click the get code button below the widget and choose “other” then copy the embed code and you are on your way to pasting it into your page.

Want more cool widgets for Myspace? Next, we have another MyFlashFetish widget that allows you to show how long you have been sober from drugs, alcohol or what have you. Visit this site and follow the directions and grab the embed code when you are done to post it on your MySpace page.

myspace widgets

Alright now how about a count down widget to show how much time is left until your birthday? Check out this widget from Magic Widgets.

myspace widgets

Fill in the data on top, change the colors and the background image. Your preview will appear above it. The message can also be dragged around to place it where you would like in the widget on this screen. Then you click get HTML code to get and insert your embed code.

I particularly thought this one was very cute and appropriately titled Stick Figure Family. You can set up yours from FreeFlashToys.

myspace widgets

After editing mine looked like this:

the most wanted widgets for myspace

Here is a good prank for your page. It is called Tic Tac Prank and in the author’s own words:

Haha… we love scaring people with good ‘ol pranks. That’s why we made TIC TAC SCARE. It’s one of the best ways to make your friends piss themselves, by playing a “harmless” game of tic tac toe. So put it on your profile and wait to hear your friends’ reactions. People even record the reactions on YouTube! Check it out.

Here is the URL to grab the code and below that is a YouTube video of a mom pranking her children with it! Bad mom!

So all in all, there are an infinite amount of widgets out there for whatever social network you use no matter if it is MySpace, a blog, or anywhere they will let you enter code!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!


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10 Useful Website Analytics Tools

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

When you start a website, no matter if you have chosen a top business hosting package or a cheap website hosting package, you will find various website analysis tools in your web hosting admin panel. Website analysis tools, such as Awstats, are typically included in both business hosting and cheap website hosting packages and these tools are indeed good. However, if you want options when it comes to website analytics tools, here are some suggestions.

JAWStats

website analysis

If you like Awstats, you will certainly appreciate JAWStats as well. JAWStats runs in conjunction with Awstats and produces more graphics than Awstats.

goingup!

website analysis

Goingup! is one more tool website stats freaks will love because it offers many kinds of statistical data, which is represented in visually attractive ways. A substantial part of the functionality of goingup! is SEO-related, so if you don’t use any other SEO-tools, this tool will do this job as well.

Clicky

website analysis

Clicky also made the list of useful website analysis tools not only because it has tons of great features but also because it is one of the few website analysis tools you can use from your iPhone.

Google Analytics

website analysis

Google Analytics is rightfully considered one of the best because it is really a comprehensive tool, which gives you tons of useful data about your site.

W3Counter

website analysis

W3Counter is a free, hosted website analytics solution for answering the key questions about your website: who’s your audience, how they find your site, and what interests them.

Woopra

website analysis

Woopra is another excellent website analysis package. It has many, many features and there are webmasters, who name Woopra, not Google Analytics, the most comprehensive website analysis tool.

W3Perl

website analysis

W3Perl can use server’s logfiles and/or be used as a page tagging tool. The perl scripts analyze logfiles and produce HTML/PDF reports. It can be run from the command line or from the web interface.

Piwik

website analysis

Piwik has all the features you can expect from analysis application. Its main advantage is that its features come in the form of plugins, which means you can choose which features to get and which to skip.

TraceWatch

website analysis

TraceWatch lets you keep track of the visitors to your website in real time with detailed statistics and deep analysis using an innovative user interface for FREE and helps you make your website more effective. It can be easily installed on any website supporting PHP and MySQL. You only need to upload some files to your server.

Snoop

website analysis

Unlike almost all the other tools on the list, which are either used on the server of their developer, or have to be installed on your web host, Snoop is a desktop application. Snoop has a Windows and Mac version and after you install it, it runs in your tray and you get notified if an important event on your site occurs.

Certainly there are other great and useful website analysis tools in addition to the ones we have listed. If you try them and see that they aren’t what you are looking for, rest assured – there are many more website analytics tools for you to try! You can always start with the website analysis tools in your web hosting account but sooner or later you will feel the need to find more tools and get more data in addition to what you are getting for free with your business hosting or your cheap website hosting.

About the Author

Vanessa Davis writes for WHS, which lists reviews of leading hosting companies. She is deeply involved in writing web development and webhosting articles covering almost all topics from best cheap best hosting to business hosting.

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How to Choose Right CSS Frameworks

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

CSS Frameworks allow you to rapidly improve and speed up your development time when used correctly, and provide a powerful way to style our websites and applications with flexibility and effectiveness.

So How Do We Choose the Right One?
The first step you need to take is to make sure you decide upon a framework that has an established and accurate representation of detailed documentation. This is vital to the steps you’ll take in implementing and utilizing your framework the way it was intended. Next, you should analyze what problems the specified frameworks of your choice will solve. As you come across frameworks that you believe might “fit the bill” for the project(s) at hand, then it would be wise to compare each of them and elaborate on which framework addresses which concerns and satisfies your needs.

Also, don’t hesitate to ask other developers and colleagues which framework has worked best for them and why? This will help you gain valuable insight based on the experience of others, something that can’t be bought. Another point I would like to make is the role your chosen framework’s community plays. How big is it? Are the members helpful? Does it provide invaluable resources? Every one of these questions help you determine if your framework’s community is going to be of use. The logical point of view is, the larger and more involved the community is, the better your chances are at finding the right type of help when you need it.

Below we will take a look at 8 of the best frameworks we found to be useful for both developers and designers.

Blueprint CSS

The Blueprint CSS framework uses a grid-system that has pre-built typography and includes various plugins, built-in form styles and more. With BP you’ll also find good stable documentation, a wiki, an active discussion group, and examples of sites built on the Blueprint system.

Elements CSS Framework

Overall, the Elements framework makes it much easier and efficient to write CSS code. It’s a way to keep your files organized, benefit from a collection of present classes that can make your development process much friendlier, and it’ll automatically add respective icons for external links so that users will be able to quickly find and access them as well.

Content with Style

Content with Style is a CSS framework that helps you style and structure your website with amazing design and typographical elements. With six different layouts to choose from that include vertical navigation, two content columns, horizontal navigation with two columns of content and useful one content columns. Content with Style is an efficient way to “prioritize” the content on your site and focus on areas such as the header, main content, sub content, and more.

Emastic

This lightweight CSS framework uses PX, EM, or % widths for the process of signaling a page width, and it is also based on an elastic layout. Emastic comes with various pre-defined styles for your typography and much more. Predominantly, the grid is made up of blocks that are sized from 5 to 75em units. The default sizes can be changed at any time and the frameworks design options depend on the grid layout.

960 Grid System

The 960 grid system is a powerful CSS framework that lets us develop and prototype websites rapidly. The layouts are based on 12-16 columns and the layout templates are for Illustrator, Photoshop, Expression Design, Fireworks and more. You can also print a variety of templates for use with pen and paper if that’s what suits you best.

Yui Grids

The foundational YUI Grids CSS offers four preset page widths, six preset templates, and the ability to stack and nest subdivided regions of two, three, or four columns. The 4kb file provides over 1000 page layout combinations. Features included are support for fluid-width, easy customization, flexible template columns, and more.

Yaml

“Yet Another Multicolumn Layout” (YAML) is an (X)HTML/CSS framework for creating modern and flexible floated layouts. The structure is extremely versatile in its programming and absolutely accessible for end users. YAML is focussed on web standards and accessibility, slim framework core with numerous extensions, complete multilingual documentation, and robust, flexible layout concept (columns & grids).

SenCSs

SenCSs stands for Sensible Standards CSS baseline, (pronounced “sense”). It supplies sensible styling for all repetitive parts of your CSS, and doesn’t force a lay-out system on you. This allows you to focus on actually developing your website’s style. SenCSs isn’t a framework like other CSS frameworks, it doesn’t include a layout system littered with silly classes and pre-set grids, so what does SenCSs do? SenCSs does everything else: baseline, fonts, paddings, margins, tables, lists, headers, blockquotes, forms and more.

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Can I Play HTML5 YouTube Videos in Firefox Right Now? [Ask Lifehacker]

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Dear Lifehacker,
I’ve read about how HTML5 will change the way I use the web, but it seems like the biggest example of HTML5 in action is on sites like YouTube—which don’t support my favorite browser, Firefox. What’s the deal?

I find myself, and I’m sure tons of others, caught in the Adobe Flash Player vs. HTML5 battle. Flash Player runs terribly on my iMac. Videos on different sites either tell me to install Flash components, show up as blank white areas, load perpetually (CNET TV) or tell me to adjust global storage, and so on. If they do play, I often get the stuttering/buffering that drives me crazy. I had the latest version of Flash Player, uninstalled that and installed the latest 10.1 Beta3, and it’s just as bad.

I considered signing up for YouTube’s HTML5 beta test, but that only works for Safari, Chrome, and IE, not Firefox. I’ve read about Mozilla’s stance on this issue, too.

I apologize for the long intro to my question, but do you know of any Firefox addon or plugin that installs the H.264 codec? We already have to install a plugin for Flash Player, so perhaps it’s possible someone can do this for H.264.

Thanks for any help,
Fighting with Flash

Howdy Fighting,
That’s a good question, and unfortunately one to which there’s no great answer. It actually is technically possible to play HTML5 YouTube videos in Firefox, but it’s extremely convoluted (details below)—and Mac users like yourself won’t have any luck. First, for those who aren’t familiar with why Firefox is excluded from YouTube’s (and some other video sites’) HTML5 support, here’s why:

The Problem

In order to move to HTML5 from Flash, video sites like YouTube need to host their videos in formats friendly to Flash-free HTML5 embedding. Unfortunately there’s no default standard for the format HTML5 videos should use.

As a dedicated open-source, open-standards browser, Firefox chose to support the Ogg Theora video format for HTML5 video. Like Firefox, Ogg Theora is free and open; it’s not covered by any patents, so it requires no licensing and is completely free to use for everyone involved.

Other browser makers, like Chrome and Safari, support H.264 for HTML5 video. Unlike Ogg Theora, H.264 is patented, and would theoretically require browser makers to pay licensing fees to use it (though the company that owns licensing rights to H.264 have said that they’ll offer it royalty free until 2016). Additionally, the issue isn’t just about licensing.

Some tests have shown H.264 to perform better than Ogg Theora in side-by-side comparisons. Apple’s stance on the matter, via Wikipedia, is that “H.264 performs better and is already more widely supported.” For video sites like YouTube, the main concern is likely which format can deliver the highest quality video with the greatest compression rates. Unfortunately for Team Firefox (and supporters of free and open web standards), it’s looking like H.264 might deliver the best results.

It’s worth nothing that browsers can support multiple video formats for HTML5 support, but currently Chrome is the only browser that supports both H.264 and Ogg Theora (though through the Frankenstein efforts of Google Chrome Frame, Internet Explorer also gets support for both). The chart below (from Wikipedia) lays it all out:

As you can see, unless either Firefox changes its stance or sites like YouTube decide to support a free alternative like Ogg Theora, Firefox fanatics don’t have a clear way to watch HTML5 YouTube videos.

The “Solution”

If you’re extremely desperate to watch HTML5 YouTube videos but you absolutely do not want to switch to another browser, you’ve got one simple-yet-absurd solution that’ll only work on Windows:

Watch HTML5 YouTube Videos in Firefox (on Windows)

  1. Install the IE Tab Firefox extension (or one of the other IE-in-Firefox extensions).
  2. Install Google Chrome Frame for IE.

  3. In the IE Tab preferences inside Firefox and set YouTube to always open inside an IE Tab (see image below).
  4. Visit the YouTube HTML5 Video Player opt-in page (if you’ve set up IE Tab correctly above, it should open in an IE Tab inside Firefox) and click the Join the HTML5 Beta link at the bottom of the page.
  5. Go watch an HTML5-supported YouTube video.

And… that’s it. Ridiculous, but I’ve tried it, and it seems to work. (Though, unsurprisingly, it seemed buggy, and worked much better in straight Chrome than it did in either IE with Chrome Frame or Firefox with IE and Chrome Frame.) Unfortunately it doesn’t help Mac users like Fighting with Flash much, but it’s the best we could do.

More than anything, the convoluted process involved in watching an HTML5 YouTube video in Firefox only serves to underscore the problem. It’s not something that’ll likely be solved overnight (though I guess if Mozilla decides to cave into H.264, change could come pretty quickly), but it’s a good reminder that important, web-changing technology almost always comes with a few speed bumps.

Love,
Lifehacker

Got a better method you’re using, or want to weigh in on this whole H.264 vs. Ogg Theora battle? Let’s hear it in the comments.






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Remains of the Day: Google on Your TV Edition [For What It's Worth]

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Google dips its toe into TV programming searches, netbooks’ market share is growing, Twitter and Facebook gear up for geolocation, and researchers make the case for fat as a sixth taste sense.






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PDF-XChange Viewer – Give This Free PDF Reader A Second Look

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Last month we took a look at the Nuance PDF Reader, a desktop app which can convert your PDF document into its Word, Excel or Rich Text equivalent. A few readers liked the conversion bit among its features. A few of them also put in a good word for another free PDF reader. No, it’s not Adobe Reader or Foxit, but a relatively played down one called PDF-XChange Viewer.

On second thoughts, the last sentence would be misplaced. Taking CNET’s download figures for document management software, I see that it’s behind Foxit and Adobe Reader. But the download numbers are really noteworthy.


So why do a review of the PDF-XChange Viewer so late in the day? In response, I say…why not? The fact that a number of our readers have put in their nod for this free PDF reader is reason enough to take a second, more prying look.

We have featured it before, albeit briefly, in a post on 4 Really Light Alternatives to Adobe Reader and in 6 Ways To Convert A PDF To A JPG Image. But it’s time to give PDF-XChange Viewer some limelight of all its own.

The free version of PDF-XChange Viewer, which we are interested in, is a slim 18MB download. That makes it heavier than Foxit but lighter than Adobe Reader. You can get it in various installation packages including a portable version.

The first thing you will notice with the first run is that the free PDF reader loads very fast. So let me load one of our own MakeUseOf eBooks and play around with the features that are there.

free PDF reader

The first pleasing thing is it has a slick tabbed interface, letting me view more than one PDF file within one instance of the program. While choosing the components during the installation process, you will notice that PDF-XChange Viewer’s Help file has a requirement of nearly 6MB. This translates into a comprehensive and detailed Help file for the guy who likes to know his software in and out.

free PDF reader

The toolbar seems to be a bit cluttered. But that’s because, by default, the software loads all the toolbars. You can set it up to your liking with a right click on the toolbar area and choosing Customize. A glance at the toolbar buttons gives you an idea of the features to expect. Features that are part of the paid Pro version are marked as such.

The Key Features That Make Up PDF-XChange Viewer

PDF-XChange Viewer makes navigation smooth with its Pan and Loupe tools located in the Zoom Toolbar. Zooming in and out with the slider is one way. Both the Loupe tool and the Pan and Zoom tool open up navigation windows and help to focus on specific areas of a PDF document.

free PDF reader

PDF-XChange Viewer not only has a document search box but also a web search toolbar that’s set first on Ask.com (more engines can be added from Preferences). Click the dropdown to choose from the other search providers. For searching within the document, you can also comb through added comments and bookmarks.

download free pdf reader

PDF-XChange Viewer can be used as a ‘limited’ document converter. PDF pages can be exported to a variety of image formats. The Export to Image dialog box is also rich in features as in the screenshot.

download free pdf reader

You can easily email a PDF document from within the reader itself. The title of the document is entered in the Subject line of the email.

PDF-XChange Viewer shows the capability to handle interactive forms (AcroForms). The Form Data menu choice allows you to enter and retrieve data from Adobe Acrobat Forms. PDF-XChange Viewer has a few View options, for instance, View – Other Panes – Fields opens up a side pane with all the form fields. Along with form field highlighting, it makes the fields more obvious.

download free pdf reader

Commenting & Markup Tools

Every PDF reader has its uniqueness. With PDF-XChange Viewer it could be its rich subset of commenting and markup tools. Here’s a snapshot of the sub-menu accessed from Tools – Comment and Markup.

pdf reader

PDF-XChange Viewer gives you all the aids for elaborate markups with a variety of shape and line tools. And if you want to bump up the detail, there’s the free form Pencil tool for some freehand rough sketches.

pdf reader

You can add comments and annotations to any PDF file. The Sticky Note tool adds a Sticky Note wherever you need one for commenting. Others can also add replies below the main text by clicking on Add Reply. The appearance of the text and the container box can be changed anytime.

pdf reader

The Callout Tool allows you to add a text box with an arrow pointing to a selected location on the page.

For some straight-cut text annotations, you can use the Typewriter or the Textbox Tool.

The Stamps sub-menu is for marking documents with your choice of stamps. You can add your own stamps, for instance, your scanned signature via the Stamps Palette.

For more of navigation between internal and external locations, the Link Tools are just two steps down. You can link to any internal point in the PDF document or to an external website.

More Below The Surface

The above lines highlight the more conspicuous features of PDF-XChange Viewer. Scratch the surface and there’s more. Check out the Preferences and for customization options. For the paranoid, there’s 40/128 bit RC4 and 128/256 bit AES Encryption and Password security support.

Go into the Preferences and you can set a few memory usage and performance tuning options.

Along with the extremely detailed Help file, you get an informative product page on their website with screenshots and how-to videos to guide you through the product.

Downsides? Not many. Perhaps, the ability to add your own bookmarks in the free version would have helped. Hey, you can’t win every round with a product that’s absolutely free. PDF-XChange Viewer does win most of them.

Take it around for a few rounds and compare it with your experience in either Foxit or the Adobe Reader.

PDF-XChange Viewer (ver.2.0) is supported on Windows 2000 and all later versions.


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