The PDF files
Although Ansyr was kind enough to supply a few sample PDF files to try out, I decided to do a real-world reality check, and downloaded a couple files from work. I downloaded a six-page, graphic-intensive data sheet and an 82-page user's guide. The data sheet was 517 KB, the user's guide 5.9 MB. That's a pretty significant difference, but not exactly unusual when it comes to standard use. Obviously, this is where having significant storage on your handheld device becomes important.

Loading the software
I did have a few problems at first, and had to load the software three times before I could get it to take. The problem seems to be that the program insists on loading itself into main memory. Unfortunately, I've allocated most of my internal memory to program use, so I directed the program to the memory card and assumed it would be installed there. My bad. It took me a little detective work to realize that it was a memory allocation issue, as appropriate warnings weren't supplied.

Interfacing
The Primer interface is clean and simple, and anyone who's ever used a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader will feel right at home. While not as feature-laden as Reader, it's got just enough features to make it work well.

The main event
When you load Primer, you first get a nice, professional-looking splash page, as shown in Figure A.

FIGURE A

The Primer opening screen is a nice, professional-looking splash page. Click picture for a larger image.

The next page is a virtually blank canvas, as shown in Figure B.

FIGURE B

The Primer interface is a virtually blank canvas. Click picture for a larger image.

Now it's time to load the files. The first file I loaded was the six-page data sheet. It took about 30 seconds to load the file, complete with status bars. You can see the screen response to loading the file in Figure C.

FIGURE C

It only took about 30 seconds to load a six-page data file. Click picture for a larger image.

I thought that 30 seconds wasn't bad, since the first page contained a pretty intense graphic, as you can see in Figure D.

FIGURE D

The first page of the data sheets contained a pretty intense graphic, so 30 seconds to load didn't seem long at all. Click picture for a larger image.

I was really impressed with the quality of the graphic image...it certainly rivaled the image produced by my desktop. Very cool. But then I selected the Next Page icon at the bottom of my screen and reality set in. Time to wait again. And wait. And wait. Changing pages took anywhere from 15 seconds to well over a minute, depending on the page content. Multiply that by the length of the average chapter, and you'll quickly see that the speed issue is a major concern. I'm sure that Ansyr is working on an answer to this. We'll just have to wait and see.

After finishing with the six-page data sheet, I loaded the 82-page user's guide, and it also took about 30 seconds to load. Hmmm...it seems that loading a file is merely loading the first page and assigning fonts. Which presents another problem…

Fonts is fonts
Rather than using the fonts the document was created with, Primer used fonts I had on my Cassiopeia, which would've been all right if I'd had some control over the assignments. You see, I have a very gothic display font called Nosferatu on my system, and Primer decided that it would be a good choice as a replacement for Futura Bold, Futura Book Oblique, Palatino Italic, and Palatino Bold-Italic.