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Is there a Good Reader Alt for Android

H

hominid

Lurker
Looking to escape the clutches of Apple & move to Android...
...I like everything about Android I've seen so far - except.
...I need Good Reader OR something equivalent in functionality.

The other thing I've noticed on my Android tablet is that IF I name a file the android system "shortens it" unlike it does on IOS / Good Reader? The documents I'm working with are legal type documents and often times have long file names ( descriptions ) and while this seems to be no problem for Good Reader ( or Windows Phone or even Blackberry ) Android appears to shorten the name, sometimes to the point you can't tell exactly what the document file name is without opening it.

Does anyone know if there is a simple application for Droid that works the same way as Good Reader or is this just a known short coming of Android? Most all Law Firms use IOS and Good Reader is very common as it allows you to easily put what you want on an ipad and go through it without any connection to the internet or carrier.

Thanks for any help I can get with this.

hominid
 
I can't help with the app because I don't know what Good Reader is and hence don't know what functionality it has that you wish to replicate. There are a vast number of apps that let you read documents of different sorts without an internet connection, so what else is it that you need?

But what app are you using to name files that's resulting in names being truncated? I regularly use fairly long filenames, and as a test I just renamed an old junk file to "let me see how stupidly long a name I can give this file and the system still cope.txt" and it worked fine. I also confirmed the naming was Ok by looking at the same file in a different file manager. So it's not Android itself that has an aversion to long filenames, which suggests it may be a feature of the particular app you are using.
 
Screenshot (18).png
Thanks for the reply Hadron!

I didn't use "an app" to name the files. The files were compiled / named on my PC & I simply copy-N-Pasted those files into the SD card on the tablet via the USB cable from the PC to the tablet. I did the same thing with my old blackberry and a windows phone and the file names were not altered or shortened at all.

With Good Reader I simply loaded all 400 or so files into the App via iTunes and put them in a folder in Good Reader - the file names all stayed intact as well. It appears with Android I can't keep the full file name I assigned from my PC?

Here is what it looks like.



As you can see Android is shortening the file name to the point I can't identify it w/out opening the file up and then I can see the full file name - this defeats the purpose for me. I don't know why the full file name shows up in a several year old blackberry but not a newer Android tablet.
 
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Doesn't a right click on the icon give the info?

I also don't know what Good Reader is, but I downloaded a lot of freebies from Smashwords and Gutenberg. I like Sci-fi.

Most showed up in a file tree like windows. All the readers wanted you to fill shelves, and I finally found a reader that would use the tree.

What you are running into is MS Word vs. WordPerfect. Law firms used to use WP for the way it set pleadings.

Here's a list of readers:
http://www.androidauthority.com/best-ebook-ereader-apps-for-android-170696/

List of same from Wikipedia with more information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_e-book_reader_software

Hope this helps.
 
Good Reader is an application available on IOS that allows one to open the document into Good Reader itself or load via iTunes. You can make your own folders, move things around, rename, etc. Good Reader will open MS Word, PowerPoint, PDF's, play / display audio or video files, about anything.

All I know is that most my work gets done on my PC and historically all I did was buy a phone, get a SD card and copy & paste the contents from the PC onto the SD card installed on the phone. After I unplugged the phone I could simply open that folder and the file names for each file looked the same way on the blackberry or windows phone that they did on the PC.

Also, I can view all the files even if I was in an area that didn't have cellular coverage or WIFI - that's sort of what I'm looking to do with an Android Phone ( such as a Galaxy Note 5 or Galaxy S7 ). It's possible Android isn't good at this one thing I want to do and that's the reason none of the attorney's I've ran into over the last 4 years use Android.

Thanks for all the input.
 
Today I did an experiment - I emailed a file from my iPhone to a friend with a Galaxy J7...
...The J7 was running Marshmallow & the file name I emailed was long ( several words ).
...I saved the file to my friends phone then immediately went to the file location.

That file ( same as the others on my Android Tablet ) had been shortened to the point you couldn't tell what it was.

Name of the file I emailed: 20_1-16 Strategize for 1st Expanded Team Mtg 5-18-11.doc

When I save this file to either my iPhone, blackberry or windows phone the file name stays intact and when I look at the file name in the folder I direct it to the full file name is visible.

However, if I save that same file on an Android Device and then look at the name of the file after it hits the folder this is what it ends up being: 20_1-16...-11.doc

What is it about Android that causes this?
 
My best guess is that it's not Android per se, because that supports long filenames perfectly well, but something to do with the translation between different filesystems.

When you saved the file from the email, was the name of the attachment truncated in the email before saving, or only after saving?

Another thought: are you copying files to the internal storage of the Android device or a removable SD card? Because the internal storage will use the ext4 filesystem, while the SD card will most likely be fat32, which has more restrictions on filenames.

I can't put my finger on exactly why this is happening, just have a suspicion that it's something to do with this (triggered by 15-20 year old memories of transferring files between Windows and Unix systems, back when Windows used FAT for all file storage).
 
Hadron & fdbyrant3,

My apologies to you and the other readers - I was able to figure it out....
...I was going about it wrong in that I was opening up "my Files".
...Then browsing to the folder & file I wanted.

What I had did was simply copy-N-paste the work I did on my PC...
...Load it into the tablet expecting it to display like my blackberry & WP.
...It didn't because evidently blackberry and WP come with their own "file manager".

I found a native file manager on my friends phone who is running Marshmallow...
...Opened "EXPLORER" then opened the folders via that & VIOLA.
...The full file name was displayed.

I know Android sells a lot of phones but they have a small market share for business....
...This has to be one reason why.


In any event now that I've solved my issue I'll start looking for a phone....
...Unless within 6 months Samsung will re- release the Note 7 which I WANTED.

Thanks again everyone.
 
I don't think that Samsung will re-release the Note 7 - they want that forgotten, and the name is so tainted I doubt that the carriers would take it again. There's a lot of speculation as to when/if a replacement will be released, but it is all speculation, no facts in any of the articles or posts. We'll just have to see.

I admit that I don't fully understand your explanation of copying and pasting and loading into the tablet, and actually most Android devices come with a file manager (different manufacturers have their own versions), though there are better alternatives in the Play Store (a rule that works for most classes of app). But I'm glad it's working.
 
what I was doing that wasn't working was.

1)
Open "my files"

2)
Open "SD CARD" ( then open the folder that contained the work I copyf & pasted from my PC ).

When I do it that way the file names show up shortened to the point I can't tell exactly what they are. When I used the "explorer" manager on my friends new J7 Android phone then I could see the full file names. His phone however did the same thing my tablet did when I emailed one of the files to him then saved it on his device - the phone told me it had saved in "downloads" so I went there and looked and saw it had the same shortened file structure I was having problems with on my tablet.

I guess the teaching to all this that I learned is that you HAVE TO HAVE a file manager - the S2 Nook I got doesn't appear to have one for that - just book reader so when I tried to look at my files the same way I had been doing it on my blackberry and WP I thought it was a limitation of Android when it was just that they didn't bother to put the file manager there and on the J7 phone the app is buried - I was fortunate enough to read about it and how it came with marshmallow.

You guys are great.
 
WordPerfect viewer/editor on Android? For long-time WordPerfect users, it has been virtually impossible to read or write WPD files on an Android device. The only official option, thus far, has been the official and commercial Corel WPD viewer, but the user reviews have been mixed, to say the least.
This problem has prompted me to research and experiment, based on the fact that a free Windows MS Office-compatible suite like Libre Office [or Open Office, or Apache Office] has, for some time, had the ability to open WordPerfect files seamlessly [and save them, sometimes]. I formatted and saved a few basic WPD files, simply renamed the file extension to .ODT, and opened them in Libre Office – virtually perfectly [only experiencing importing issues with some complex tables]. Apart from that, formatting features like different fonts, graphics boxes, numbered outlining? No problem.
Then I proceeded to Android: I copied these test WPD files [simply renamed as ODT files, not exported as Open Office files, remember] to my device/cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive. I installed a number of Open Office/ODT compatible office apps, and tried to open the "new" ODT files.
The best and most surprising result so far has come from OOReader [free via the Google Play store]. Opening a renamed WPD file as an ODT file takes a few seconds to convert, and – success! Almost every file I've tossed at OOReader has imported successfully, with WP formatting and graphics intact.
Interestingly, the official Libre Office viewer app [also the beta one] chokes on these FrankenFiles, as well as most other allegedly ODT-compatible office viewers and editors. [On a desktop LibreOffice works very well with WordPerfect files, though.]
And so my conclusion and advice are this: If you're a die-hard WPD user and would like to access your files on an Android device, follow these kludgy and hack-ey steps: [1] upload your WPD file AS IS to your device or the cloud; [2] install OOReader on your device; [3] when you need to do so, simply rename the WPD file to an ODT extension, and import into OOReader.
Savvy users might even write a batch script or CMD file beforehand which automatically renames or mirrors important WPD files as ODT files in one's PC Dropbox folder, which will save precious seconds when accessing that beautiful WPD data...
Date: 28 May 2016 -- Hein -- heinmg at gmail dot com
 
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