IMSLP Forums

Excuse me if this doesn't belong to the forum. By versatile I mean a PDF reader able to do two things: go to the top of the page (most readers do this) and go to the bottom of the page. And of course, that is what I am needing. It's difficult for me to read PDF scores, specially when they contain many staffs. Suppose I am reading a Beethoven symphony. I am at to top of the page, but I lack the strings for they don't fit into the screen. If I want to go to the bottom, I am forced to repeatedly press the Down arrow. Instead, if I can go there with only a keystroke, things do not look so bad. OK, Now, people with good vision can zoom the page to make it fit into the screen, though you won't want to do this with The Rite of Spring.

So, is there a PDF reader as described? Say, for Linux or Windows? Perhaps there are even professional readers for musicians.

So basically you want to view the top half and bottom halves of the page? Or do you mean the top and bottom of the PDF file? On the Keyboard if you press the Home and End keys (on a full size keyboard) you will go to the first and last pages.

Thanks for your reply. No, as you say, to view the top and the bottom of the page. I am using Okular. When you press the Next Page key, you are presented with the top of the next page (assuming the page is taller than the screen). When pressing the Previous Page key, you go to the top of the previous page. And there is no way to directly go to the bottom of a page in Okular (neither in the Adobe reader), which is the fault I find in these readers. By the way, are there any professional PDF readers for musicians?

I believe Gsview and its prerequisite GhostScript do the job. Start zooming on the upper half of p.1 of a multiple-page document. Then the + and - keys will move by 1 page, always showing the upper halves of pages.
Same if you have begun zooming on the lower half of a page. Acrobat Reader interprets the up and down keys always moving by a window height, not a page height. See the links on http://imslp.org/wiki/Locked_PDFs

You can have 2 Gsview windows open: one for each half of the pages and toggle between them with Alt Tab.
Hope I understood your problem.

I believe Gsview and its prerequisite GhostScript do the job. Start zooming on the upper half of p.1 of a multiple-page document. Then the + and - keys will move by 1 page, always showing the upper halves of pages.
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Well having to windows I think it would be a little cumbersome. Imagine you are following a piece of music with the score. I mean, you both listen to the music and read the score. If you have a printed score on your lap, then the eye instantly goes from top to bottom or any other place in the page. It is quite different if you have the score as an electronic book and the document page is too high to fit on the screen without zooming up to an unreadable level. Hence, a way to QUICKLY glance at the bottom, if you are at the top and viceversa would be very handy.

Your first solution does not seem to be viable. Imagine I am at the top of page 34 reading the woodwinds and, suddenly, I want to see what the double basses are doing. I should first go to page 1 and zoom, then return to page 34! By that time, the orchestra is playing several pages ahead. A fair question: have you ever read music. If you did, I think you would a more precise grasp of the problem. Consider the operation of reading a score is not quite the same as that of reading a book. In the case of a score, you have ideally to have the capacity of simultaneously reading all of the staves. As this is very difficult, your eye usually alternates between different parts of the page. Said other way: music is read not only horizontally but vertically. I hope now you'll be able to better appreciate the problem posed in reading an electronic score.

"Home" and "End" move you to the top or bottom of the page you are in.

I found a transient solution. Rotate the page 90 degrees, provided you have a portable computer, which you can turn one side up. I had never thought of it!