Tofu version 2.0 is available for alpha testing, adding columns to PDF files as well as HTML

Originally downloaded 3/28/06. This should be interesting… having been a typesetter at one point in my life and having worked in print media for longer than I care to remember, I know how hard it must be to develope a reliable algorithm for this kind of reorganization. Still, it really could make online reading easier. The alpha release of Tofu 2.0 is a first attempt to apply the algorithm to PDF documents as well as web pages. Oh, and it’s free, by the way.

Update 8/29/06 I meant to move Tofu to my “Recommended” list a long time ago, but forgot. I don’t use it all that often, but it’s an amazing demonstration of how to make text more readable onscreen. Works great with PDF files as well as regular text. I only wish the developer would spend a little more time stabilizing Tofu, because unfortunately I find it crashes more often than I’d like. Definitely give the 2.0 “alpha” a go, since it has some very nice extensions to the 1.1 version. One aspect I haven’t tried is Tofu’s speech recognition, which would make navigating multicolumn onscreen text even easier than with a mouse.

Version as tested: 2.0a2