Pleco for Android Instruction Manual : Document Reader Reference
To access the Pleco document reader, go into the main Pleco dictionary screen, press your device's menu button and tap "Reader." You can also add an icon to your device's home screen to get into it directly - see this guide for details.
The text file reading and bookmarking capabilities are part of the paid Text File Reader add-on, available through the Add-ons tab or our online store.
The built-in document reader in Pleco helps to streamline the process of reading through Chinese-language documents by making it easy to look up unknown words; you can look up a word in the dictionary simply by tapping on it, instead of having to write it in manually. You can bring in snippets of text from any document via the clipboard, or read entire text files (even very large ones) with the optional Text File Reader add-on.
When you first open the document reader, it'll bring up this screen, showing the contents of your device's clipboard (text copied via the Copy command) or, if no clipboard text is available, an introductory welcome message:
The interface is mostly hidden in the menu bar in order to give you a distraction-free reading experience, but you can scroll through the text by dragging it (just like in a dictionary entry, web page, or any other long piece of text).
Tap on a Chinese word to look it up:
The interface for this is exactly the same as the Popup Definition interface in the main dictionary screen (see that page for more detailed instructions). Tap on the dictionary switch icon on the side of the "bubble" to view a definition in a different dictionary, use the arrows at the bottom of the screen to move the selection left or right or make it longer / shorter, and use the buttons at the top of the screen to copy text to the clipboard / play audio / add it to flashcards / search for the word / view the current dictionary entry full-screen.
You can also press your device's volume buttons to advance to the next / previous word; with the popup definition bubble closed, the volume buttons will scroll you to the next or previous page.
If you've purchased the Text File Reader add-on, press your device's menu button and you'll see an option to Save the current clipboard text to a text file for easy retrieval later on.
For long blocks of clipboard text, Pleco will remember your last place in the document and return to it when you reopen the reader, provided that the text has not changed since it was last opened.
If you enable "Search for clipboard on startup" in Settings / General / Startup Actions, Pleco will automatically pop up the clipboard reader screen when you open it with some Chinese text in the clipboard (but only if the text has changed since Pleco was last opened).
To access the Text File Reader function, open up the clipboard reader, then press your device's menu button to bring up the menu bar:
Tap Open File to bring up a file open dialog (or Recent Files to bring up a list of recently-opened files):
And tap the file you want to open to bring it up in the document reader.
The basic interface for this is exactly the same as for the Clipboard Reader - tap on a word to look it up, tap on the arrow buttons that appear at the bottom of the screen to move / resize the selection range. However, there are a few new options available in the menu bar:
Pleco automatically keeps track of the last location viewed in each file and returns you to that location when you reopen it. It can usually do this even when a file is moved, provided that the contents haven't changed - if the contents change and the file doesn't move, it'll show you a prompt asking you if you want to keep or discard the bookmarks associated with the file.
Pleco's document reader includes a full-featured bookmarking system, allowing you to record positions in text files and return to them later. To create a bookmark in a text file, press your device's menu button and tap Add Bookmark to bring up this screen:
Type in a name for the new bookmark in the "Name" field and tap "OK" to create it.
To jump to one of your bookmarks, press the menu button and tap Bookmarks + Recents:
Tap on a bookmark to jump to its saved location. You can rearrange the order of bookmarks by dragging them around by their move handles on the right side of the screen, or rename or delete a bookmark by tap-holding on it and choosing "Rename" or "Delete." Tap Clear All at the bottom of the screen to erase all bookmarks for a document.
Tap Recent Files in the bar at the top of the screen to view a list of recently-opened files:
Tap on one of them to open it, or tap-hold on it and choose "Delete Bookmarks" to remove it from the list and delete any associated bookmarks.
At present, there are three main ways to get text into Pleco's document reader from another app:
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