User interface systems and methods for manipulating and viewing digital documents

A computer device having a system for simulating tactile control over a document, comprising

• a processor, memory, and a touch-sensitive display,
• system code stored within the memory and adapted to be executed by the processor to provide a digital representation of a document including data content and a page structure representative of a page layout of the document,
• an engine for rendering an image of at least a portion of the page layout of the digital representation on the touch-sensitive display,
• a display monitor in communication with the touch-sensitive display screen for detecting motion of a pointer across the touch-sensitive display,
• a velocity detector for determining a velocity vector associated with the detected motion,
• an interface process in communication with the display monitor for processing the motion detected by the display monitor to detect one of a plurality of commands, wherein the plurality of commands includes a pan command,
• wherein, in response to the command detected by the interface process being the pan command, the engine renders a series of pages of the document on the touch-sensitive display at a rate based on the determined velocity vector and a page inertia.