hi !
i have a lot of chess ebooks and math ebooks in pdf format i tried to watch them with my sony reader but the fonts are small and i cant see the charts or numbers ! can any one help me to solve the problem ???
how can i convert the pdf files ? with a software ? to which format ?
thanks

Welcome to MobileRead dandan. Glad that you found the place.

There are a number of utilities listed on the MobileRead Wiki Conversion page (http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_conversion) that may help. A lot of people have had great luck with PDFrasterfairian. I have used many of the tools there but this is one that I have very little experience with. The developers are around here someplace and if you have a problem with PDFrasterfairian they are quick to jump in and help. Just be sure to include the name PDFrasterfairian in the title of the post.

Keep us informed as to how this works out for you.

i used bookDesigner for chess ebooks and math ebooksant it cause a chaos of letters what should i do ???
how can i converte pdf files with chess diagrams or math files with math forms ?

Unfortunately, pdfs are not meant to be edited. You can try to use pdftohtml or open office to convert your files to something more usefull. I am not sure if it will work , success depends on how chess diagrams are drawn (is it a picture insert or some custom fonts). I suspect you wont be able to convert your files.

The other approach to improve readability would be cropping pages and making fonts bolder. There are 2 way to do this: convert pdf to an image (see PDFrasterfairian) or edit pdfs themselves (inserting crop commands, replacing fonts). The later can be done by one of multiple pdf editing utilities or Acrobat suite.

Unfortunately, pdfs are not meant to be edited. You can try to use pdftohtml or open office to convert your files to something more usefull. I am not sure if it will work , success depends on how chess diagrams are drawn (is it a picture insert or some custom fonts). I suspect you wont be able to convert your files.

The other approach to improve readability would be cropping pages and making fonts bolder. There are 2 way to do this: convert pdf to an image (see PDFrasterfairian) or edit pdfs themselves (inserting crop commands, replacing fonts). The later can be done by one of multiple pdf editing utilities or Acrobat suite.

any more ideas

A lot of chess diagrams are written in very specific chess fonts. A lot of these are available as freeware online.

Without being sure if this would work at all, I would try downloading many of the freely available fonts, loading or importing the PDF into (BookDesigner, Adobe, whatever you can...) and then see if you can change the fonts for the diagram. I'm VERY new to BookDesigner though, and still trying to get the hang of certain functions myself - I'm afraid I couldn't tell you how you might actually do that. (And it's been so long since I've worked with creating/converting chess diagrams that I can't tell you where you find the fonts anymore...) But at any rate, I'd think about seeing if you can get the file converted over into a more Reader-palatable format than PDF.

i have a lot of chess ebooks and math ebooks in pdf format i tried to watch them with my sony reader but the fonts are small and i cant see the charts or numbers ! can any one help me to solve the problem ???


No really good answer, I'm afraid -- many, possibly even all, chess PDF books are designed to be printed in standard book sizes, and the PDF files and typefaces used reflect that: to read them on a Sony Reader means you have to zoom in, and then use some kind of pan-and-scan approach.

You may want to let the publisher / originator know about the problem: not all are aware of any need for mobile reading. They may be prepared to create new PDF releases targeted for small, bad-contrast screens, particularly if they're 'amateur publishers', and haven't got stuck on DRM issues. I dabble a bit in this field myself -- should any of the books you mention be something I have made, just let me know, and I'll probably be able to help out (see http://www.algonet.se/~ath/ update: http://www.anders.thulin.name/SUBJECTS/CHESS_PROBLEMS/).

If you have to go the conversion route, you need to have the same chess typeface available on the reading system. (PDF embeds them, but in HTML or RTF, you need your own copy.) A useful web page for locating free chess typefaces is http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/fonteng.htm . The Alpine typefaces (from http://www.partae.com/) are not listed on that web page but are widely used. There are also other offerings: there are some old postings in rec.games.chess.misc (search http://groups.google.com/ for 'chess fonts' or 'Linares font') covering other commercial alternatives, such as fonts from Adobe, Linotype and Agfa.

There is fairly small agreement on character set in the chess world, though: what's set in one typeface will not necessarily be possible to display in another -- unless they're from the same publisher: there will just be a jumble of random-looking glyphs. So you may have to match several typefaces to originals.

Hi,

did you ever try the Finereader- Software of ABBY?
(http://www.abbyy.com/finereader%5Focr/)

I bought it, so i could do some testing for you.
otherwise, just download the trial...

With Finereader, you can do a lot of stuff manually
also, so i think the result will look great!

Greetings from Switzerland
_darius

hi !
i have a lot of chess ebooks and math ebooks in pdf format i tried to watch them with my sony reader but the fonts are small and i cant see the charts or numbers ! can any one help me to solve the problem ???
how can i convert the pdf files ? with a software ? to which format ?
thanks
Do you want something like this?
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/chess.png

Well, there is a way, but it is a little bit complicated, will produce lrf's of big size, and may not work with some chess books.

1. Convert your chess book to html, doc or rft.
2. Load the converted file to Word, choose a proper font size and save it as html.
3. Open BookDesigner, then Settings -> uncheck both "keep original format" and "re-format completely". It is a testing regime, no guarantee that an e-book will be made properly, so do not tell to anybody about this.
4. Load html to BD
5. Make eBooks -> BookImage.
6. device: Sony Reader
7. text type: 64 (or more) colors
8. hyphenate: uncheck
9. background: uncheck
10. Press "make book"

i try to converte it firstly to html and to resize thr fonts but i coludnt do it
im stuck in the first stage so its a problem.....
thanks any way

i try to converte it firstly to html and to resize thr fonts but i coludnt do it
im stuck in the first stage so its a problem.....
thanks any way
Try this program, it allows to save splitted pdf pages as lrf graphical book.

http://files.ebook.googlepages.com/Setup.exe

i tryied it steel dont work
tanks any way

Hi dandan...
Can you share your chess ebook with me ? i have some chess ebook too but not much.

Do you want something like this?
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/chess.png

Well, there is a way, but it is a little bit complicated, will produce lrf's of big size, and may not work with some chess books.

1. Convert your chess book to html, doc or rft.
2. Load the converted file to Word, choose a proper font size and save it as html.
3. Open BookDesigner, then Settings -> uncheck both "keep original format" and "re-format completely". It is a testing regime, no guarantee that an e-book will be made properly, so do not tell to anybody about this.
4. Load html to BD
5. Make eBooks -> BookImage.
6. device: Sony Reader
7. text type: 64 (or more) colors
8. hyphenate: uncheck
9. background: uncheck
10. Press "make book"

hi !
i used the above procedure to make books with phots like chess ebooks
but i stell have one problem when i see the books in the reader the edge of the page is matching the reader screen and i dont see the edge of the page its cut !!!
any body have a solution???
thanks

i used the above procedure to make books with phots like chess ebooks
but i stell have one problem when i see the books in the reader the edge of the page is NOT matching the reader screen and i dont see the edge of the page its cut !!!
any body have a solution???
thanks

Hi dandan...
Can you share your chess ebook with me ? i have some chess ebook too but not much.
Unless the chess books are public domain, that would be illegal.

I've just had a quick look in PG and there's not many chess books available - two by Edward Lasker (brother of the more famous Emanuel) in ascii, with strange ascii diagrams; and Howard Staunton's 'The Blue Book of Chess' in html.
I tried the latter in BD, but the pictures didn't come out, not even when I tried a book image file. But you may have better luck.

i scanned a book wich i buy time ago in the net
(silman chess strategy)
but the problem is that it reconaize it after all
as a picture
(as i quated above)
if i try to resize it in the reader as lrf
its go beyond the edge of the reader
so i dont have a solution yet ????
:unafraid:

Try pdflrf. I've successfully converted a few chess books in landscape mode. smart cut helps a lot in this case.