I'm thinking of buying a Sony Reader, but I want to make sure that they PDFs I want to use will look decent enough. I realize that PDFs don't look greate on the reader, but I have a bunch already that I would like to use. There aren't any brick and mortar stores nearby with the ready for me to stop by with a SD card full of PDFs, so I was wondering if there is any kind of PC-based emulator used by book designers to see what the output would look like on the device. I searched the forum for "emulators", but didn't find anything.

Thanks,
-Mike

Hi Mike,

Yes - you can download the Sony "Connect" software; that provides an excellent "emulation" of the Reader and allows you to view files on your PC. There's a "Stick" thread at the top of the forum for the download.

Hi Mike,

Yes - you can download the Sony "Connect" software; that provides an excellent "emulation" of the Reader and allows you to view files on your PC. There's a "Stick" thread at the top of the forum for the download.Thanks Harry. No wonder there isn't any mention of emulators, since such a viewer is provided with the standard software.

How accurate is this viewer? My PDF looks great in the Connect viewer on my large high-res monitor. Can I really expect it to look the same on the Reader (except that it will appear more paper-like)?

Hi Mike:
It will look the same...but smaller :)

Seriously, you may want to print out the PDF with an appropriate page size to simulate the Reader's screen. That should give you a good idea of what you'll get.

If your PDF's have been formatted for the smaller screen, they will look fine. If they are formatted for regular paper (8.5x11 or A4) they probably won't work to well.


Cheers,
Bob

It's really the physical size that's the issue. It's just not nice trying to read a page that's intended to be A4/Letter size on a 6" screen.

PDF is a far from ideal format for eBooks. Although ones created for the Reader's screen size can (and do) look good, they still have the problem that they aren't re-sizeable, like the other book formats are. For example, I like to read my Sony Reader "LRF" format book is "small" size in good light, but go up to "medium" font size when I'm tired, or if poor light. I can do that with LRF, but not with PDF.