I'm new here and have read everything I can about reading technical PDFs on the Reader, (which I'm hopefully getting soon). Add me to the throngs asking about its use in OS X, and thanking the author for it. Is the current Linux version usable from the terminal?

OK, thanks for that. The output options aren't so clear in the GUI.

EDIT: That's worked really well. Good results, and quite a small pdf from the png files compared to the original, which was also image based. And very quick to use. :)

Well, obviously I'm missing something. I just downloaded version 0.99 for Windows and I can see no way to have it output either PNG of PDF. No matter what I try, I get a LRF.

Well, obviously I'm missing something. I just downloaded version 0.99 for Windows and I can see no way to have it output either PNG of PDF. No matter what I try, I get a LRF.

You should change the extension of output file name from lrf to zip or rar.

Thanks. I later found out about using .zip to get the PNGs. I still don't see how to get a PDF out of it, without using another program, like ImageMagic.

Thanks. I later found out about using .zip to get the PNGs. I still don't see how to get a PDF out of it, without using another program, like ImageMagic.

pdflrf does not support pdf output directly. There is a plethora of free programs to convert/print png to pdf.

pdflrf does not support pdf output directly. There is a plethora of free programs to convert/print png to pdf.

Can you suggest a Windows application which will convert the ZIP file of PNGs to PDF? Being able to carry out the final step of creating a PDF would make this an incredibly useful tool for other bookreaders such as the iLiad and the CyBook!

I've found a rather "round the houses" approach which is a free tool called "SwiftPDF". This will, however, not work with PNG files, so what I'm doing is:

1. Running PDF2LRF to generate the PNG files.
2. Batch converting the PNG files to JPG with PaintShop Pro.
3. Using SwiftPDF to combine the JPGs into a PDF

If anyone knows of a more "direct" approach I'd welcome the information. The results are superb, I must say.

The best but costly direct approach is to use Adobe Acrobat (not Reader), which can combine files of various formats (a directory of files as well) into a pdf file.
I use an OCR program, Finereader (can read png format) to save the OCRed results in pdf format. That program also allows to save imported files to one or many pdf files without the OCR step. It's been long time since I used a trial version of Finereader, which does not allow to save the OCRed results, but you may try it to see if it can save images to pdf before OCR. Anyway, you may wish to buy Finereader if you decide to convert your pdf or image files to Word or other text format.
As for the freeware, out of many programs that can print any format to pdf, you need the one that converts a number of png files to one pdf file rather than printing every png file to a separate pdf file. While I have not searched internet for that, one of the options (still requires an additional step) is converting your png files to a multipage tiff file (free Irfanview does it in batch) and print multipage tiff to pdf.
BTW. If you are interested in joining separate pdf files into one, I can attach a free program that I downloaded from the net a few years ago (together with a split program for pdf files).

http://www.pdfhacks.com/pdftk/ should supply all your PDF post processing needs in particular the merging of multiple PDF files. You can use imagemagick and a script to convert a zip of PNGs to individual PDF files.

I've found a rather "round the houses" approach which is a free tool called "SwiftPDF". This will, however, not work with PNG files, so what I'm doing is:

1. Running PDF2LRF to generate the PNG files.
2. Batch converting the PNG files to JPG with PaintShop Pro.
3. Using SwiftPDF to combine the JPGs into a PDF

If anyone knows of a more "direct" approach I'd welcome the information. The results are superb, I must say.

For Windows users:

The attached zip file contains a little batch file I threw together, along with an unzip program and a copy of pdftk. You must also install a copy of ImageMagic. To use, open a command prompt and run the batch file, followed by the name of the zip file. If the zip file contains spaces, make sure you surround it with quotes.

I just checked the Irfanview (now in version 4.10 and still free) and here is what you can do with it:

1. batch convert png files to pdf files (extremely fast)

2. convert png files to one pdf file in three steps:
2a. batch convert png files to tif files
2b. merge tif files to one multipage tif file (menu operation)
2c. save multipage tif file as pdf (menu operation)

That looks excellent. Thanks - I'll check it out. It's pretty close to the way I'm doing it myself, except that I am using a commercial product (PaintShop Pro) for the batch conversion of the PNG files.

I use pdflrfwin (that loads the Windows GUI version 0.9) for batch PDF conversion.
-While the pdflrfwin window is open,
-use My Computer to open a window of the pdf files that you want to convert.
-Highlight the desired files that you want to convert and then
-DRAG AND DROP (hold down your left mouse button and then release at the desired location) this list to the pdflrfwin window input file line.

--oops.. didn't realize the thread was for html to lrf format....

I want to thank you for this utility. While I'm stuck using the GUI under virtualization on my mac it's made my research papers readable, and I mean _wonderfully_. I'm a mathematician and I've had no problem reading entire textbooks and downloaded articles, full of equations, proofs, and figures, after a run through this app. I turn off the rotation since portrait mode is easier for me, but I'm especially impressed with the way the TOC is handled.

Two notes, (definitely not gripes). Two column scanned articles (as I think has been mentioned) don't seem to work very well, but I'm going to try again. Also, I can't figure out how to get a one-page to one-page conversion. I'll take smaller type if it keeps pages from being split. Maybe there's a setting and I haven't yet found it.

Again, awesome utility. It's almost paid for itself in one book.
Also a big thanks to Kovidgoyal for libprs500 while I'm here. I've had no issues and the news feeds are great. I'd love a point-and-click method for adding new ones but, again, no gripes here. You guys are awesome. I'll be happy to beta test any mac stuff you guys are working on if it helps you out.

Interesting. Is the source of maths papers not usually available? I'm a physicist and I find it easier to recompile the LaTeX source of physics papers into pdf files sized for the reader using the geometry package.

I've been looking for sources but anything on MathSciNet seems to be in PDF or PS. I'll ask around, though.

I did manage to find how to keep pages from running together in pdflrf using the embarrassingly obvious checkbox, so I've got a 1-page-pdf-to-2-pages-lrf thing going on, which is better than the alternative.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this incredible utility! I have spent hours trying to port a PDF to my Sony Reader with extremely poor (as in unreadable) results. Your PdfLrf for Windows program performed the task effortlessly.

Stan

thank you soo much....ur app is way beyond the words of my praise. still experimenting with the right match for me. thanks a lot once again

I did everything I think I was suppose to do and got the following message when I tried to convert a PDF file from the library.

"Connot open E:/documents and settings|Linda|My documentz\My Digital Editions|Lost_Lake.pdf as a pdf file"

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you.

Linda

Hi,

this looks like an amazing tool, but unfortunately I get the following error:
Couldn't find a font for 'Times-Italic'

and the resultant .lrf file is blank. I'm using the linux version. Any suggestions?

Many thanks!!!
Jos

I did everything I think I was suppose to do and got the following message when I tried to convert a PDF file from the library.

"Connot open E:/documents and settings|Linda|My documentz\My Digital Editions|Lost_Lake.pdf as a pdf file"

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you.

Linda

Just a wild wild guess..is it possible it is not a pdf file? Someone renamed let's say blah.doc to blah.pdf or something like that?

I am trying to use pdflrflinux-0.99 (I also tried with the windows command line and I got the same problem) for my device (it is a Sony Librie, so perhaps the screen size is a bit different) and I am having some problems with the left margins in all the files that I generate.

For instance, when I use this pdf file (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02b.pdf) and I write the command line "pdflrflinux-0.99 --rotation=-90 -rs -i Bou02b.pdf -o Bou02bstandard_pdf.lrf" my output is this lrf file (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02bstandard_pdf.lrf). Unfortunately it has problems with the left margin as can be seen in the following pictures: picture1 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02bstandard_1.pdf.lrf.jpg), picture2 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02bstandard_2.pdf.lrf.jpg) and picture3 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02bstandard_3.pdf.lrf.jpg)


On the other hand if I try the command line "pdflrflinux-0.99 --rotation=-90 -rs --width=550 --height=730 -i Bou02b.pdf -o Bou02b550730_pdf.lrf" the output is this file (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02b550730_pdf.lrf) and again it also has problems with the left margin as is shown in picture1 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02b550730_1.pdf.lrf.jpg), picture2 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02b550730_2.pdf.lrf.jpg) and picture3 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02b550730_3.pdf.lrf.jpg)


Does anybody know the right command line options in order that the text fits inside the device screen?

pdflrf does not handle DRM or passworded protected PDF. So if the PDF you are trying to convert is one of those, you are out of luck.

I am trying to use pdflrflinux-0.99 (I also tried with the windows command line and I got the same problem) for my device (it is a Sony Librie, so perhaps the screen size is a bit different) and I am having some problems with the left margins in all the files that I generate.

For instance, when I use this pdf file (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02b.pdf) and I write the command line "pdflrflinux-0.99 --rotation=-90 -rs -i Bou02b.pdf -o Bou02bstandard_pdf.lrf" my output is this lrf file (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02bstandard_pdf.lrf). Unfortunately it has problems with the left margin as can be seen in the following pictures: picture1 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02bstandard_1.pdf.lrf.jpg), picture2 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02bstandard_2.pdf.lrf.jpg) and picture3 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02bstandard_3.pdf.lrf.jpg)


On the other hand if I try the command line "pdflrflinux-0.99 --rotation=-90 -rs --width=550 --height=730 -i Bou02b.pdf -o Bou02b550730_pdf.lrf" the output is this file (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02b550730_pdf.lrf) and again it also has problems with the left margin as is shown in picture1 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02b550730_1.pdf.lrf.jpg), picture2 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02b550730_2.pdf.lrf.jpg) and picture3 (http://www.iiia.csic.es/~fbou/librie/Bou02b550730_3.pdf.lrf.jpg)


Does anybody know the right command line options in order that the text fits inside the device screen?
What it looks like is that the width of the image is slightly too wide for the Libre. use the GUI for Windows to specify a slightly less wide image and see how it works.

The pdf file is not password protected. As I have said it happens with all pdf files and the one of the example has been compiled by myself from the latex source.

What it looks like is that the width of the image is slightly too wide for the Libre. use the GUI for Windows to specify a slightly less wide image and see how it works.

I already tried but I didn't manage. Indeed this is what is done in the second command line I have written above (I specify a width and a height but there is no change in the output)

Thank you. I think it must be password protected. Is there anyway to convert password protected pdf files?

Now I understand better the problem that I was pointing out above. So, let me explain it in a better way. [ I would like to ask people to check if they are getting the same problem than me. For this purpose I am going to use the windows 0.99 version (I guess it is then easier for people to check if they have the same bug), but the linux command line for pdflrf is neither working well.]

The bug is that the output from the command line is different than the output of the gui version, being this last one the right one.

Take any pdf file you have. Let us assume the name is "file.pdf". Now convert file.pdf to an lrf file using the gui 0.99 version (with the landscape profile, the one by default) setting the height to 500. Next try to do the same thing from the command line. You have to use the following command line
pdflrf-0.99.exe --rotation=-90 --height=500 -rs -i file.pdf -o file.pdf.lrf

Now you have to lrf files, "file.lrf" and "file.pdf.lrf". Then if you use your standard program to read lrf files you will realize that the two previous outputs are very different (at least for me this happens).

Is the same happenning to you?

It's a great tool and I used it a lot (under Linux, FC5).
The only problem is that I get many times the error:

...
Couldn't find a font for 'Times-Roman'
Couldn't find a font for 'Helvetica'
...

... of course I can imagine what it does mean, but I don't understand why it happens, since I know I have those fonts installed:
[root@lambda2 lrf]# fc-match times
n021003l.pfb: "Nimbus Roman No9 L" "Regular"
[root@lambda2 lrf]# fc-match Helvetica
n019003l.pfb: "Nimbus Sans L" "Regular"

I read somewhere that somebody else had this problem, but don't remember where.

Any info?

Alessandro

hail oh cacapee
this is without doubt the best converter
on the web.
Even for a total stranger to this sort of
program it's easy to understand (after reading the thread from
the start) and to use.
The batch converter works great in winxp and win2000.
Slow but great.
I've started converting 13000+ sci-fi and fantasy books ( 6.5gb) this afternoon
so it will be interesting how long this is gonna take.

Question :
Would it be possible to put a pause function
in the program?
My pc is slowed down a lot when the converter is running,
so it would be handy if I could pause when other work needs doing.
Again

Thanx a million for a great prog

mazzeltjes

Bravo! I used to think Rasterfarian was all I would ever need and have. Then this tool comes along and completely blows me away. Many thanks for such a great program.

Hello Cacapee,

First of all, kudos to you for this excellent app, it is the best solution for Letter/A4 PDFs on the reader so far!

Now I'm trying to use the --fit="2xheight" option to scale the image in two pages but the output file has 3 pages instead, the last line goes to the third page (I have --runpages set to "off").
What am I doing wrong? I've tried several options on both command line and GUI frontend...

Thanks,
Thing



----- [ edit ] ----------
One more info: it seems to be a rounding problem related to the "--overlap" option. If I set it to "-0.05" (negative) the problem is fixed for a couple of pages, then the blank pages appear again. These are the parameters I'm passing:

pdflrf --rotation=0 --fit="2xheight" --overlap=-0.05 --smartcut --erode=2 -f 30 -l 40 -i "myInput.pdf" -o "myOutput.lrf"

And this is the output from pdflrf, notice that starting on page 34 it generates 3 pages. If 'overlap' is set to '0.0', it generates 3 pages from page 30:

Processing page: 30, Progress: 9
Processing page: 30, Progress: 9
Processing page: 31, Progress: 18
Processing page: 31, Progress: 18
Processing page: 32, Progress: 27
Processing page: 32, Progress: 27
Processing page: 33, Progress: 36
Processing page: 33, Progress: 36
Processing page: 34, Progress: 45
Processing page: 34, Progress: 45
Processing page: 34, Progress: 45
Processing page: 35, Progress: 54
Processing page: 35, Progress: 54
Processing page: 35, Progress: 54
Processing page: 36, Progress: 63
Processing page: 36, Progress: 63
Processing page: 37, Progress: 72
Processing page: 37, Progress: 72
Processing page: 38, Progress: 81
Processing page: 38, Progress: 81
Processing page: 39, Progress: 90
Processing page: 39, Progress: 90
Processing page: 39, Progress: 90
Processing page: 40, Progress: 100
Processing page: 40, Progress: 100

Hi, i use the PdfLrf 0.99 for Windows with some PDF documents. I have a doubt, when i convert these files then, in the reader, i can not change the font side. If i use word documents i can do this. Do you know if this is a problem of the PdfLrf or what? Thanks

cacapee, do you have a manual for the PdfLrf 0.99 for windows?

I think that the end result lrf consists from pics, rather than actual text. At least that's how I explained it to myself.

Cacapee
I've been running your prog for 5 days
under windows xp and 2000
It's rocksolid no crashes no restarts great
request
any chance of building a lock setting on the
portrait, landscape etc. settings ?
thanks
mazzeltjes

P.S.
I'mblushing as I type this,
I've started up an old pc
running under dapper drake
but how the helldo I install
pdflrf ?

Is there anyway you can compile the linux port for osx :pray:

Probably not an easy task, but never hurts to ask.

Seconded would be great to use this on OSX.

I have been trying to use pdflrflinux-0.99, and it looks promising, but for any font that is not embedded in the document (e.g, Times-Roman) I get a message about "Couldn't find a font for 'Times-Roman'" or the like. Looking at postings, it seems other Linux users are having the same problem. Different Linux distributions may put resources like font files in different places. Cacapee, could you tell us what is the path in which your program expects to find font files?

I've just ordered my 505 but didn't receive it yet ... so it's time enough to play around with PdfLrf :)

Afaik the display resolution is 800x600. The default output size in PdfLrf is 754x584 - why? Is this space required by the 505 for displaying additional information (scroll bars, page numbers or something like that)?
Or are we just wasting space?

Thanks
Stefan

I've just ordered my 505 but didn't receive it yet ... so it's time enough to play around with PdfLrf :)

Afaik the display resolution is 800x600. The default output size in PdfLrf is 754x584 - why? Is this space required by the 505 for displaying additional information (scroll bars, page numbers or something like that)?
Or are we just wasting space?

Thanks
Stefan

The big hit in the vertical is the status bar along the bottom. And then there's a slight border along the bottom (above the status bar) and up the right side, stealing just a few pixels from the horizontal.

pdflrf fills the available space perfectly :)

Hi

Great program Cacapee, thanks ;)


When I convert a pdf to lrf and load it on my 505, the text size button doesn't change the text size. The small icon in the lower left corner changes from s -> m -> l but the text stays the same, very small. How can I change that?

Thanks

Hi

Great program Cacapee, thanks ;)


When I convert a pdf to lrf and load it on my 505, the text size button doesn't change the text size. The small icon in the lower left corner changes from s -> m -> l but the text stays the same, very small. How can I change that?

Thanks

This program renders PDFs to image books (so there's no text for the 505 to reformat). If you were using portrait mode, give landscape a try. Otherwise you gotta use something like libprs500 to convert to a text book.

woah, great work cacapee. The last time I tried pdflrf it was just a command line tool.
now it has a full blown UI and the preview feature is amazing, well done.
I look forward to looking at the source code, and maybe helping out if I can.

Now I understand better the problem that I was pointing out above. So, let me explain it in a better way. [ I would like to ask people to check if they are getting the same problem than me. For this purpose I am going to use the windows 0.99 version (I guess it is then easier for people to check if they have the same bug), but the linux command line for pdflrf is neither working well.]

The bug is that the output from the command line is different than the output of the gui version, being this last one the right one.

Take any pdf file you have. Let us assume the name is "file.pdf". Now convert file.pdf to an lrf file using the gui 0.99 version (with the landscape profile, the one by default) setting the height to 500. Next try to do the same thing from the command line. You have to use the following command line


Now you have to lrf files, "file.lrf" and "file.pdf.lrf". Then if you use your standard program to read lrf files you will realize that the two previous outputs are very different (at least for me this happens).

Is the same happenning to you?

Has anybody checked this issue? Is the same happening to you or is it only me having problems with this issue?

This program renders PDFs to image books (so there's no text for the 505 to reformat). If you were using portrait mode, give landscape a try. Otherwise you gotta use something like libprs500 to convert to a text book.

OK, so if I have a pdf with too small text for me to read, how can I make the text larger? I have access to Adobe Pro, if that help's anything. Thanks.

Great tool that does miracles!

I understand that the tool can extract TOC from pdfs. Could I request a feature to extract TOC from djvu's?

The format of djvu's TOC can be found here:


http://windjview.sourceforge.net/bookmarks.html

Sorry, don't mean to offend anyone with the subject line---I am the one with the handicap here, I can't really follow a lot of this thread but I have a 505 (and a 500 about to be given as a gift to a friend) and would dearly like to read pdf files. The praises here are outstanding but I don't know where to begin to ask about how to use this.....

help (?)

I don't know where to begin to ask about how to use this.....

help (?)

Assuming your using Windows, download the pdflrfwin-0.99.zip file from the first post then unzip it & extract the pdflrfwin.exe it contains to somewhere (e.g. "C:\Program Files\Converters\" or similar). Run it, and it will show a GUI.

Choose the PDF to convert by chosing "Browse..." in the "Input" drop-down. (NB: Not the 'View' button next to it.)
Try various things, using the "Preview" window to see the effect, then "Convert" to the LRF file when happy with the settings.

Greetings -

I realize others have addressed this question, but I believe if I beat this horse, it will improve its chances, not kill it. <g>

There are many fine pdf to lrf converters out there. None of them, however address the basic problem with pdfs on the Reader: that the format cannot be magnified enough for the files to be truly readable. I have switched to landscape, which can help quite a bit, and there are many solutions for text only pdfs. But for anything with graphics, charts, cells, pictures or any other form of non-text content, the Reader is close to sufficient, at best.

I know I'm not alone in this. I also know that "it can't be done" is what I say when I just don't wanna or lack the necessary imagination to at least approach a problem. That doesn't describe the gurus on this forum, so I have to assume *somebody* is working on this.

If you need someone to beta test, let me know. If you need a cheerleader, I'll break out the pom poms. But someone - please! :pray: - find a way to crack this egg!

Thanks for enduring my rant. We now return you to your regularly scheduled forum. ;)

None of them, however address the basic problem with pdfs on the Reader: that the format cannot be magnified enough for the files to be truly readable. I have switched to landscape, which can help quite a bit, and there are many solutions for text only pdfs. But for anything with graphics, charts, cells, pictures or any other form of non-text content, the Reader is close to sufficient, at best.

I know I'm not alone in this. I also know that "it can't be done" is what I say when I just don't wanna or lack the necessary imagination to at least approach a problem. That doesn't describe the gurus on this forum, so I have to assume *somebody* is working on this.

Warning: I am not a programmer.

Basically, you are talking about zoom functionality for image-based pdfs/lrf. Right? The problem is that Sony viewers in the Reader (i.e., the software in the Reader that displays pdf and lrf) does not have zoom. You can only zoom pictures in the picture viewer. So, no matter what you do with pdf or lrf files it will not help. There are two possible solutions to this:

1) Sony implements zoom functionality in its lrf/pdf viewers (pdf viewer is from Adobe, right) or releases source code for these programs so that somebody could add zoom.

2) Somebody writes a new Sony viewer from scratch based only on what we know so far about the system. It is a very complicated task to create a viewer that is at least as good as Sony's with added functionality. Right now, we know how to reflash the software on the Reader; however, Sony may close this opportunity any time with a new update, which would require time-consuming reverse engineering by igorsk and his crew.

This may become moot in a couple years when we have e-readers with larger screen sizes.

2) Somebody writes a new Sony viewer from scratch based only on what we know so far about the system. It is a very complicated task to create a viewer that is at least as good as Sony's with added functionality. Right now, we know how to reflash the software on the Reader; however, Sony may close this opportunity any time with a new update, which would require time-consuming reverse engineering by igorsk and his crew.

This may become moot in a couple years when we have e-readers with larger screen sizes.

I've already done that for LRF files. I just can't be bothered porting it to the actual device.

Hello - been lurking around the forum for a couple of weeks now and I just received my brand spankin' new PRS-505. I'm wondering if anyone has figured out the 'optimal' settings to use for pdflrf 0.99 for scientific papers.

I've been clicking around for a little while now and can't quite get it right. Is the program capable of extracting images from a PDF if the text contained in the file is in a 2 column format with the image spanning the entire width of the page? (hope that makes sense).

Thanks for any help.

H

EDIT - after about another 3 hours of fooling around with file conversion I've realized that PDF to RTF or Doc conversion using Acrobat probably works best for my purposes, but I can't figure out how to get reader to recognize images in these formats. Any ideas? I realize I should probably post this in a more appropriate thread so I will search for one.

Assuming your using Windows, download the pdflrfwin-0.99.zip file from the first post then unzip it & extract the pdflrfwin.exe it contains to somewhere (e.g. "C:\Program Files\Converters\" or similar). Run it, and it will show a GUI.

Choose the PDF to convert by chosing "Browse..." in the "Input" drop-down. (NB: Not the 'View' button next to it.)
Try various things, using the "Preview" window to see the effect, then "Convert" to the LRF file when happy with the settings.

THANKS! I happen to be a Mac user but I'm setting up a Windows partition (Intel-based Mac) and will try this there under native Windows.

EDIT - after about another 3 hours of fooling around with file conversion I've realized that PDF to RTF or Doc conversion using Acrobat probably works best for my purposes, but I can't figure out how to get reader to recognize images in these formats. Any ideas? I realize I should probably post this in a more appropriate thread so I will search for one.

Yep, I guess it is a bit off-topic. Look around the forum and you will find more details about the limited RTF support (no images) and workarounds. :)

Thing.

I've already done that for LRF files. I just can't be bothered porting it to the actual device.

I actually tried your lrf reader on Windows. Kudos to you!
Now we need somebody to port it to SR and make sure that it is at least as functional as the stock reader (plus zoom and other functionality) and works fast on its slower processor, which is a feat in itself.

Just a two day owner here, running Mac Intel Quad-core with Windows XP in Parallels shell.

The Sony material is seamless and the pdfldf is really super! Thanks so much. PDF's look great and obviously a great addition from this site.

I tried using the Mac version of Adobe Professional to do some conversions, but poor results compared to the pdfldf program.

Thanks to all.....

Warning: I am not a programmer.

Basically, you are talking about zoom functionality for image-based pdfs/lrf. Right? The problem is that Sony viewers in the Reader (i.e., the software in the Reader that displays pdf and lrf) does not have zoom. You can only zoom pictures in the picture viewer. So, no matter what you do with pdf or lrf files it will not help. There are two possible solutions to this:

1) Sony implements zoom functionality in its lrf/pdf viewers (pdf viewer is from Adobe, right) or releases source code for these programs so that somebody could add zoom.

2) Somebody writes a new Sony viewer from scratch based only on what we know so far about the system. It is a very complicated task to create a viewer that is at least as good as Sony's with added functionality. Right now, we know how to reflash the software on the Reader; however, Sony may close this opportunity any time with a new update, which would require time-consuming reverse engineering by igorsk and his crew.

This may become moot in a couple years when we have e-readers with larger screen sizes.


Thanks for the reply, Tuktuk. Yes, it's the zoom functionality I'm talking about and it must be a difficult thing to do since Sony didn't implement it and no one has been able to widget a way since the Reader has been on the market.

I suspect I'm not the only one who bought a Reader thinking I'd be able to read pdfs on the road as easily as I can at the computer. As crazy as it sounds, I still have a better shot at reading pdf text and at least seeing pdf charts and graphics on my Palm. Why is that?

Thank you so much for this software. I have several hundred ebooks in PDF forum and this software has made it readable with the 505. Thank you so much!

Ok, when it comes the PRS505 I am a newbee. I have what is likely a much previously answered question. But search as I might I can't find it. Is it possible save a set of settings in pdflrf, either as a loadable file or better yet as its defaults? I find it necessary to convert an updated pdf file with the same structure every day. Also is it possible to set the program to start with a fixed page, not page 1 as its default. The problem being is that the files contain material on page 2 which mucks up the conversion.


pdflrf does do an awesome conversion it is a just a pain to have to reenter the settings each time I use it. (Frankly I will generally miss set at least one parameter or another and have to the conversion at least twice to get the results that I need). Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Hello!

Can it just cut off the margin and convert it back to pdf, so I can read it on my nokia n770?(with 800x480 resolution)

How do I get the letters bigger? Any help would be great.

How do I get the letters bigger? Any help would be great.

Unfortunatelly, you cannot.
To be concise, the end result from pdflrf - LRF file which is a collection of pictures. You can change letter size only in text files that can reflow. Such as txt, rtf, doc, lrf (not from pdflrf)

Hi,

I've read the entire thread but did not see any links/attachments to the source code of the tool, though it was mentioned that soon it will be available.

How soon indeed can we expect to see the source?

Thanks for a good job!

Unfortunatelly, you cannot.
To be concise, the end result from pdflrf - LRF file which is a collection of pictures. You can change letter size only in text files that can reflow. Such as txt, rtf, doc, lrf (not from pdflrf)

Thanks for the reply!!!! I've been using Fit to 2xheight.

Thanks Cacapee... I bought PRS-505 (received last weekend) because of the availability of such pdflrf. Great tools. I've tons of pdf books need to convert to lrf for much better viewing with the reader...

pdflrf is a great tool. Because you give it for free, why not open the source so other people can improve it? Better way, setup a project with version control hosted somewhere...

If you don't mind, I'm happy to allocate my server bandwith to host it (currently subversion with https access)....

Best regards.

... easier to recompile the LaTeX source of physics papers into pdf files sized for the reader using the geometry package.

Hi kovidgoyal. What is the size for geometry package to have pdf output good for PRS-505?

Sorry don't remember, I use a tablet for reading papers these days as I need to be able to annotate.

cacapee
I have many pdf files of magazines I have downloaded. Will your program allow me to convert 7mb files into readable files on the ereader in either portrait or landscape with pictures or images embedded into the pdf files as they are now ? Will your latest version have a GUI that all I have to do is enter the name of the file, it converts into your format that is readable on the ereader and then I can start reading these files ?
Thanks.

Hi cacapee,

I have a problem converting one of my PDF's using version 0.9 or 0.99 (it just exits after converting like 5-10% of file)

I managed to convert the file using version 0.7...

the PDF is 18 megs large and is secured....

any ideas?

btw. thanx for great program :)

Hey cacapee,

I'd just like to comment that your PDF to LRF converter is the best converter I've found to convert PDFs to LRF period. The main advantage I've found is a) how your program automatically bolds the text so that stuff is more readable on the Reader's screen (regularly sending PDF files have fonts which are thin and hard to make out) b) the simple to use Windows interface where I can just drag a bunch of PDF files in a folder and leave it processing and have well formatted LRF files waiting for me to transfer.

However, I recently migrated to the Amazon Kindle (though I gave my dad the Sony PRS-505) and still use it, but I now have to reconvert several of my PDF files to be read on the Kindle. The advantage with the Kindle is that it can search through content, and so with text based PDFs it converts pretty well. However Amazon's PDF conversion for Text + Image mangles the PDF pretty badly, so what I usually do is keep a text version around for search, and a full imaged PDF around to for image references. I came up with a workflow documented below (I'll post a better detailed guide to the Kindle section soon).

PDF to Kindle Workflow:
The workflow I've come up with is this.
1) Use PDF2LRF to input the PDF and output to a .zip file filled with PNG files. (I have to use PDF2LRF in command line format to accomplish this).
2) Then use the program that jbenny posted (PNG2PDF) to generate a PDF file in commandline from the Zip files
3) Afterwards, I run Mobipocket Creator to import PDF file and output to .PRC format which is then readable with the Kindle.
Note: The advantage of this is I don't have to email the file to Amazon at all to get it converted and readable on kindle! (Since Gmail's 20 meg limit which I find quite limiting). And best of all the output is split nicely with high contrast, 2 pages/ landscape rotated which makes it as readable as on my Sony device compared to Amazon's default PDF conversion.

So in summary: PDF -> PDF2LRF -> PNG2PDF -> MobiPocket Creator -> Kindle.

One request I have is: Can you modify your PDF2LRF program for Windows with a flag so that it default outputs to a ZIP file filled with PNG files instead of defaulting to only LRF? I can do this through command line, but I prefer the simplicity of batch drag and dropping multiple PDF files and having them batch converted which can currently be done with LRF files.

Note: any ideas to speed up/ automating this PDF -> Kindle reformatting would be appreciated.

This is a great tool for reading pdfs on any other 800*600 (480) devices also with png zip file output.

I like this tool a lot. I am able to convert comics and Chinese PDF ebooks perfectly. I wish there's an option to set margin though.

cacapee,

I solved the problem of small fonts. I went to Wall-Mart and bought the strongest glasses that would enlarge the fonts on my PRS-500 using your windows pdflrf program and now I see things clearly, but this isn't the right way of reading. I have tested the same pdf file on all the filters in your GUI and frankly I don't see too much of a difference in selecting the different filters. I have a few suggestions to ask if possible be incoporated in your next version.

1. please add scale to 4X height and scale to 6x height. This will take care of font sizing.

2. could you add a brightness control, say 4 different levels because in my case, a lot of pdf files of magazines I download have white letrters on black backgrounds or black letters on grey backgrounds and even if the font size is larger it is hard to read. Maybe a contrast control will alleviate this problem.

3. could you add a sharpness control.

I used Ghostscript 8.61 and selected Ghostscript as one of the poarameters.

Please go to maximumpc.com, scroll down to PDFArchive, select a issue and see what I am saying after you convert it into a lrf file.

Might the command line of PDFLRF program give me more controls that I need ? If so, could you please give me various examples to try ? nAlso your cancel button doesn't close the Windows GUI

Thanks

Ambertape

Hi all,

I have left numerous messages and was hoping to get help from some of the members who frequent this thread. Alas it isn't forthcoming yet. I am frustrated in that there seems to be many obstacles to using the PRS500 in a way to enjoy e-books and pdf files.

I am a novice and would like to contribute info once I get it correct.

Thanks

I have many pdf files of magazines I have downloaded. Will your program allow me to convert 7mb files...
Thanks.

I converted 14MB of a pdf file to lrf without any problem of reading with my PRS-505, eventhough it's in book format, not magazine.



... portrait or landscape with pictures or images embedded into the pdf files as they are now ?
Thanks.

If your pdf file contains big picture then of course the picture will be splited between pages. In that case, try portrait instead of lanscape. Let's see the result on your own PRS...

The best way is try yourself... I did many try and error on pdflrf setting before I find the setting good enough for me...

cacapee,
Might the command line of PDFLRF program give me more controls that I need ? If so, could you please give me various examples to try ?
Ambertape

That's my case. I prefer command line rather than GUI. Just write command line option that you usually use, paste it next to your monitor screen for later usage.

With GUI, I always confuse with so many setting options, and which one do I need to change :( Unless I take photo of the GUI and paste it next to the monitor :)

Another advantage of CLI is than I can use it in any environment. I usually use Linux, and Windows sometimes. CLI works well in both environment ( so far, in my experience ).

This is what I normally do when converting:

pdflrf --input="your_file.pdf" --output="your_file.lrf" --title="Book Title" --author="The Author" --publisher="The Publisher" --rotation="0" --smartcut --nosplitpage

That's it. Easy. If you worry to forget the setting, just write a note in your handphone so you can carry it all the time :)

hi, just wondering if i'm doing something wrong
i'm using the 0.99 GUI, but it takes forever to convert a 400-500 page novel from pdf to lrf...
they're just text, nothing fancy =/ it takes 10-25 minutes to do them, is this normal?

Kucing,

I haven't finished playing but I can tell the faster the computer the faster 0.99 GUI will convert a file. I tried it on four computers so far and my 2.4GHZ worked the fastest in conversions. Get a 3GHZ computer withg 2GB of ram minimum and it will speed up converting.

Gimmmo.

I haven't finished testing using the GUI but wherever I downloaded pdflrf file isn't working. I did see pdflrfdos.exe. Is this the file I should use in DOS ? Should this file be in the root directory to do the conversion ? Could you please spell out the correct syntax. I am downloading pdf files from Maximumpc and there is the file name the guy who probably made into a pdf file and should the output name be the same as the input or can be something else ? These files do not have a author.

The name of a file is MPC0707.pdf. That is all I see but when I did use the GUI it gave me the name of the first page and the author but no publisher.

Thanks for helping me so far.

Ambertape

Two options I would be interested in would be centering the result on the page, and/or specifying a background "color."

I have a number of comics in PDF form I would like to convert and I am using the fit to height option to view the whole page without splitting. In this case I prefer to see the layout and I am comfortable with text-size. The result is the comic panel left aligned with an inch-wide white strip along the right.

The quality of the converted file is great, but I'd love the aesthetic of it central on the screen.

gimmmo,

The only thing I accomplished in using the GUI 0.99 is I finally got L-large font but it wasn't very good. Every setting showed me that my eyes will get worse trying to read any converted pdf using the GUI version of pdflrf program. I am ready to try just the dos version and will appreciate your assistance in trying to do it correctly. I am not sure I have the correct file to try it and await your reply whenever you can find some time.

Maybe you or someone will try and convert for me a pdf file readable on the PRS500. Please go to maximumpc.com and scroll down to the last line on the page, right side. There you will see DF Archive. Double-click on this link, download any monthly issue of Maximumpc magazine, convert it for me, see how it looks, and then please show me how it looks. Perhaps you could send me the converted file to look at it on my PRS500.

Thanks. I appreciate all who have help me so far.

I feel SONY has bungled their introduction of the Ereader because they should of done their homework in setting up appropiate software to automatically do conversions of standard pdf files into a lrf or pdf file format by making it simple, not telling one to use Acrobat Professional or PDFCreator. I tried many times with careful setups to follow the instructions of Sony and was unsuccessful. My 30-day trial is up and I WILL NOT BUY a $500.00 program to work on a 300.00 EReader. The time I spent in trying all these schemes to me is worthy of the best SONY computer system and maybe more to give to me as a present from Sony in appreciation.

I think that the time I spent trying to appreciate the pluses of the Ereader was that I and many others were and are Beta testers for a product that misrepresents the inovations and quality of other past Sony products. I own other Sony products and they work great but this product needs overhauling.I sincerely hope that the product manager of Sony reads my comments. I hope he passes my comments onto their superiors.

Perhaps it will wake up Sony to appreciate the comments of their customers and improve their products and do diligent homework before launching the second version of the EReader because the earlier version was unsuccessful. I give credit to Sony that they tried a second time but I cannot even think of recommending this product to any of my friends.

Maybe Sony will vindicate themselves and I and others will be able to appreciate this product in the future.

I look forward to trying the DOS version if and when I can get the right program. I am not sure where to download it or do I have the correct program.

I read that Sony might release a long awaited upgrade for the current PRS505. Everyone also hopes that there will be a substantial upgrade for the PRS500. Should there not be a upgrade for the PRS500 at the end of February (rumour) then it is time for me to sell my PRS500 and try and forget all the time I wasted on this product that has merit but isn't worthy of having the Sony name on this product.

I guess you can see my frustrations. I think I will spend my extra time on learning to use Linux.

Ambertape

ambertape,
I am sorry you are so bitter. But what you want to do probably cannot be achieved short of having a device that will display the pages of the magazine at least at 100% of the size that they were made, and perhaps larger.

Why? You ask. It is really quite simple the pdf files of the magazine are not reflowable text but are in essence photographs of the pages. In addition there is no consistent format to the pages so that programs like pdflrf haven't a prayer of working except on a page by page basis. That is to say you would have to extract each page individually and process each one of them somewhat differently. There just is no good way of fitting a static image of one size on a smaller screen other than making the image smaller, and as you have noted the human eyes are not built to deal with such a small image.

Bottom line is that the Sony Reader, and other such devices are intended to display text based information, not photographic though they struggle in trying do so.

Im new to this forum and just bought the prs500. Like many i was disapointed that it did not play PDF's out of the box. So far i really like The PDFLRF Converter. Its clear and simple but the magnification function does not work. Does anyone have a manual o the program as im expecting it to be a setting.

Thank you for any sugestions you might have.

Super

Hi,

I've been told to look at your software to better convert some PDF files I have into lrf. Unfortunately it does crash here on my box (segmentation fault), and as the executable is stripped of debug information, I can't really debug it (I'm a developer myself, so I do know my way around these things).

I can't seem to be able to find the source of your program, but you says yourself you're using poppler for reading the PDF file; poppler is released under GNU General Public License version 2, which means that if you write an application using it, you need to release that under GNU General Public License version 2 license too, which requires providing the sources as well as binaries.

Please, as you were able to use Free Software to implement your program, don't ignore the license, and provide the same freedom to your users. Beside, I'm sure that if you do release your sources, you'll soon have more contributors, patches and fixes. I offer myself to help as soon as you do release the sources, I'll analyse the code, provide patches where necessary, and work toward including your software in at least one Linux distribution (Gentoo Linux, which I'm a developer of).

The Sony implements PDF just fine. The problem is that it is hard to read A4/letter sized PDF files on a 6" screen. For PDFs designed for the Reader it works like a charm -- I have a bunch and they are great.

For others, pdflrf has been a joy to use. (I have only used it in the GUI once and the rest in command line mode.) It is excellent for converting CBZ files.

My whole ebook collection is in A4 format. And pdflrf has been the best thing i have come across but im wondering if my settings are wrong.

Is it posible to make a pdf in A4 format into a size that the PRS500 can read and scale in size (by pressing the size button and geting the same resuls as the the books that come with the PRS500)?

If yes, How can i do this? Is pdflrf the right program to use?

Thank you

Really a great job!
I'd need help on avoiding horizontal page cutting: I have many djvu ebooks which size is a little bigger than the prs monitor. when I convert them every page is splitted in two (horizontally) so I have 2 resulting pages one with 90% of the original page and the second with 10%. I would like to force the creation of one single lrf page per djvu page. Hereafter you can find one of the command I tried.

pdflrf -ns --rotation=0 --overlap=0.005 -f 10 -l 11 -i enrico_fermi.djvu -o testpage.lrf -t "test1"
Processing page: 10, Progress: 50
Processing page: 10, Progress: 50
Processing page: 11, Progress: 100
Processing page: 11, Progress: 100
(see attached file)
as you can see every page is processed two times and I get two different pages. Is there something trivial I missed? I tried to play with the output sizes and the fit parameter, but I didn't get any different result.
thank you in advance,

ambertape,
I am sorry you are so bitter. But what you want to do probably cannot be achieved short of having a device that will display the pages of the magazine at least at 100% of the size that they were made, and perhaps larger.

Why? You ask. It is really quite simple the pdf files of the magazine are not reflowable text but are in essence photographs of the pages. In addition there is no consistent format to the pages so that programs like pdflrf haven't a prayer of working except on a page by page basis. That is to say you would have to extract each page individually and process each one of them somewhat differently. There just is no good way of fitting a static image of one size on a smaller screen other than making the image smaller, and as you have noted the human eyes are not built to deal with such a small image.

Bottom line is that the Sony Reader, and other such devices are intended to display text based information, not photographic though they struggle in trying do so.


Deputy-Dawg,

Thank you for investigating my problem. Aside from trying pdflrf in Gui form, I even tried Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Professional to see if there was a way to select text globally and make all the text 8 pt. but after going thru Sony instruction making a 3.5 X 4.5 size which I was able to do, I wasn't able to globally chnge the font size. If I was able to do that then I might be able to read the text of the magazine which I am really interested in. If the graphic isn't clear, I can live with it but it is the text I am concerned with.

I think Sony could ask Adobe to make a simple conversion program from Acrobat that would convert a 8.5 X 11.0" pdf into a 3.5 X 4.5" format and make the text legible. If text is legible then The PRS500 or 505 ereader is a desirable device to own. I bought it on this premise more than buying ebooks to read. Maybe I will get around to it sometime in the future.

If you could help me control the font size globally in Acrobat it will be greatly appreciated. Perhaps some other people might find this useful too.

I thank you for your time.

Ambertape

Ambertape,
It is not a problem that either Sony or Adobe can address. The problem arrises from the choice the publisher of the magazine made when he chose to publish the web edition in a format that is essentially a series of photographs, not text.

Consider, how would you put a paper copy of the magazine into the reader. Your choices would be rather limited. You could type in all the text, now that would surely be a labor of love. You might scan it in using OCR software which is rather expensive, and not 100% reliable. Well the choices you have for the web version of the magazine are pretty much limited to same choices. I would not, indeed could not type in the content. And I certainly am unprepared to hold my breath waiting for Sony, or any other reader maker to incorporate an OCR program into the software of the reader.

The only other suggestion that comes to mind would be a reader that has enough real estate to properly display the pages.

Deputy-Dawg,

Thanks for your answers. Is there another reader that has enough real estate to properly display the pages ? I am waiting for Sony to give me my password that I forgot, then I will first download their eclassics and see how it works on the Sony Ereader.

I see that Sony posted a update for the PRS505 but not the PRS500.

I appreciate the time you took to investigate my problems. Have a nice day.

Ambertape

Ambertape,
It is not a problem that either Sony or Adobe can address. The problem arrises from the choice the publisher of the magazine made when he chose to publish the web edition in a format that is essentially a series of photographs, not text.

Consider, how would you put a paper copy of the magazine into the reader. Your choices would be rather limited. You could type in all the text, now that would surely be a labor of love. You might scan it in using OCR software which is rather expensive, and not 100% reliable. Well the choices you have for the web version of the magazine are pretty much limited to same choices. I would not, indeed could not type in the content. And I certainly am unprepared to hold my breath waiting for Sony, or any other reader maker to incorporate an OCR program into the software of the reader.

The only other suggestion that comes to mind would be a reader that has enough real estate to properly display the pages.

Presumably the publisher has the source in electronic format, not just images. The text should be reflowable. Of course a magazine has lots of images so the images must be easily viewable and if advertising is included (likely) it is often an image. Color is particularly important for some magazines so for this there is no suitable reader currently available but in some magazines the iLiad would appropriate. A good cbr/cbz capability would be a way to go with zoom and pan for images within the magazine. If the magazine is really like the paper one then hyperlinks to continuing article with a return is very important but for best reader experience the continuation should just be inline.

A double page spread with pan and zoom should be provided for many magazines.

Dale

Ambertape,
On the question of hardware, I think that Dale has accurately summed up the question,

As for Sony's update. That update was not for the 505 it was for the library (connect) software so that it would work with the 505. There has been speculation about an update for the 505 being forthcoming but it has not, to my knowledge, been released yet.

I must be dense but I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I was able to convert the pdf to a zip with all the pngs, but am apparently not running the png2pdf script properly. Can someone walk me through with very clear directions? thanks!

Thank you very much for this PDF to LRF converter. I was very disappointed when I loaded PDF files on my Sony only to find that I couldn't 'see' them.

A quick conversion using your tools solved my problems! :)

hdtvman,

Royal Oak, Mi

HDTVMAN,

which program did you use for conversion that you were successful in ?

Hm, currently dos verison doesn't accept --fit=page.
I believe it should?
Anyway, thanks for amazing app. I used JAP (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9146) previously, but its author almost ceased development because he's not using Reader himself.

But your app is abosultely ultimate pdf/djvu/comics formatting method. I wonder why Sony can't make Reader solid product, but one programmer can do it - and even as freeware.

HDTVMAN,

which program did you use for conversion that you were successful in ?


I used pdflrfwin-0.99win.zip

I think I left the default settings as is. I only did one file but I will soon do more.

Hdtvman, Royal Oak, MI

Hi all.

How to convert eachpage of a pdf into one png file without splitting and combining the pages vertically with defined height?

In another word, I hope I can just input the width and leave height blank, then the tool will automatically calculate the height it needs to convert a page into an image.

Thanks in advance!

I made word macro for Reader+pdflrf+libprs500.

It works so:
You paste into word something (usually from web page), than press button.
Macro sets font to Calibri size 14, page size for reader, saves file to PDF using Word 2007 converter. Then calls pdflrf, converts pdf to lrf. Than calls libprs500 routines to copy file into Reader.

If someone is interested, I'll polish and finish this thing and upload it here.

Hello,

How hard would it be to have the utility dynamically detect columns? I'm thinking about Scientific American and other magazines which have 3 columns, often with varying widths. Probably a rather big challenge, but surely achievable?

Hello,

I still waiting for the postal service to bring me the Reader, but I'm sure I'll find this tool useful.

As someone already notes in this thread, the source code of the program should be available due to the GPL-2 license of Poppler. I see it as a clear violation of the license...

I'm also a Linux developer, and I've been working in document processing (mostly postscript) and bitmaps graphics, and I'm also interested in being able to apply changes to your tool.

Thank you in advance (although I have not been able to try the program yet).

I made word macro for Reader+pdflrf+libprs500.

It works so:
You paste into word something (usually from web page), than press button.
Macro sets font to Calibri size 14, page size for reader, saves file to PDF using Word 2007 converter. Then calls pdflrf, converts pdf to lrf. Than calls libprs500 routines to copy file into Reader.

If someone is interested, I'll polish and finish this thing and upload it here.
Why not just set the page size for the reader? Then you would not need to use pdflrf at all.

I'm having a problem with font sizes on some of my ebooks. When I convert the pdf with pdflrf, the font size is tiny. The pdf has images in it that I need for reference, so I cant use the built in converter with libprs500 since it strips the images. I need the font size set to 11 or 12 so I can read it easily, vs the 4 or 5 it's showing up at. Does pdflrf have options for font resizing? Does anyone know a way I can do this? I'm currently running Linux, but I can find a Windows machine to do the convert on if I need to since I only need images on a few rare pdf's.

Thanks.

Why not just set the page size for the reader? Then you would not need to use pdflrf at all.
Because
1)Reader is very slow at the end of book when pdf have more than 200-400 pages.
2)Pdftolrf makes letters look better.

Does pdflrf have options for font resizing? Does anyone know a way I can do this?
You can't specify the target font size because pdflrf just uses an image for each page within the pdf. Pdflrf has no knowledge about which parts of a page contain texts and which parts contain images or tables.
In such cases i use rotation=-90, split pages = yes, crop sides = yes, smart cut = yes, scale=fit to width.
This results in a file in landscape orientation with more pages than in the original pdf. Due to the "fit to width" and "crop sides" the font size will be increased.

Because
1)Reader is very slow at the end of book when pdf have more than 200-400 pages.
2)Pdftolrf makes letters look better.

Neither of which statements are true.

I am working on a Bible project that will result in a file that has presently 5,353 pages and the page change at 5,000 page level is not different than that at the 30 page level, nor are either of the page changes observably different than the page changes on a test file containing only 30 pages. Nor is the jump from page 4954 to page 22 different from the jump from page 22 to page 65.

The appearance of the font is largely dependent on carefully choosing a font that displays well on the Sony reader. A suitable font would be one which has somewhat thicker than normal strokes, try using semibold fonts or bold fonts which appear to be lighter than the typical bold font. Also try to avoid fonts which have a huge disparity between the weight of the various strokes. A good place to begin experimenting is to use a semibold sans serif font, you will get a good idea of what is possible.

Finally you need to carefully select your page size - as this will be the final control on your absolute font size. And always compose your document with a view to the fact that it is going to be displayed on a device whose screen has a display ratio of 3::4 Portrait orientation.

I have included a file of 6 pages extracted from my Bible Project. The Header font (the one that appears in the Book Titles only) Copperplate Gothic BT Bold at 26.0pt. All of the remaining text is set from a subset of the Optane Compact family consisting of Optane Compact Bold and Optane Compact Bold Italic. on the first page of the sample file the Title and Chapter are set at 26.0 pt. The verse # are set at 4.0.pt and the body text is set at 7.0 pt italic. On page 2 the verse # are again 4.0pt and the body text is 7.0pt normal. On pages3 & 4 the verse # are 3.0pt and the body text is in 6.0pt. Finally on page 6 the Book name is again in 26.0pt Copperplate Gothic BT bold, the Chapter # is 26 pt Optane compact normal bold, the verse # are set in 4.0 Optane compact bold normal and the body text is set in 7.0pt Optane comact normal bold.

The pages were set on a page which is 4.05in X 6.20in with margins Top 0.1in; bottom 6.2in; left 0.1in right 0.1in. I used Adobe Acrobat Professional. And it suspect that may be a critcal choice. If you used the Microsoft PDF creator and is as slovenly in producing PDF files as the Microsoft HTML generator is in generating HTML then I can easily believe that the page swap times become and issue in large files but I never would have thought files of only 200 page would be a problem.

Again I repeat if choose your font carefully, you appropriately size your fonts and the virtual page size you use, and you generate pristine pdf files the result can be quite acceptable in every respect.

Neither of which statements are true.
I don't have any experience related to 1). However, 2) is in a way true since the background color of PDF files is bit more grey than that of LRF ones.

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=147060&postcount=14

I don't have any experience related to 1). However, 2) is in a way true since the background color of PDF files is bit more grey than that of LRF ones.

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=147060&postcount=14
Did you look at the samples I posted? Yes, I am aware of the "grey" background issue, which is why the font used is critically important. But that being said I still maintain that with careful choice of font and font weight that a PDF file can be every bit as readable as a LRF file and PDF files have a much richer TOC capabilities.

I think we are interpreting 'looks as good as' in a different way.

If you are talking about overall aesthetics including fonts, PDF may be a good way to view documents. However, for someone like me, I don't care AT ALL about fonts but I found the greyish background extremely annoying. So PDF documents with 'decreased constrast' due to greyish background do not qualify as 'looking as good as' to me.

You seem to be willing to trade off fonts & navigation with decreased contrast, but I don't. I think that is why we don't agree on 'looking good'. :)

I think we are interpreting 'looks as good as' in a different way.

If you are talking about overall aesthetics including fonts, PDF may be a good way to view documents. However, for someone like me, I don't care AT ALL about fonts but I found the greyish background extremely annoying. So PDF documents with 'decreased constrast' due to greyish background do not qualify as 'looking as good as' to me.

You seem to be willing to trade off fonts & navigation with decreased contrast, but I don't. I think that is why we don't agree on 'looking good'. :)
Again, I ask, did you look at the samples?

The problem with the grey background is not so much the lowering of the contrast as it wreaks havoc on the anti-aliasing of the fonts. This is why my requirement for fonts with heavier weights, and more importantly fonts with nearly equal strokes. pdflrf is a useful program but it suffers from many problems which are inherent with the approach. The most significant of which is the increased loss of edge sharpness on the characters. Try rendering my sample pages with it and observe what happens to the verse numbers, particularly on pages 3 & 4.

BTW if you are happy, I have no problem with that.

Again, I ask, did you look at the samples?
The problem with the grey background is not so much the lowering of the contrast as it wreaks havoc on the anti-aliasing of the fonts. This is why my requirement for fonts with heavier weights, and more importantly fonts with nearly equal strokes. pdflrf is a useful program but it suffers from many problems which are inherent with the approach. The most significant of which is the increased loss of edge sharpness on the characters. Try rendering my sample pages with it and observe what happens to the verse numbers, particularly on pages 3 & 4.
BTW if you are happy, I have no problem with that.

Yes. I looked at the PDF file and LRF file converted using PDFLRF on my PRS-505. I agree it seems to lose edge sharpness so it can be a problem if you care about clean-edged fonts. However, again, I would rather have cleaner background and less ghosting at the sacrifice of font sharpness. Maybe I am not very sensitive about fonts after all.

Like you said, if it works for you, it is fine. My point is that different people have different preferences/priorities over various factors affecting the looks of documents such as fonts, background color, and so on. PDF may be better than or as good as LRF to you but not to someone like me.

Could any body please show me how to convert and pdf file to lrf file? Thanks!

This is a VERY good program...Great job...though I do have three questions: (1) my converted file occationally displays blank pages. Could this be avoided in the conversion program...just skip blanks (2) The file is relatively big...typically 6X of PDF. Is there a way to reduce this size, such as by reducing the number of color outputs (Sony Reader is black and white anyway), etc. (3) Where does the number of gray levels come into play? by specify the number of colors? (You know the Sony PRS-505 has 8 levels, while 500 has 4)...Any answer or comment on these is greatly appreciated...Again, great program...
:thanks:

Cacapee-Awesome program! I have tried a number of pdf conversion tools, and this is easily the best ! For it's simplicity of use (I'm using the win version) it exports a very clean lrf file that presents very well in the reader.
There might be other products that arguable do a better job for some,but I didn't have to spend hours trying to understand how to tweak it to get a really readable output.
Props and Karma!

Question- I just converted a Bio of Micheal Moore that I got from Wowio.com. Although the file is now large-almost 9 mb- it presents well and the pages turn as quickly as any.
The problem is there is a blank strip down the left side that takes up about a fifth of the screen due to a tiny strip of printing-almost like a vertical postscript or header-on every page.
Is there a way to either ignore,strip out or cut off that leftmost edge of the document so the real estate of the page is being used more efficiently?

edit-never mind-I see that by using the 'trim %'button and specifying about 3-5% for the left side it, well, is pretty self explanatory.My only defense is that I am not used to things being that easy in the wonderful world of .lrf creation!:chinscratch:

tyvm! I did some playing around with this.. its awesome. I have also been messing around with PDF cropper. Both really nice programs.

Kudos!

Hi, This post of yours is very beneficial and informative, however there are some specific facts or information that I require. If anyone can help me in this matter then please send me a private message.

Best Regards,

Hi, This post of yours is very beneficial and informative, however there are some specific facts or information that I require. If anyone can help me in this matter then please send me a private message.

Best Regards,
Why do you need a PM? Can't you ask for what it is you need right here in this thread? If what you need doesn't relate to this thread then your post is off topic.

That's just a spammer, look at his signature...

That's just a spammer, look at his signature...
I am trying to give him the benfit of the doubt. But I'm inclined to agree. I'll keep an eye out for him and we;ll see how he responds if he even does.

So far I like this pdf converted best of all. Congrats.

I have 2 small problems with it:
1. I have already a perfectly composed pdf for the size and resolution of the reader. Is it possible not to have any filter applied at all? Just straight through? In particular for the pictures.

2. The top space of my pages get cut off. I guess these are blank lines added so that the content is more centered.

smittyraw's technique of using "Fit to 2xheight" is very good, and addresses the sizing issue in many cases. What are the chances of getting more "Fit to..." sizing options? I realize that can make the files huge, but with 2/4/8GB cards being fairly affordable, it's a storage cost I'm willing to bear.

Neither of which statements are true.

I am working on a Bible project that will result in a file that has presently 5,353 pages and the page change at 5,000 page level is not different than that at the 30 page level, nor are either of the page changes observably different than the page changes on a test file containing only 30 pages. Nor is the jump from page 4954 to page 22 different from the jump from page 22 to page 65.


How is that project coming along DD? The sample looks very nice, and I am hoping that you will share.
I did purchase the NIV .lrf from the Sony store, and was not particularily impressed by it, I would be quite interested in comparing it to yours.
:)

How is that project coming along DD? The sample looks very nice, and I am hoping that you will share.
I did purchase the NIV .lrf from the Sony store, and was not particularily impressed by it, I would be quite interested in comparing it to yours.
:)

The Bible part of the project is complete. I am now working on the associated commentary. Unfortunately, although the bible may be freely downloaded at the publisher's web site as Word and PDF files I don't think it can be construed as being in the public domain and as such I would be loath to upload it here. The site is:

http://www.bible.claret.org/bibles/index.html

I would welcome advice from the forum managers.

That being said I used essentially the same methods in the KJV Bible and the Douay-Rheims Bible which I have online.

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21364

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20067

So this is my first post here...^^

Today i have recognized a little difference between the linux and windows version. The gui windows version has one more value ('page') for the program option '--fit'. Is where a spacial reason, that this value is not avalaible under linux?

The program is really GOOD!
One question - is there a way to save settings in windows (GUI) version?
So, that when I start the program next time it will have all MY settings (except filenames), not the DEFAULT settings?

Can anyone provide some basic settings to crop and make a LRF with this utiity for the Sony Reader 505? I just want to put in a PDF, adjust the trim numbers and have it appear in landscape mode. I don't know about spliting pages, join or any of that. Just give me a list of the optimized settings for landscape 505. THanks.

Can anyone provide some basic settings to crop and make a LRF with this utiity for the Sony Reader 505? I just want to put in a PDF, adjust the trim numbers and have it appear in landscape mode. I don't know about spliting pages, join or any of that. Just give me a list of the optimized settings for landscape 505. THanks.

I believe I used all default settings.

Just bought a Sony reader on Ebay
Thanks for solving my problems.
Great Job

What numbers do we type in for the screen size of the 505?

(if I undertood your question correctly) Just what you see in a screenshot I posted above?

(if I undertood your question correctly) Just what you see in a screenshot I posted above?

but you didn't type anything in. I think the previoius person wanted to know how do you make the font larger. I would like to know as well. The one thing it seems the kindle has over the sony reader is it has more maginifcation options. Sadly I had the pleasure of playing with a friends kindle. Now I want to make the font larger from pdf's heh.:thanks:

but you didn't type anything in. I think the previoius person wanted to know how do you make the font larger. I would like to know as well. The one thing it seems the kindle has over the sony reader is it has more maginifcation options. Sadly I had the pleasure of playing with a friends kindle. Now I want to make the font larger from pdf's heh.:thanks:

You cannot make large fonts from pdf file created via pdflrf. In a sence the end file lrf is a collection of pictures.
Kindle cannot do it as well. you can magnify only text in re-flowable format such as txt, rtf, doc, lrf. PDF doesn't belong to this category.

So I may have to just send the book to a .txt format and play with it. I get migraines fairly easily. If i stare at the text took long I have to put the book down :( I really hate the .txt format because its ugly. Is there a way to crop it even more?

Hmm. How do you plan to make a txt file from pdf?

pdflrf is great ! Sony should pay for you !

pdflrf is great ! Sony should pay for you !

I thought there is only one Brest. In Belorus :D

Hmm. How do you plan to make a txt file from pdf?

there are a few programs out there that does it. Actually adobe does it for free through their website.

If you can get hold of Adobe Pro either v7 or v8, then you could save your pdf files as HTML....it is not perfect but it is the best that we have today. You can covert HTML into LRF easily. It will be much better than txt anyway, because it will keep most of formating such as italics and bold...

If you can get hold of Adobe Pro either v7 or v8, then you could save your pdf files as HTML....it is not perfect but it is the best that we have today. You can covert HTML into LRF easily. It will be much better than txt anyway, because it will keep most of formating such as italics and bold...

hmm I will try that. I just got a ghost error and I have ghost script installed... :chinscratch:

hmm I will try that. I just got a ghost error and I have ghost script installed... :chinscratch:

What is ghost script?

astra, Ghostscript is an opensource clone of the PostScript page description language by Adobe:

http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/

William

Tanks, for this information. Is a ver usefull program for read very good in the sony prs

I am curious.

Why did honorable cacapee disappeared?

Any ideas?

I am suspecting that he is from Sony and he presented us with this program to make our life easier with pdfs.

Any other ideas? :)

Thanks again for this program. I think I'm out of luck but I might as well ask. Is there any way to increase text size either in the setting prior to converting or through the book post conversion? A number of the pdf's I'm converting have fairly small type (even in landscape mode which usually returns more legible text) and while legible, strain my eyes.

Thanks again for this program. I think I'm out of luck but I might as well ask. Is there any way to increase text size either in the setting prior to converting or through the book post conversion? A number of the pdf's I'm converting have fairly small type (even in landscape mode which usually returns more legible text) and while legible, strain my eyes.

Unfortunately, you are out of luck with this one.


Did you use all the default settings? I think it cuts away white margins and turns it to landscape.

Ambertape,
It is not a problem that either Sony or Adobe can address. The problem arrises from the choice the publisher of the magazine made when he chose to publish the web edition in a format that is essentially a series of photographs, not text.

I'm not sure if your statement describes this circumstance, but I have a series of pdf files from a publisher that work just fine on my Palm - meaning, the text magnification features work as we'd all like them to on the Reader - but that seem to suffer from the "I'm just a graphic" problem on the Reader that you and others have described throughout the forum.

If I did not have this experience, I'd be more willing to accept the explanations offered, but if I can do it on the Palm, why can't I do it on the Reader?

Thanks again for this program. I think I'm out of luck but I might as well ask. Is there any way to increase text size either in the setting prior to converting or through the book post conversion? A number of the pdf's I'm converting have fairly small type (even in landscape mode which usually returns more legible text) and while legible, strain my eyes.

This time you are not out of luck. Recently there has been a great contribution that allows to transform a pdf into another pdf with bigger letter size. Take a look at http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23048

The idea is first to use the pi program from the previous link to create a new pdf, and later use pdflrf with the previously generated pdf. I have been using this method during the last days and it is great.

I've been using pdflrf on and off during the last six months or so and I've found a couple of bugs. I wonder if there might be a workaround, especially for the first one.

1. I'm processing a pdf which is a two-column scan of a book (these two columns are in fact the left- and the right-hand pages of the original book). Somewhere in the middle of the file, there's a page with the left-hand column completely blank, since there wasn't anything on that page in the original book. Now, pdflrf crashes there. Just crashes and that's it, it doesn't say a word.

2. Again, processing a pdf which is in fact a scan, if I select "smart cut", I get pages on the Sony which miss some of the content present in the pdf, that is, they are partly blank and the text that should be there is just lost. It seems as if the program cut the page in its "smart" way (leaving some empty space at the bottom of the page) but then forgot to put that chunk of text on the next lrf page. Well, there is a nice way to avoid this problem and it is to disable the smart cut option. But in any case, a bug is a bug and I thought I should report it.

Why did honorable cacapee disappeared

It does seem like he disappeared, doesn't it. Could he be buried in his Qt port, or perhaps other "life" things came up. Hope he's doing alright.

~

The Sony Reader finally came to Canada, it was sure nice to see eInk in person. Like many people, I have a lot of 8.5x11 PDF eBooks, so I need something like pdflrf or calibre if I'm to buy a Reader to read them.

I'm also a Mac-user... the interesting thing about pdflrf being ported to Qt is that perhaps it can be integrated with calibre depending on whether you want text-based or image-based output. I guess we'll see what happens.

I'd be quite happy with a command line version for Max OS X, for which someone else could start on a Cocoa front-end (or at least a more thorough manual). Of course Mac OS X uses BSD underneath, so threading and such is a bit different from Linux. I don't know much about it, I just know that it'd take a little more than a recompile.

For now, I'm trying out the GUI under VMware, and then viewing the lrf in OS X with calibre (which takes a while). The fidelity is quite good, I would need to diddle the settings to crop off more unnecessary white space (the Pragmatic Programmer books have full width footers but fair margins).

There are a lot of requests here, and I kind've worry that it will get to spread out, rather than just being really good at what it does now.

- nathan.

Just got my reader a couple days ago. Bought it off ebay so it had a few documents on it already. I have hundreds of eBooks in PDF format and was somewhat disappointed on the viewability after transferring a couple. This converter made a huge difference. All I can say is WOW. Outstanding job. Thanks so much CACAPEE.

I use this convertor and it is very good. :thanks:
But I can't use it with Ghostscript option enabled.
I have the latest version of ghsotscript installed, but the program returns errors when I try to convert with Ghostscript option enabled.

I see 4 error allersts with the following content:

1) GPL ghostscript
2) 8.62
3) :
4) Urecoverable error, exit code 1

Can anybody help to fix this problem? :help:

And does Ghostscript actually give better quality?

I am pursuing my PhD, which means lots of reading. Because of this software I am now able to read my pdf papers while hiking into school. I used the two page option which successfully split the page, kept the images and tables, and now I can read. Of course I still have the full paper on my laptop.

So between Calibre, and this pdflrf software I have a usuable device. Oh and I can read books on it too?

So thank-you for your knowledge and sharing.
Dean

Hi all, super newbie here, only got my reader yesterday and still reading this forum like crazy. when i open pdflrfwin-0.99 i press preview displays nice i press convert it gets to 1% and the program closes no error popup. tried on 2 pcs winxp and vista any ideas
thanks in advance

ghostscript installed and also tried the dos version

pdflrfdos-0.99>pdflrf.exe -i 620318.pdf -o 620318.lrf (also tried with no space same thing happens)

pdf -o 620318.lrf -s
Processing page: 1, Progress: 0
Processing page: 1, Progress: 0
Processing page: 2, Progress: 0
Processing page: 2, Progress: 0
Processing page: 3, Progress: 0
Processing page: 3, Progress: 0
Processing page: 3, Progress: 0
make_weighttab: null filter at -32768

Hi, is the sourcecode to this tool anywhere? I want to port it to apple mac osx.

Sounds very interesting! Any news or rumours about a Mac port?
I for one would welcome it warmly. Even with the new firmware features (PDF reflow), this tool still works a kind of incomparable magic...

Bug report:
This pdf causes PdfLrf 0.99 (win) to exit spontaneously at 93%, leaving a zero-byte LRF file behind: http://www.math.ku.dk/noter/filer/CB/koman-07.pdf
I have noticed this before (but I can't remember with which files)

Bug report:
This pdf causes PdfLrf 0.99 (win) to exit spontaneously at 93%, leaving a zero-byte LRF file behind: http://www.math.ku.dk/noter/filer/CB/koman-07.pdf
I have noticed this before (but I can't remember with which files)
Try that PDF with the new firmware.Maybe you won't need to convert it.

I posted a bug report. Apparently it was removed. Why?

It wasn't removed. It had your first link and needed to be approved.

EDIT: done

Hi , is there anyone can email a pdflrf 0.6 to me(cszhy_2003@hotmail.com) , I need it because there is something wrong with the version 0.9 when ghostscript is checked

Thanks a lot:)

when I use pdflrf0.99 converting some chinese pdf,
the message box say

"GPL Ghostscript 8.6: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1"

anyone can help? thanks

I've been looking at doing some refactoring of PDFRead and while I was doing that I came across Poppler (http://poppler.freedesktop.org), which in turn is based on XPdf. cacapee mentions multiple times that poppler is used in pdflrf (which is also statically linked into the executables). The poppler README (http://poppler.freedesktop.org/poppler-0.8.7.tar.gz) clearly states: Please note that xpdf, and thus poppler, is licensed under the GPL,
not the LGPL. Consequently, any application using poppler must also
be licensed under the GPL. If you want to incorporate Xpdf based PDF
rendering in a closed source product, please contact Glyph & Cog
(www.glyphandcog.com) for commercial licensing options.. In such a scenario, it becomes an obligation for cacapee to either publish the source code OR withdraw the binaries for this tool. [disclaimer: I've been trying to get cacapee to share the source code for a while now so that I could pick up some ideas for PDFRead, but I never thought of the licensing issue until I was trying to compile poppler myself today.]

Considering the policy which was similiarly applied to RasterFarian, I'd like to request that the downloads on the first post be temporarily hidden/disabled. It would be a sad thing for many users, but I think that until this matter is resolved, it's the correct thing to do.

But I could not download it :(

But I could not download it

As mentioned in the main post, the downloads have been taken down pending clarification from the author regarding compliance with the GPL. Till then, they will remain disabled, I'm sorry to say :(

Hey, don't be a jerk. You're just nitpicking. Or is this a power trip? Maybe it's a way to get back at Cacapee for not releasing his code.

Furthermore, if you want to get legal on us, let me point out that legally speaking, it's not your prerogative to enforce a third party's rights (ie. the author of Poppler), and I very much doubt that Mobileread could be held liable just for hosting software that presumedly doesn't respect a third party's licence.

Does the expression "to be more catholic than the pope" exist in English? If not, it seems self-explanatory.

I agree with balok : I just bought a Sony reader and I came straight here to download the converter only to find out that some overzealous had put it off limits.
It looked a bit strange until I found this article :
http://hightech.afmag.net/pdf-rasterizers-for-the-sony-reader-a-review-on-rasterfarian-pdfread-and-pdflrf.html

and that seems to explain a lot. I mean, it seems too much of a coincidence that
Ashkulz is being "more catholic than the pope" because his PDFread sw is declared somewhat less perfect than the competition ?
It's hard enough to work around Sony's limitations to have to deal with the self appointed
sheriffs of the world.
Please re-instate this download.

ashkulz did not remove the program. It was removed, as the note in the first post said, by a MobileRead moderator. ashkulz just gave a more details.

@balok: I'm sorry if you think I'm nitpicking, but I'm a software developer by profession and have contributed to multiple open source projects: for me, a license violation is not in the spirit of open source. You're absolutely correct in the fact that I have no legal right when it comes to enforcing the rights of poppler/xpdf: after all, I didn't write it. All I did is request that the same yardstick that was applied to RasterFarian be applied in this case: if you disagree with that, feel free to disagree (or not) with the moderators.

@Ozne: That review is from a year ago and it was tested with comics/manga, which I don't read at all. If you think that I've spent a year in a dark cave and am now slowly knocking off my competition one-by-one, you're welcome to that thought. The moment cacapee shows up with an updated version without poppler or the source code, that theory goes down the drain [I'm hoping he does either, rather than this silence].

I'm sorry if people think I'm being jealous and obstructive: all this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If you feel that I've taken something away from you, then feel free to defeat me in the best way you can: write a better tool and make it more popular than pdflrf or PDFRead.

Hey, don't be a jerk. You're just nitpicking. Or is this a power trip? Maybe it's a way to get back at Cacapee for not releasing his code.

Furthermore, if you want to get legal on us, let me point out that legally speaking, it's not your prerogative to enforce a third party's rights (ie. the author of Poppler), and I very much doubt that Mobileread could be held liable just for hosting software that presumedly doesn't respect a third party's licence.

Does the expression "to be more catholic than the pope" exist in English? If not, it seems self-explanatory.

GPL was created to make programs better by enabling people to be able to enhance them. Releasing a program that solves some problem and not releasing the source code hinder the development of good programs since the binary programs kind of works. And using GPL:ed code and not releasing the source code is not in the spirit of GPL and the goal of enhancing programs.

So it is often better that a program without source code disappear because it will stimulate a better GPL:ed program to be developed.

It is not quite the same yardstick as RasterFarian.
In that case, according to the notes of the editor, the sw was removed
because it used a piece of commercial sw.
It is not quite the same as using a piece of public domain sw and making
no money out of it (pdflrf was free).
I could have understood if the GPL violation was from some commercial
operator that exploited the work of open source code by violating
the license to make money, but this is not the case.
As it stands, this was a very minor violation and your action were extemely
petty, whether sour grapes or not.
I do not blame Mobileread for this : once a little violation is pointed out
they have no choice, but you have deprived a lot of people of a valuable
tool to enjoy their device and for that you have all my contempt.

Well I got mixed feelings here. I agree with Ozone about losing an awesome app. But I also agree with ashkulz, and he brought up a valid point. Breaking the law is just that and MobiRead should be just and fair in all cases.

@Ozone just a clarification GPL software is NOT public domain, it is CopyLeft. Monetary wise there is no difference Legal wise there is a huge difference.

ashkulz is making a great piece of software and what great about that initiative is that it will continue to improve because he strongly believes in the Open Source model.

=X=

So I have followed this thread, and I understand why the app was taken down. So here is my question, to the numerous people who were able to down load this app before it was taken down, would you be willing to send me a copy? I have a skydrive account that I can open for you to drop it in. Or if you have a wixi or jooce account and add me as a friend I can grab it from there. This way Mobilereader is not liable for any “Copyright” infringement that may or may not exist. And if people think I am being dishonest, I invite them to re-read this thread. I believe hacked versions of PDF software were being asked for. ;)

So .... would you be willing to send me a copy?

Sure, once you've setup the skydrive send me a PM.
=X=

Hey X,

I sent you a PM.

Thanks for the help!!

Great!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I got mixed feelings here. I agree with Ozone about losing an awesome app. But I also agree with ashkulz, and he brought up a valid point. Breaking the law is just that and MobiRead should be just and fair in all cases.

What would be just and fair to the users of this forum is if Mobileread would mind its own business instead of appointing itself judge and jury in a licence infringement case to which it is not a party. Shouldn't Mobileread at least presume that it doesn't violate the GPL until an interested party complains (ie. the author of Poppler)?

What would be just and fair to the users of this forum is if Mobileread would mind its own business instead of appointing itself judge and jury in a licence infringement case to which it is not a party. Shouldn't Mobileread at least presume that it doesn't violate the GPL until an interested party complains (ie. the author of Poppler)?

When software is hosted on our server, it is our business. The software has not been deleted; merely made temporarily unavailable for download until the author of the tool concerned can clarify its legal status.

Shouldn't Mobileread at least presume that it doesn't violate the GPL until an interested party complains (ie. the author of Poppler)?

When we receive a notification of a potential violation we cannot close our eyes and pretend nobody would be interested.

I agree with HarryT and Alexander : if you run a public forum, once a potential violation is reported, the offending sw must be removed in order to avoid liability.
My problem was with reporting such a small violation in the first place : none has gained anything and a lot of people have missed out.

I agree with HarryT and Alexander : if you run a public forum, once a potential violation is reported, the offending sw must be removed in order to avoid liability.
My problem was with reporting such a small violation in the first place : none has gained anything and a lot of people have missed out.

There is a big gain. The probability for better open source software in the long run have increased. GPL is used to make things available so people can enhance them and so on. Its goal is to stimulate development and increase peoples freedom to to things.

I just got my sony reader, and am really desperate to get this converter. Just wondering would anyone mind sending me a copy to my email. I am really appreciated.
Email: freecolapig@googlemail.com

Thanks. But, how can I get the PDFLRF?

(post deleted by moderator - RWood)

It's unfortunate that ashkulz felt the need to report something that probably would never have been noticed. I feel bad for those with PDF files that need to be converted to LRF and don't have the best tool for converting available to them.

However, all is not lost: the program can be found on torrent sites such as Demonoid and ThePirateBay when you search for pdflrf.

I'm sure people will also start sharing it through other hosted sources such as rapidshare, megaupload and the like (I bet [Link Deleted] will have something too).

It's unfortunate that ashkulz felt the need to report something that probably would never have been noticed. I feel bad for those with PDF files that need to be converted to LRF and don't have the best tool for converting available to them.

However, all is not lost: the program can be found on torrent sites such as Demonoid and ThePirateBay when you search for pdflrf.

I'm sure people will also start sharing it through other hosted sources such as rapidshare, megaupload and the like (I bet -- Link deleted - ) will have something too).

:thumbsup: Perfect Reply.

I received my Sony reader today and was looking up programs that convert PDF files to LRF or even RTF.

Guess how many useful programs I found for a noober like myself? NONE.

Then I stumbled upon the multi-step process outlined in a different thread...... multi-step.

Finally, I stumbled upon this thread and the PFRLRF program. Converted my first file, loaded it unto the PRS-505 and BAM!, worked like a charm.

Now, I'm sure it's not perfect and there are some bugs in it but it's simple and effective. Looky here, it actually helps folks. Whadya know.

So far, so good with the program.

I'd throw the guy some greenbacks for this program. :thanks:

As others have said, the argument for removing this piece of software from the forum borders on petty. Do people realize just how many minor copyright violations are present at any one time?

I could understand if this guy was making a profit from this but he wasn't. I understand that he may have used open source code yet does not want/hasn't released his code but the program is FREE. He's not profiting from it, at least, monetarily.

As others have said, the argument for removing this piece of software from the forum borders on petty. Do people realize just how many minor copyright violations are present at any one time?

I could understand if this guy was making a profit from this but he wasn't. I understand that he may have used open source code yet does not want/hasn't released his code but the program is FREE. He's not profiting from it, at least, monetarily.

I explained it before; there's a difference between knowing that the Internet is full of minor copyright violations, and being notified of a particular instance. Once we were notified here, we could no longer ignore it.

In the case of GPL, it does not really matter whether the programmer is profiting or not. It's a matter of honoring the copyright to those people who were involved in programming the underlying code and libraries. Some people hate GPL for it, saying its viral character has a damaging effect on the industry. Be that as it may, this problem could quickly be solved with the release of the pdflrfwin source code.

How to download files?

***Sorry, find already***

nice job

nice...

Wanted to get a prs-505 after seeing it at target. I only wanna use pdfs and was really dissapointed about the bad pdf support. I just found this thread and going to run out to buy a prs-505 because of you. thx!

:book2::book2::book2::book2::book2:

very nice~~~~

How to download,

Can't download this tool =( Are there any limitations on download for new users?

No limitation everything on this site is free and legal....

Which brings me to the second answer. The link to download PDFLRF was removed due to copyright violations.

There are other tools like PDFRead that is very nice.

Also a new tool http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31677 that is showing some real promise

If you are still inclined to finding PDFLRF google it you should find it archived out in the net somewhere

=X=

Please refer to post #435. It may have a useful link. :)

try soPdf (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32066)

I love PDFLRF and I'm very disappointed a busybody felt the need to restrict access to it. Personally, I think the spirit of open source is to encourage development of free software. If someone releases a program that doesn't abide by the license agreement, just don't use the program. That the offending program is available to others doesn't cause you any harm so live and let live.

Anyway, I'll be seeding the PDFLRF torrent indefinitely so head over to the Pirate Bay if you want a copy.

Anyway, I'll be seeding the PDFLRF torrent indefinitely so head over to the Pirate Bay if you want a copy.
Well done.

Well, in case post 435 stops working, I've also archived this program here:

[Link Deleted]

Astra, thank you -- that's where I got my copy.

Amramsey -- fantastic work!!!

i have the old sony reader (500), i also have a lot pdf files of books which i like to read
on the sony reader but discover the print to small to read when transfer over.
i did a search looking for a solution, and found this forum. It's just as confusing here
trying come up with a work around to convert pdf files,but there is a simple solution
in program called nitro pdf professional v5.4.0.21 google it up to find the program
it sells for $99.00, maybe you can find a better deal if you look in the right places.
It was so simple to convert a pdf file, you choose the file in gui window, pick the type of conversion you want, press the convert button, and thats it. Its done in a few seconds
i converted my pdf document into a rich word document, open that word document
high lighted each page of the book and pick the font size i wanted, as big or as small
as i wanted, and saved the changes,when transfer it over to my sony reader. ( i choose the size 20) perfect size
for the sony reader just like the e-books that came with the reader. a 185 page book
was now 544 pages, after conversion. this is beautiful, i don't have to purchase a new reader and i can pick whatever typt size i want,and i don't have to choose between
small or medium with the 500 model , or limit between 1-5 on the 505 model and i save hundreds of dollars from buying a new reader

Personally, I think the spirit of open source is to encourage development of free software.

You are interpreting the wrong meaning of the word "free". That's the problem with the word "Free" it is ambiguous.

GPL and open source believe software should be "free" as in "liberated" not as in beer. Open source has always been okay with charging for software but the source code MUST always be provided.


=X=

You are interpreting the wrong meaning of the word "free". That's the problem with the word "Free" it is ambiguous.

GPL and open source believe software should be "free" as in "liberated" not as in beer. Open source has always been okay with charging for software but the source code MUST always be provided.


=X=

So advocates of GPL want software to be liberated as long as you abide by their rules? Seems a bit of a contradiction. I want software to be truly liberated so that anyone can do whatever they like with it: sell it, give it away, copy it, modify it - no strings attached.

I think that someone misunderstood the Xpdf licensing. While the information about GPL is correct, if you look here:

http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/about.html

You will see that the author has given additional rights to developers.

Quoting from the author's own page:

Emphasis added by me.


Xpdf is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2. In my opinion, the GPL is a convoluted, confusing, ambiguous mess. But it's also pervasive, and I'm sick of arguing. And even if it is confusing, the basic idea is good.

In order to cut down on the confusion a little bit, here are some informal clarifications:

I don't mind if you redistribute xpdf in source and/or binary form, as long as you include all of the documentation: README, man pages (or help files), and COPYING. (Note that the README file contains a pointer to a web page with the source code.)
Selling a CD-ROM that contains xpdf is fine with me, as long as it includes the documentation. I wouldn't mind receiving a sample copy, but it's not necessary.
If you make useful changes to xpdf, please make the source code available -- post it on a web site, email it to me, whatever.
If you're interested in commercial licensing, please see the Glyph & Cog web site.


He says in no uncertain terms that you may redistribute xpdf in BINARY FORM and only asks that if you make USEFUL CHANGES TO XPDF that you send the author, not you Ashkulz, a copy of the code.

If someone wants to argue about pdflrfwin not having copies of the README, help files and COPYING files, then someone can simply zip them up with the .exe and be in full compliance.

So advocates of GPL want software to be liberated as long as you abide by their rules? Seems a bit of a contradiction. I want software to be truly liberated so that anyone can do whatever they like with it: sell it, give it away, copy it, modify it - no strings attached.

Yes that is the paradox here, they had to use a copyright to overcome copyright limitations. Of course they call that "copyleft". But keep in mind the only thing they ask is to keep the "source" free so that others can build upon what exists.

Unfortunately this author chose not to share his work. If you go back on this thread you will see he was asked several times to share his source and he agreed to do so, but never did.

I think it's a real shame this was the best PDF to LRF software to date. Of course there is other software like soPDF and PDFCroper that show more promis than PDFLRF and they have provided the source.


=X=

I think that someone misunderstood the Xpdf licensing. While the information about GPL is correct, if you look here:


I was hoping to find a similar loophole so we can ask the moderators to re-enable the link. However when I dug into the license I found the following.

(Clarification PDFLRF uses poppler not (xpdf) so we have to look at poppler license.)

This is found on the readme.
Please note that xpdf, and thus poppler, is licensed under the GPL,
not the LGPL. Consequently, any application using poppler must also
be licensed under the GPL. If you want to incorporate Xpdf based PDF
rendering in a closed source product, please contact Glyph & Cog
(www.glyphandcog.com) for commercial licensing options.

Kristian Høgsberg, Feb. 27, 2005


Since PLDFLRF is not GPL it is violating the license agreement. Had the authors of poppler used (LGPL) there would not have been an issue.

I was hoping to find a similar loophole so we can ask the moderators to re-enable the link. However when I dug into the license I found the following.

(Clarification PDFLRF uses poppler not (xpdf) so we have to look at poppler license.)

This is found on the readme.
Please note that xpdf, and thus poppler, is licensed under the GPL,
not the LGPL. Consequently, any application using poppler must also
be licensed under the GPL. If you want to incorporate Xpdf based PDF
rendering in a closed source product, please contact Glyph & Cog
(www.glyphandcog.com) for commercial licensing options.

Kristian Høgsberg, Feb. 27, 2005


Since PLDFLRF is not GPL it is violating the license agreement. Had the authors of poppler used (LGPL) there would not have been an issue.

I still don't see a problem. The poppler license is predicated on xpdf's license. The way it reads, the REASON that poppler is licensed this way is because it must follow the Xpdf license. In fact, they go so far as to say that one should contact Glyph and Cog if you want to put the code into a closed source product. The link I posted shows that Glyph and Cog have given permission.

If this is not enough, tell me who you need an email from. I'll contact an author or project maintainer myself and get a release. I think that it's pretty clear that ALL of the licenses involved from xpdf to poppler to pdflrfwin indend for free non-comercial (even closed source) use. I don't like seeing one guy who can't get his way whine and try to ruin things for everyone.

Just for clarification, we're agreed that pdflrfwin is in compliance with the Glyph and Cog license so poppler is the only issue, yes?

I still don't see a problem. The poppler license is predicated on xpdf's license. The way it reads, the REASON that poppler is licensed this way is because it must follow the Xpdf license. In fact, they go so far as to say that one should contact Glyph and Cog if you want to put the code into a closed source product. The link I posted shows that Glyph and Cog have given permission.

What I underlined above is the curx of the whole licensing problem.

What you need to understand is free(as in beer) does not equal GPL . Because PDFLRF does not provide the code and only binaries it is considered a "closed source product", the author has chosen not to make it open source. Just because he does not charge for the software does not make him a GPL product

For a developer to use a third party software that is under the GPL v2 license a programmer must make his source GPL as well. This is what the author meant by "pervasive" (refer to your original quote). Mind you, this is by design.

The FSF foundation realized this was a limitation with open source since folks who wanted to keep their source closed are FORCED to open their source. So GPL v3 (also referred to as LGPL) was created to give folks the option to use a GPL product without being forced into a GPL model.

What Xpdf has given permission is to distribute xpdf via by source or executable. What they have NOT given permission is for somebody to include their code in somebody's else executable.



If this is not enough, tell me who you need an email from. I'll contact an author or project maintainer myself and get a release.

It would be awesome if you can get Glyph and Cog to give special permission to PDFLRF you would be doing the mobiread community a service. The contact info can be found on the poppler web site.


I think that it's pretty clear that ALL of the licenses involved from xpdf to poppler to pdflrfwin indend for free non-comercial (even closed source) use. I don't like seeing one guy who can't get his way whine and try to ruin things for everyone.

Just for clarification, we're agreed that pdflrfwin is in compliance with the Glyph and Cog license so poppler is the only issue, yes?
No we are not in agreement. What you need to understand is the intent of GPL is not so much to make the software "free" as in beer for the end user, but to make the source "free" as in liberated for everyone. For more than you care to know refer to GNU (http://gnu.org)or in particular an article written by the father of FSF (Why Open source misses the point of "Free Software" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html))

No we are not in agreement. What you need to understand is the intent of GPL is not so much to make the software "free" as in beer for the end user, but to make the source "free" as in liberated for everyone. For more than you care to know refer to GNU (http://gnu.org)or in particular an article written by the father of FSF (Why Open source misses the point of "Free Software" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html))

I have worked as a software developer and I understand the GPL.

What I don't understand is this:

My original link is to Glyph and Cog's page. In it they provide developers with additional rights above those provided under GPL. They specifically say that it is OK to distribute in binary form as long as you include the original xpdf readme and documentation. They go on to say that if you make useful changes to xpdf that you should make the code available by (among other options) sending a copy to G&C.

What you quoted above is from the POPPLER license... they direct you to G&C for commercial licensing. PDFLRFWIN is not commercial, and seems comply with the guidelines spelled out in the page I linked. So here is the question... Do you want permission from G&C or poppler? If the answer is G&C, why aren't the additional rights granted on the page I originally linked enough?

I'll contact whoever I need to. Just tell me what you need and I'll get it.

edit: I've sent emails to both G&C and poppler. We'll see what happens.

What you need to understand is the intent of GPL is not so much to make the software "free" as in beer for the end user, but to make the source "free" as in liberated for everyone. For more than you care to know refer to GNU (http://gnu.org)or in particular an article written by the father of FSF (Why Open source misses the point of "Free Software" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html))

Wow... that is the most circular article I have ever read. I certainly respect the goal of 'free (libre) software' but free vs open source vs free in the end results in the same thing.

BOb

The issue is settled. Glyph and Cog will not permit PDFLRFWIN to use Xpdf code unless it honors the GPL license. We can stop arguing about it now.

To the people who posted links to the application, please take them down. It's the right thing to do.

Here is a copy of the reply:

If the PDFLRFWIN software includes any Xpdf code, then PDFLRFWIN must be
released under the GPL. The GPL does not make any distinction between
"commercial" and "non-commercial" use.

The text on the xpdf/about.html page is meant to apply to distribution
of unmodified copies of Xpdf. It wasn't entirely clear (sorry), so I
just updated it.

- Derek

new one, newidea

Thanks

The link has been removed, but it's not difficult to figure out where to find the download: a search for "pdflrfwin" in Google shows torrent sites hosting it. The Piratebay and Demonoid pages even have direct links in the comments.

i have the old sony reader (500), i also have a lot pdf files of books which i like to read
on the sony reader but discover the print to small to read when transfer over.
i did a search looking for a solution, and found this forum. It's just as confusing here
trying come up with a work around to convert pdf files,but there is a simple solution
in program called nitro pdf professional v5.4.0.21 google it up to find the program
it sells for $99.00, maybe you can find a better deal if you look in the right places.
It was so simple to convert a pdf file, you choose the file in gui window, pick the type of conversion you want, press the convert button, and thats it. Its done in a few seconds
i converted my pdf document into a rich word document, open that word document
high lighted each page of the book and pick the font size i wanted, as big or as small
as i wanted, and saved the changes,when transfer it over to my sony reader. ( i choose the size 20) perfect size
for the sony reader just like the e-books that came with the reader. a 185 page book
was now 544 pages, after conversion. this is beautiful, i don't have to purchase a new reader and i can pick whatever typt size i want,and i don't have to choose between
small or medium with the 500 model , or limit between 1-5 on the 505 model and i save hundreds of dollars from buying a new reader
Thanks very much. I think this would be the perfect solution. I've seen the features of this software and looks pretty good. I am downloading it with the right medicine to try it.
I was a little concerned of pdf support after reading all posts (I will receive the machine in some days) and this may let me see the tousands pdf ebooks I already have.

still work?

Hey
I love that someone created this...
I am experimenting with the program now. Can someone tell me whether I can eliminate the blank space that appears on every second page?
To be specific, it seems as if to fit the text the pages are now divided with a single page of original text flowing onto a page and one third. So that equals two page turns for each original page. As I am really impatient (I have a lot of trouble with page turns, although after using the program it is much shorter than with regular pdf files) so can someone tell me whether it is possible to combine the text?

when pdflrf is run without options it just resizes the page and splits it. This usually ends up with the 2nd half of the split page having a large blank area. You can avoid this by using the '-r' option, which runs together the pages.
It also rotates to landscape mode by default (-90 rotation), which I personally don't like, so I use "--rotation=0" to keep it portrait mode.
Here's my typical command:

pdflrf -rs --rotation=0 -a "author name" -t "book title" -i "input.pdf" -o "output.lrf"

If the print is really small then I remove the "--rotation=0" option and let it use landscape.
The "-rs" options run together the pages and "smartcut" at blank lines, that should do away with your blank page issues.

Swell program, hope this helps with your usage.

Cheers,
Lee

PS, just noticed the GPL violation notice. pdfread.py is an alternative, though the images don't seem as crisp.


Hey
I love that someone created this...
I am experimenting with the program now. Can someone tell me whether I can eliminate the blank space that appears on every second page?
To be specific, it seems as if to fit the text the pages are now divided with a single page of original text flowing onto a page and one third. So that equals two page turns for each original page. As I am really impatient (I have a lot of trouble with page turns, although after using the program it is much shorter than with regular pdf files) so can someone tell me whether it is possible to combine the text?

I use GUI

this program is sweet.

my only problem with it is that, I cant get a decent print size for some reason..its either to small or if its ok than it splits on two pages.

so far to best for me, is rotation=0, profile=landscape,scale=fit to page,stretched. but this is still not the best.

any suggestions?:help:

nice job :)

I started my morning reading this thread and I was so impressed at the ability of cacapee, not only to create this program, but to incorporate all the suggestions made so quickly. It seemed everyone was so willing to work together to create a better program. As I read further, I was disappointed to find the way this thread evolved into something less "community orriented". Sadly, the one, took from the many.
I plan to buy a sony 505 and this looked like a great option for converting all my pdf files. I'm sorry the program is no longer available. If someone is able, I would appreciate a copy of the program as I know nothing about torrents. My email is:
Amystei@comcast.net.

There appears to be alot of useful information at this site and I'm glad to find a community of people using the same product with much more knowledge than I.

Would someone mind emailing me pdflrflinux-0.9.gz? stilliremain@googelmail.com.

Thanks!

You all might want to look at
soPDF
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32066

or
PaperCrop (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31677)

With these two applications I find I don't use PDFLRF anymore, aside from the fact that PDFLRF is a closed/dead project.

=X=

Thank you, I'll do that. Thanks for the suggestion.

where to download pdf2lrf software?

If you go to The Pirate Bay or Demonoid and do a search for "pdflrfwin" you will find direct links in the comments below the description.

You don't have to know anything about torrents.

I heard this is very useful! Where can i download it?

im looking for this, thanx for share

I have a 505 reader,i want to read the pdf file.But so difficult.How can i use the tools?

I have a 505 reader,i want to read the pdf file.But so difficult.How can i use the tools?
Could you be a bit more specific about what exactly you don't understand about pdflrf?

thanx, love it:)

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Was that a question, an exclamation, or a command? (Or something else?)

It is probably me being stoopid, but how in the world can I download the stuff - the only thing that I see is the zips in a "files waiting for approval" frame and I cannot get them outta there onto my machine. Please help me out, I really wanna try this... Is there maybe another place on the www where I can download it normally?
--Tobias

It is probably me being stoopid, but how in the world can I download the stuff - the only thing that I see is the zips in a "files waiting for approval" frame and I cannot get them outta there onto my machine. Please help me out, I really wanna try this... Is there maybe another place on the www where I can download it normally?
--Tobias

Moderator's Note: I've taken down the attached programs because it appears to be in violation of GPL. They will go back up after the issue is resolved.

Nate the great

It says that right at the beginning of the very first post..

It is probably me being stoopid, but how in the world can I download the stuff - the only thing that I see is the zips in a "files waiting for approval" frame and I cannot get them outta there onto my machine. Please help me out, I really wanna try this... Is there maybe another place on the www where I can download it normally?
--Tobias

There is a bittorrent of it. Just google "pdflrf torrent".

fine!!!!!

why can't download

why can't download
Please read the moderators note in the first post (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13135) of this thread.

I really need this software, thanks

If anyone has the linux version, could you send me a PM? I have the Windows version, which does actually run under Wine if need be, but I'd prefer the linux version. Doesn't seem to be a torrent for that anywhere. Thanks!

why I can not download

thanks for your work!

Nice job

hello everyone. how to access to download links? thanx.

hello everyone. how to access to download links? thanx.

Browse the eBooks section and click on the link. It will download automatically.

Dale

Thank you for sharing