I am contemplating purchasing Illiad.

The main and probably the only reason is reading PDF files related to IT.

I know that battery life is about 10h of reading.

The question is how would you estimate your experience in reading pdfs on Illiad?
Any Sony Reader users - is it comparable to a satisfactory level of reading RTF/LRF files on sony reader?

I know the screen is bigger, yet...you have to read it in landscape mode, correct? Is it enough to display A4 pdfs? How long does it take to turn a page? How big are letters? If you compare to (sorry about it) Sony Reader LRF file made in BD. What is the font size? Similar to at least 10 or it is much smaller?


Thanks a lot.
Astra.

pdflrf makes PDF pretty good on the Sony.

I've owned Sony since June and iLiad for 3 weeks. Both are great devices :-) I agree, pdflrf makes pdf files readable on Sony. But I like dropping the technical pdf books on iLiad without any conversion. Very few times I changed it to landscape. Portrait mode is good enough after zooming the page to get rid of white margins.

For me Sony is a great device to read fiction books (and, sometimes, NY Times). It's lighter and smaller, so it's easy to hold it in one hand when standing in subway. iLiad is great to get news wirelessly from my computer (hopefully soon from internet), it's good to take notes, play sudoku and chess, and of course, read A4 pdf files.

pdflrf makes PDF pretty good on the Sony.

Well, not as good as I would like it to be.

ddavtian

Do you know if there are any pics around here that shows how PDF looks like on illiad?

PDF on the iLiad look really good. I use the fullscreen viewer to read A4 with cropped margins page by page. Font is small but very well readable in most cases. Otherwise i use the landscape mode.

I personally would say A4 PDFs on the iLiad are the only way at the moment.

Just to give you my first impression:

My reading experience with the Iliad is just great! I have not used another ebook reader before. I bought the Iliad only after having another guy (Kaipora , thx again :-) showing me his v1 Iliad. And now I must say: Its exactly as I expected. I transfer PDF-Files (tryied up to 8 MB) to the device (mostly text books) via USB from my PC without any trouble. They open faster than on my PDA, and definitly fasft enough for me. The reading experience is like reading a book. I can confirm, that turning a page on a real book sometimes takes longer than on the iliad (dont know with grafics intensive files). I have read like in 10 different books know, all worked great.
I do not use landscape mode, and I did not reformat the PDF files. All I do is zooming into the PDF (which works without any problem). Sometimes I zoom only half the page and go into continuous mode, which shows me after switching the page the next part of the text.

Font size depends on the zoom of course(btw, your annotations are zoomed also).

Hope that helps !

Michael

I am contemplating purchasing Illiad.

The main and probably the only reason is reading PDF files related to IT.

I know that battery life is about 10h of reading.

The question is how would you estimate your experience in reading pdfs on Illiad?
Any Sony Reader users - is it comparable to a satisfactory level of reading RTF/LRF files on sony reader?

I know the screen is bigger, yet...you have to read it in landscape mode, correct? Is it enough to display A4 pdfs? How long does it take to turn a page? How big are letters? If you compare to (sorry about it) Sony Reader LRF file made in BD. What is the font size? Similar to at least 10 or it is much smaller?


Thanks a lot.
Astra.

1. You do not HAVE to read PDF's in landscape mode

2. The text will be displayed larger in landscape mode

3. As to the question of how big the text is in a PDF, well, it depends on how the original PDF was formatted. Any other answer is simply not accurate.

4. As to how do A4 PDFs look on the iLiad, again, it depends on how the original PDF was formatted. For example, many PDF files have huge white space borders with small fonts. These will look completely different from a PDF with a small border and large fonts. Any other answer is simply not accurate.

5. I equate page turns to roughly the same page as turning a paper book (a tinsee bit longer), when you account for a casual page turn, and allowing your eyes to focus on the next sentence and your mind to focus on what you are reading. I would never trade the conveniences of the iLiad for a real-world-no-difference page turn issue. Disclaimer: Where you will get frustrated is if you are turning several pages in a row to try to find something, or frequent changes between documents.

6. The iLiad provides many tools to try and optimize the viewing of PDF files, including, zoom area, and landscape reading, and you can also try reformatting particularly bad PDF files.

One of the main reasons I purchased the iLiad is to hold all of my manuals (I am a sys admin), and if there is one area where you will find a wide assortment of PDF formatting, it is in manuals for tech products. Odd paper sizes, odd margins, font sizes all over the place, using light blue for text (an Apple favorite), etc. All of these factors go into your PDF experience.

Here are some nooby answer to questions you did not ask:

1. By far the biggest issue I have with my iLiad is the lack of a find feature at both the OS level and the PDF reader level. Makes all of this great info I could potentially have at my fingertips for all practicality, non-existent.

2. I have not found a product better than the iLiad for reading PDF's, including my laptop. My laptop is just not a comfortable device to hold when reading for long periods, takes longer to boot, requires power cables for extended reading, is hot, and is much harder on the eyes. (but it does give me search, and has a VERY high resolution view of the material! Disclaimer: I have not tried a tablet PC, but I can't lower myself to use Windows.

Readability was my major concern before getting an iliad. For documents that are letter or A4 sized, single column (as books tend to be) I prefer landscape with continuous view. That way with the standard irex ipdf you get about 80% of the original size. If you install the fullscreen version of the ipdf then you get about 90% of the original size.

For multi-column journal articles I used to rotate to landscape view and then use the stylus to move the page around to go up and down the columns. Once I got used to it this worked well. Recently, however, wpd has created a patch that follows the text so I can now zoom in to make the text the same size as the paper version and just use the flip bar to move down the columns of text and then up to the next one. This is an awesome feature. (And people on here are in the process of combining the fullscreen and column-wise patches along with other goodies into one.)

[Edited to fix the URL]
Here's a few photos of a journal article (http://medicine.plosjournals.org/archive/1549-1676/2/8/pdf/10.1371_journal.pmed.0020124-L.pdf)

The first shot shows what it looks like in portrait view. This is about 56% of the paper copy. I can read this, but I wouldn't want to read for more than an hour or so at this scale. If you print this page to A5 (e.g. two pages per view) you get about the same size, but in my experience the quality of the paper printout is not as good as seen on the iliad.

The second shows landscape view. This is about 80% of the original paper copy.

The third shot is portrait again using the column-wise viewer. You can see the current block of text with the navigation box around it. This is the same size as the paper copy.

[Apologies for the lousy photography]

I would agree with most of the points made above, the fonts look fine at all but the tiniest of font sizes and you don't HAVE to look at it in landscape mode.

If you have a PDF document that was created for larger formats you can probably find a good zoom level and/or set it into landscape mode.

One thing that I miss on very large PDF docs is the direct access via the table of contents pane, that on a PC I have off to the left side of the main contents. I understand there would be an issue with screen real-estate, but it would be handy to move around on a large scale. On the iLiad, I have not found a way to view the TOC using the stock viewer - either I am just too new to the device, or it's a hidden function, or it isn't there.

Perhaps the community modified PDF viewers can display it / toggle it on and off?

Disclaimer: Where you will get frustrated is if you are turning several pages in a row to try to find something, or frequent changes between documents.

By far the biggest issue I have with my iLiad is the lack of a find feature at both the OS level and the PDF reader level. Makes all of this great info I could potentially have at my fingertips for all practicality, non-existent.


I was under the impression that iLiad has a search feature....

Will this give you the final push? :D You can provide a pdf file of your interest and I can take some photos for you.

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15233

I was under the impression that iLiad has a search feature....
The iLiad can search for a file with a specific file name from the Content Lister, its main interface. Within files, it depends on the software being used to read the files. For most non-PDF formats, I use FBReader, which has a nice search function. For PDFs, I use iPDF (either the iRex supplied one or one of the many community versions with extra features), none of which support searching within the file. This is a very frequently requested feature and I understand our amazing community of developers is working on it.

The iLiad can search for a file with a specific file name from the Content Lister, its main interface. Within files, it depends on the software being used to read the files. For most non-PDF formats, I use FBReader, which has a nice search function. For PDFs, I use iPDF (either the iRex supplied one or one of the many community versions with extra features), none of which support searching within the file. This is a very frequently requested feature and I understand our amazing community of developers is working on it.

I see.
Thanks for the info.

Another question.

If I take some notes on pdf file I am reading.
Can I transfer it later to my PC?

I just cannot imagine something like that:
on page 56 I circled one line and underlines another line on page 61.
Can I transfer something like that to my PC later? How would it look like?

You can merge the scribbles with the PDF file. The iliad comes with some companion software to do this, but I never once got it to work. There is a community merge program written in java that works really, really well. You can even tell it to only produce output that contains pages that have scribbles on. This is very handy when proofing docs, etc.

See this thread: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9535

There are several programs that can merge your edits with the original PDF. One is provided by iRex, and there are some free ones developed by community members, too.

Also, if you make notes on plain "paper" on the iLiad, each page is saved as a .png file and they are linked by an xml file. You can access the images directly on your PC/Mac/Linux system.

Can it read secured PDFs?

Password protected, yes. Otherwise secured, no. Adobe hasn't allowed anyone else to make software to do that, I believe, and Adobe hasn't ported Acrobat to the iLiad.

Password protected, yes. Otherwise secured, no. Adobe hasn't allowed anyone else to make software to do that, I believe, and Adobe hasn't ported Acrobat to the iLiad.

I see.
It means that any pdf files from CD that comes with Microsoft books and is secured but not passworded will be unreadable on iLiad.

ILiad can read HTML files. Can it read CHM files?

FBReader can read CHM files, but it may hang if they are very large. The limit may be content dependent, but it failed for me on a ~7 MB CHM file (that was readable using FBReader on a Windows Desktop).

The Windows MobiPocket Reader is supposed to import CHM files and export a .MOBI file which is then readable using the iLiad's MobiPocket Reader (and probably by FBReader too). However, this did not work on the few CHM files I tried.

Not a very enticing overall feeling...ehm.

There was a script floating around a while ago that would page through PDFs and take snapshots of them, for processing by OCR. Not elegant, and not that fast, either. I don't know how many secure PDF documents you might need to convert....

Well, secured pdf should not be a big issue. I just thought that if I have a genuine PDF file that arrived with pbook, I will be able to read it on the iLiad until I realised that if it is secured I cannot do it. I believe I can always find a copy of the same pdf with security stripped.

A few more questions:



How well does it handle HTML books?

So far, I have encountered 3 types of books in html format.

1. Basic one. just one big HTML file, let's say 2M.

2. The same file but there is another folder that is called images and the HTML file in question has links to the image files in this folder.

3. Many HTML files. Book is devided into chapters or something like that. I think Baen does it this way as well.

A few more questions:

How well does it handle HTML books?

So far, I have encountered 3 types of books in html format.

1. Basic one. just one big HTML file, let's say 2M.

I've not tried so I don't know. If you happen to know of a large HTML file I could try and then let you know.


2. The same file but there is another folder that is called images and the HTML file in question has links to the image files in this folder.

It handles links to images in another folder just fine.


3. Many HTML files. Book is devided into chapters or something like that. I think Baen does it this way as well.

It also handles this fine.

I think I didn't express myself clear enough :smack:

2. When I said there is a HTML file with a folder which contains images that are linked to this file, I meant that when you open this HTML on your PC you get a nice book with pics that are located in the images folder.

3. So, you can navigate between chapters?
I think this type of books usually have a TOC html file and you click on chapter 1o, go there, read it and click on some sort of arrow which takes your forward to next chapter or back to a previous.

I think I didn't express myself clear enough :smack:

2. When I said there is a HTML file with a folder which contains images that are linked to this file, I meant that when you open this HTML on your PC you get a nice book with pics that are located in the images folder.

Yep. It uses a modified version of minimo. Adam has done some clever work that's makes it possible to surf the web on the iliad. Look at this thread http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13089

The images in this thread are from the modified version, but it still gives you an idea of how well pages are displayed, images are embedded and links are followed. (BTW the keyboard in the image is something that you activate when you need it).

3. So, you can navigate between chapters?
I think this type of books usually have a TOC html file and you click on chapter 1o, go there, read it and click on some sort of arrow which takes your forward to next chapter or back to a previous.

I don't have any of these books, but yes, a TOC file that uses hyperlinks will work fine.

Thanks!

The minimo reader for HTML has some pretty serious limitations, though. For example, it doesn't remember what page you were on if you stop in the middle of a book. I prefer FBReader for my HTML books.

The minimo reader for HTML has some pretty serious limitations, though. For example, it doesn't remember what page you were on if you stop in the middle of a book. I prefer FBReader for my HTML books.

Do you find it convenient to read html books or do you convert them into mobipocket format with BD?

I read HTML books directly with FBReader, and I'm quite happy with the results. I've never bothered to convert an HTML book with BD or any other software.

So far, I have encountered 3 types of books in html format.

1. Basic one. just one big HTML file, let's say 2M.

2. The same file but there is another folder that is called images and the HTML file in question has links to the image files in this folder.

3. Many HTML files. Book is devided into chapters or something like that. I think Baen does it this way as well. FBReader handles 1 and 2 very well. It does not work directly on multiple HTML files, but I think FBReader has this on its list of future upgrades. There are two workarounds: a) add an ".opf" file listing the .html files, or b) convert from multi-file HTML to a (single) Plucker file. Approach (b) is probably easier, although converting to an OEB document (approach (a)) is more flexible.

Note that for Baen books, you can download the MobiPocket version (which is the big advantage of multi-format e-books). MobiPocket books typically have relatively small images - so, if there are a lot of images in the e-book, it may be better to download the .lit version. FBReader does not read .lit directly, but it does with the help of ConvertLIT. If you access e-books via the ContentLister, then the iLiad can be configured to do the ConvertLIT/FBReader combination for you (on DRM-free .lit files only). I prefer to use FBReader's internal file navigation, so I "explode" the .lit version (using ConvertLIT) on my PC to get an OEB book (with a .opf file) which I then zip together and rename from .zip to .oebzip. The .oebzip file is recognized by FBReader as an OEB e-book. This same approach will work if you manually add an .opf file to a multi-file html e-book.

Sounds a bit complicated but I think I could manage.
Frankly speaking a have seen only a few books that consisted of multiple html files. probably 50% of them already had a opf file, I have no idea what it is but I suspected that HTML needs it to keep in touch with all html files in the folder.



Another question about HTML.

If you read HTML book (options 1 or 2).
Does iLiad generate some sort of TOC? Can you somehow browse through the book?
For example I am in the middle of the book chapter 10, 500 pages of 1000 and all of suddent I want to go back to chapter 4 and find something there.

In Sony reader I have TOC in LRF file generated by BD also there are a few buttons when pressed they take you to 10%, 20%, 30% e.t. of the book. I believe in the new sony reader you can go to any page by typing in a page number or something like that.

The easiest way to find out what FBReader (http://www.fbreader.org/) can do is to try it on a Desktop computer. It will run under Windows or Linux, and there is a 3rd-party port to OS/X. Note that FBReader is highly customizable, so if it does not fit the you way you read e-books by default try playing with the options (crossed tools icon)

A good TOC is one reason to prefer .lit and .mobi e-books. If you have a multi-file html e-book with a .opf, it may have a formal TOC too. When a TOC is present, FBReader will allow it to be used for navigation (goto previous/next section actions, and via the TOC icon in its panel). FBReader does not try to build a TOC for you. Many html-based e-books have their own internal TOC near the start of the document, and at a minimum you can go to the start and then follow the internal TOC's hyberlinks. You can also tap on the position bar to move about in the e-book (if navigation is enabled).

FBReader handles 1 and 2 very well. It does not work directly on multiple HTML files, but I think FBReader has this on its list of future upgrades. There are two workarounds: a) add an ".opf" file listing the .html files, or b) convert from multi-file HTML to a (single) Plucker file. Approach (b) is probably easier, although converting to an OEB document (approach (a)) is more flexible.

Note that for Baen books, you can download the MobiPocket version (which is the big advantage of multi-format e-books). MobiPocket books typically have relatively small images - so, if there are a lot of images in the e-book, it may be better to download the .lit version. FBReader does not read .lit directly, but it does with the help of ConvertLIT. If you access e-books via the ContentLister, then the iLiad can be configured to do the ConvertLIT/FBReader combination for you (on DRM-free .lit files only). I prefer to use FBReader's internal file navigation, so I "explode" the .lit version (using ConvertLIT) on my PC to get an OEB book (with a .opf file) which I then zip together and rename from .zip to .oebzip. The .oebzip file is recognized by FBReader as an OEB e-book. This same approach will work if you manually add an .opf file to a multi-file html e-book.


Sounds a bit complicated but I think I could manage.
Frankly speaking a have seen only a few books that consisted of multiple html files. probably 50% of them already had a opf file, I have no idea what it is but I suspected that HTML needs it to keep in touch with all html files in the folder.


And that, in a nutshell, is why eBooks aren't doing taht well.

Until somebody comes along and does a MP3/Apple/iPod treatment to eBooks, it will be a niche market.

(And I say that as a person who can no longer stand to read fiction in a paperback - I love reading books on the iLiad.

In Sony reader I have TOC in LRF file generated by BD also there are a few buttons when pressed they take you to 10%, 20%, 30% e.t. of the book. I believe in the new sony reader you can go to any page by typing in a page number or something like that.
Two things -
1. You can go back or forwards by five pages at a time by holding the flip bar down longer than a second.

2. You can jump to a page using the page navigator at the bottom of the iLiad (see screen shot) - but you need to use the stylus for that.

From the manual:
8.2.1 Page Indicator
• The page indicator will show the amount of pages a document is composed off and indicates the current page number slightly larger.
• If a document cannot provide page breaks to the iLiad (like an HTML file). A black bar will be displayed under the current page number. This bar will indicate the progress in this type of document.
• The page indicator has two modes. One mode showing all pages and one mode showing the 20 nearest pages. To switch between these modes click the page indicator with the stylus.
• To navigate through a document you can use the stylus to jump immediately to the desired position in accordance with the page indicpages.

But I like dropping the technical pdf books on iLiad without any conversion. Very few times I changed it to landscape. Portrait mode is good enough after zooming the page to get rid of white margins.
A few more questions :)


1. Portrait mode:
When you zoom in to get rid of white margins and then turn page. Do you have to zoom again? I mean do you have to zoom every time you turn a page or does it stay zommed in all the white you are reading the book?

2. Landscape mode.

AFAIK a page will be broken in half.
If you zoom in, read the first half and go to the second half of the page, do you have to zoom in again or it will stay zoomed?
When you turn the page and go to a new page, do you have zoom again(basically it is the same question as I asked about portrait mode, but I would like to know how it behaves in landscape, whether there are any differences.)?

One more. About HTML.

When you read HTML file, iLiad doesn't break it into pages? Do you have to scroll down or something?
Can you change font size when you read HTML file, like to you do....sorry to mention it here agaion, on sony reader? When I feel like the fonts are too small I just hit size button and it increases fonts a bit. Can I do the same when I read HTML file on iLiad?

The zoom will stay for every page, until you change your zoomlevel or zoomposition. And in continuous mode it will keep the width zoom and you will flip th the next part with a little bit of overlap.

One more. About HTML.

When you read HTML file, iLiad doesn't break it into pages? Do you have to scroll down or something?
Can you change font size when you read HTML file, like to you do....sorry to mention it here agaion, on sony reader? When I feel like the fonts are too small I just hit size button and it increases fonts a bit. Can I do the same when I read HTML file on iLiad?

1. The flip bar on the side "scrolls" to the next part of the same page. There is a "progress" bar at the bottom of the page showing you how far you are through the page.

2. Yes, there's a fairly standard clickable icon to increase or decrease the font size.

Regarding HTML: the iLiad comes with a program to read it, but FBReader handles HTML much better, and is easy to install and use.

Regarding HTML: the iLiad comes with a program to read it, but FBReader handles HTML much better, and is easy to install and use.

In order to install anything on the iLiad, do I need some special knowledge how to do it, or is it as straight forward as installing a program on windows based PC?

You need very little special knowledge to install FBReader, which comes with a nice install package. I'd say it's about as easy as installing software on a PC. The only thing you will need to do is request the "shell package" from iRex, which allows install scripts to run on your iLiad. This comes with a disclaimer about iRex not being responsible for what you do to your iLiad if you use it, but since you can now re-flash your iLiad to its starting state fairly easily, I don't think this is a serious concern anymore.

Well, secured pdf should not be a big issue. I just thought that if I have a genuine PDF file that arrived with pbook, I will be able to read it on the iLiad until I realised that if it is secured I cannot do it. I believe I can always find a copy of the same pdf with security stripped.

See my posting on www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15586 for info on removing DRM from PDF files.

Hi!
I'm new to the e-reader world so I have a few questions. I'm thinking of buying the irex iliad, but of course the price is the problem.
Since the majority of the books I would be reading is in the pdf format, the only real option is the iliad? Or am I wrong?
These pdf books are often very big, more than 100 Mb, even 400 Mb occasionally. Is there any chance that these books would function on the Iliad? They also have a lot of tables, pictures, diagrammes etc.. Is there any known "size" limit to a file that the iliad can still open?
Can you "go to page 124" for example in irex iliad? does it remember where you stopped reading?
As I understand the only difference between the Iliad Book Edition and the the Iliad 2nd Edition is the WiFi connectivity. Are there ANY other differences? IIs WiFi at all useful or just comes in handy from time to time?
Does the Book Edition have longer battery life than the "WiFi" edition?
Does an e-reader with an e-ink display consume battery only when turning a page or even when just reading a page?
Thanks!

Anyone interested in reading pdfs on a larger screen than the current iLiad and who can wait a while might do well to wait a few weeks. You never know what September might bring. Something may appear that might suit people better with technical documents to deal with, or those with eyesight issues for example, who don't mind a little bump in the weight of the thing.


Rachael

Does anybody have the slightest clue of how much the 9,7 inch e-readers might cost? I know that any number is just a guess...

Hi!
I'm new to the e-reader world so I have a few questions. I'm thinking of buying the irex iliad, but of course the price is the problem.
Since the majority of the books I would be reading is in the pdf format, the only real option is the iliad? Or am I wrong?
These pdf books are often very big, more than 100 Mb, even 400 Mb occasionally. Is there any chance that these books would function on the Iliad? They also have a lot of tables, pictures, diagrammes etc.. Is there any known "size" limit to a file that the iliad can still open?
Can you "go to page 124" for example in irex iliad? does it remember where you stopped reading?
As I understand the only difference between the Iliad Book Edition and the the Iliad 2nd Edition is the WiFi connectivity. Are there ANY other differences? IIs WiFi at all useful or just comes in handy from time to time?
Does the Book Edition have longer battery life than the "WiFi" edition?
Does an e-reader with an e-ink display consume battery only when turning a page or even when just reading a page?
Thanks!

I don't think there is practical limit to PDF size. The main issue is what content is on the pages. Rendering a page with lots of graphics will take more memory and time. I have read several PDFs with images and tables and they worked (but kind of slow to load and zoom).