Has anyone used a program called PDFCropper that supposedly reformats PDFs so they are easily viewed on the Sony Reader (among other devices)? There was a short post about it at Teleread (http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/12/29/pdf-cropper-a-way-to-read-normal-sized-pdfs-on-the-sony-reader-and-other-small-screened-machines-wowio-potential/).

Has anyone used a program called PDFCropper that supposedly reformats PDFs so they are easily viewed on the Sony Reader (among other devices)? There was a short post about it at Teleread (http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/12/29/pdf-cropper-a-way-to-read-normal-sized-pdfs-on-the-sony-reader-and-other-small-screened-machines-wowio-potential/).

I am author and owner of PDFCropper application.
You can ask me any questions about it.
Send me any pdf that you are interesting to read on device, I will send you back prepared via PDFCropper. So you will be able to value it.

And this is original post:

PDFCropper is the application, designed to solve the problem with preparing for reading normal sized (A4-like) pdf's on relative small (Sony Reader PRS500/PRS505, iRex Illiad etc.) devices.

The problem is that pdf is not reformat able by nature. Yes, there is reflow mode in Acrobat Reader, but at first Acrobat Reader is not available for most e-book readers (especially for e-ink devices),
and second even with reflow function reading of complex content (technical books, magazines etc.) is not comfortable. Bad formatted pdf's and wide white spaces make the situation even worse.

The only way how this problem can be solved (at least based on my experience) to cut original pages into smaller pages with removing white spaces.
This is exactly what program do. But comparing with similar software PDFCropper is much more flexible, that allows to prepare books with much better quality in a very short time.

Currently PDFCropper can produce text and image pdf's. Later additional output formats (lrf, lrs, wolf etc.) will be added.

PDFCropper web-site currently is under construction. But it is already available for downloading:

PDFCropper v1.0 RC2 - http://rapidshare.com/files/79718571/Setup.exe.html

Trial version of PDFCropper is fully functional, but output pages are shuffled and include watermark (which by the way displays registration code that you need for obtaining license).

There are no yet tutorial or help available. But I prepared "How To" demo-video:

http://rapidshare.com/files/79717770/PDFCropper_-_How_To.swf.html

Also, anyone interesting in software, can send me example pdf, and I will send back resulted pdf prepared via application.

You can ask any questions about using or installing software (and details about purchasing the license) via e-mail:
vstefanyuk@gmail.com

P.S. Application is implemented by using Java. You have to have installed Java environment version 1.5 or higher.
Also Ghostscript has to be installed. In case if it is not, application will propose you to download.

Your note indicates that Ghostscript is required. It won't work with Adobe's print drivers? I went to Rapid Share to download the program but Rapid Share does not make it easy to get to the file. What is the price of the program?

Your note indicates that Ghostscript is required. It won't work with Adobe's print drivers? I went to Rapid Share to download the program but Rapid Share does not make it easy to get to the file. What is the price of the program?

Yes, it is based on Ghostscript, and doesn"t work with Adobe's drivers.

Send me request via e-mail vstefanyuk@gmail.com, will send you app directly.

And send me example pdf, I think it will be good for you to see what possible to do.

PDFCropper v1.0 RC3 - http://rapidshare.com/files/80272425/PDFCropper1_0RC3Setup.exe.html

And you can download and value an example of prepared (cropped) pdf:

This is original one - http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/download/langspec-3.0.pdf

This is cropped one - http://rapidshare.com/files/80268186/The_Java_Language_Specification__image_pages_.pdf. html

And this is cropped as image pages one (only some pages are there, due large file size) - http://rapidshare.com/files/80268186/The_Java_Language_Specification__image_pages_.pdf. html

Also, anyone interesting in software, can send me example pdf, and I will send back resulted pdf prepared via application.

You can ask any questions about using or installing software (and details about purchasing the license) via e-mail:
vstefanyuk@gmail.com

PDFCropper v1.0 RC3 - [snip]
You can ask any questions about using or installing software (and details about purchasing the license) via e-mail:
vstefanyuk@gmail.com

Why not just tell us what the price is on this forum? Is that banned by forum policy? If not, it makes sense to me to make sure that a wide group of people know what the price is so they can decide if they want to find out if it will actually work.

Why not just tell us what the price is on this forum? Is that banned by forum policy? If not, it makes sense to me to make sure that a wide group of people know what the price is so they can decide if they want to find out if it will actually work.

Sorry, forgot. Price will be 20 euro per license.

Hi vstefanyuk,

I just wanted to let you know, that my virus scanner did not like the pdfcropper.dll that gets copied into system32 while running pdfcropper. (Downloaded RC3 from rapidshare)

It might be a false positive since most other scanners did not indicate any issue with the file. Anyway. AVIRA users will get a virus alert when they try to run PDFCropper.

Here the scan results:

A-Squared Found nothing
AntiVir Found WORM/IRCBo.260096.1
ArcaVir Found nothing
Avast Found nothing
AVG Antivirus Found nothing
BitDefender Found nothing
ClamAV Found nothing
CPsecure Found nothing
Dr.Web Found nothing
F-Prot Antivirus Found nothing
F-Secure Anti-Virus Found nothing
Fortinet Found nothing
Ikarus Found Suspect code-parts (probable variant)
Kaspersky Anti-Virus Found nothing
NOD32 Found nothing
Norman Virus Control Found nothing
Panda Antivirus Found nothing
Rising Antivirus Found nothing
Sophos Antivirus Found nothing
VirusBuster Found nothing
VBA32 Found nothing

Hi vstefanyuk,

I just wanted to let you know, that my virus scanner did not like the pdfcropper.dll that gets copied into system32 while running pdfcropper. (Downloaded RC3 from rapidshare)

It might be a false positive since most other scanners did not indicate any issue with the file. Anyway. AVIRA users will get a virus alert when they try to run PDFCropper.

Here the scan results:

A-Squared Found nothing
AntiVir Found WORM/IRCBo.260096.1
ArcaVir Found nothing
Avast Found nothing
AVG Antivirus Found nothing
BitDefender Found nothing
ClamAV Found nothing
CPsecure Found nothing
Dr.Web Found nothing
F-Prot Antivirus Found nothing
F-Secure Anti-Virus Found nothing
Fortinet Found nothing
Ikarus Found Suspect code-parts (probable variant)
Kaspersky Anti-Virus Found nothing
NOD32 Found nothing
Norman Virus Control Found nothing
Panda Antivirus Found nothing
Rising Antivirus Found nothing
Sophos Antivirus Found nothing
VirusBuster Found nothing
VBA32 Found nothing

There is nothing about virus. The reason is that this is Java application and java native dll's (jni libraries) can be located only in SYSTEM32. Before there was no installer, it is why app copy this dll during executing to SYSTEM32. But in next version (will be available today I think) I will copy this dll during app install.

In any case you can allow copying this dll, there is nothing about virus.

PDFCropper v1.0 RC4 links:

http://rapidshare.com/files/80778554/PDFCropper1_0RC4Setup.exe.html
or
http://www.filefactory.com/file/518c4f/
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RX5KXFPVor

And you can download and value an example of prepared (cropped) pdf:

This is original one - http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/download/langspec-3.0.pdf

These are links to cropped one:

http://rapidshare.com/files/80267677/The_Java_Language_Specification.pdf.html
or
http://www.filefactory.com/file/bc2cb0/
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FCJJYHHB

And these are links to the one cropped as image pages (only some pages are there, due large file size):

http://rapidshare.com/files/80268186/The_Java_Language_Specification__image_pages_.pdf. html
or
http://www.filefactory.com/file/e7a856/
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KKE7C1V3

Change log:

v1.0 RC4 - fixed bug with creating image pages pdf's in case if original pdf do not have contents list. Changed installation procedure, now PDFCropper.dll is installed during installation time (previously it was installed at program run time, but some anti-viruses treat is as suspicious action).

PDFCropper v1.1 RC1 links:

http://rapidshare.com/files/87491638/PDFCropper1_1RC1Setup.exe.html
or
http://www.filefactory.com/file/a07bc5/
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JI7CM0N4

Trial version of PDFCropper is fully functional, the only thing - output pages include watermark (which by the way displays registration code that you need for obtaining license).

And you can download and value an example of prepared (cropped) pdf:

This is original one - http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/download/langspec-3.0.pdf

These are links to cropped one:

http://rapidshare.com/files/87301097/The_Java_Language_Specification.pdf.html
or
http://www.filefactory.com/file/252400/
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8KW32DJT

And these are links to the one cropped as image pages (only some pages are there, due large file size):

http://rapidshare.com/files/87486857/The_Java_Language_Specification__images__partly_.p df.html
or
http://www.filefactory.com/file/d02ead/
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MJCYT8KH

Also, anyone interesting in software, can send me example pdf, and I will send back resulted pdf prepared via application.

License price per one computer is 20 euro. Payment can be made via PayPal or directly to bank account.

You can ask any questions about using or installing software and details about purchasing the license via e-mail:

vstefanyuk@gmail.com

P.S. Application is implemented by using Java. You have to have installed Java environment version 1.5 or higher.
Also Ghostscript has to be installed. In case if it is not, application will propose you to download.

Change log:
v1.1 RC1 - fixed the bug with adding table of contents (now appropriate menu item in Sony PRS 500/505 display table of contents correctly).
added separate option for adding clickable table of contents pages.
added displaying of table of contents in the left pane.
improved auto-framing functionality - added possiblty to create frames with size proportional to device size (paper size setting in Crop Settings dialog).
improved cropping funcionality - added possibility to remove empty frames in resulting pdf ("Skip empty frames" option in Crop dialog).
improved dialogs input errors displaying, errorness fields are highlighted by red.
fixed bug with deleting last unaccessible project reference from recent projects list.
added pdf restrictions checking during opening pdf. in case if there are no enough rights for pdf manipulating - program will ask pdf user password.
example pdf's are updated.
simplified trial mode - removed pages shuffling!

I downloaded the latest version to give PDFCropper a try. I decided to try cropping a PDF I downloaded from Feedbooks. The Sample.JPG (attached) shows how PDFCropper would crop it. Note that part of the text is cut off. The Pages Cropped.jpg shows the output results using the default settings for the Sony 505. So I assume I must be doing something wrong but can't figure it out. Any suggestions?

I downloaded the latest version to give PDFCropper a try. I decided to try cropping a PDF I downloaded from Feedbooks. The Sample.JPG (attached) shows how PDFCropper would crop it. Note that part of the text is cut off. The Pages Cropped.jpg shows the output results using the default settings for the Sony 505. So I assume I must be doing something wrong but can't figure it out. Any suggestions?

It is heavy to tell what is wrong just based on these pictures. Send me example pdf to vstefanyuk@gmail.com. I will send you back prepared one and well as project file and explanation how it was made.

I downloaded the latest version to give PDFCropper a try. I decided to try cropping a PDF I downloaded from Feedbooks. The Sample.JPG (attached) shows how PDFCropper would crop it. Note that part of the text is cut off. The Pages Cropped.jpg shows the output results using the default settings for the Sony 505. So I assume I must be doing something wrong but can't figure it out. Any suggestions?

With closer look, seems that you just press Crop without any tuning :) Of course you have to play with it a little. Still waiting your e-mail.

Still waiting your e-mail.

I sent the file a few moments ago. Thanks.

One thing missing from the program is a Help file or some kind of instructions for dummies like me :). Seriously, for the less advanced user, PDF Cropper is not intuitive and a Help file would be useful.

Updated to v1.25

Latest version can be downloaded at www.pdfcropper.com (http://www.pdfcropper.com)

Change log:

v1.25

* added thicken images functionality. It allows to increase readability of created images pdf's. See "Crop" dialog's "Thiken images" option (note - this option is allowed only when gray or black and white images pdf is created)
* added to limit amount of output pages in case if temporary pdf is created. See See "Crop" dialog's "Limit output" option
* fixed bug with creating pdf via reflow
* PDFCropper.dll now is copied to PDFCropper install folder instead of \WINDOWS\System32
* fixed bug with opening/saving projects that use national symbols in settings
* migrated to new XStream-library


v1.24

* removed "Display Frames Area" and "Display Frames" menu items/toolbar buttons. This functionality was confusing. Instead "Hide Frames" toolbar button has been added. When this button is pressed frames area, frames info and frames are not displayed till button is released
* excluded using of Windows registry
* cosmetic GUI changes

v1.23

* fixed bug with "Import Template"-function

v1.22

* added installer with embedded JRE
* cosmetic GUI changes

v1.21

* fixed bug with using Helvetica (Arial) bold font (error 'C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\arialb.ttf not found')
* renamed registration info file PDFCropper.reg into PDFCropper.rgi (to prevent from using windows registry file .reg-extension)

Just downloaded the pdfcropper. Looks really good but...

...there's no help file!

How do I turn the pdc file back into a pdf to reader on my PRS505?

Just downloaded the pdfcropper. Looks really good but...

...there's no help file!

How do I turn the pdc file back into a pdf to reader on my PRS505?

Run "Crop" function :)

Updated to v1.29

Latest version can be downloaded at www.pdfcropper.com

Change log:

v1.29

* improved auto-frames functionality. Added ability to aggregate detected frames area for custom pages. Added ability to define frames of custom pages by detecting frames splits (eq. smart cut)!!!
* improved reflow functionality. Optimized processing of highlighted text (titles etc.) and blocks of text with proportional font size (program code etc.)
* fixed bug with page flipping, previously frames area was not rotated
* fixed bug with deleting temporary files that were created during producing images pdf (if you used to create images pdfs, please, check your temporary folder, delete files that are started with "pdc", sorry for inconvenience)

v1.28

* fixed bugs with displaying list of pages functionality

v1.27

* fixed bugs with auto-frames and crop functionality (they appear for pdf's with non-zero media box location)
* fixed bugs with editing page groups
* added displaying list of pages functionality

v1.26

* improved licensing functionality. Now it is more flexible, license also can be issued based on you computer BIOS serial number, processors serial numbers and what is the most important - external HDD and flash USB drives serial numbers (in reality it means that you can reuse you license on another computer by taking your flash drive!)
* updated embedded JRE to version 1.5.0_15
* embedded JRE now includes JAI (Java Advanced Imaging) native support
* increased max number of frames per page to 81
* migrated to the new Bouncy Castle encryption library (v1.39)

Updated to v1.30

Change log:

* improved crop functionality. Added possibility to split output pdf by multiple files (see "Split output by" option in "Crop" dialog)
* improved crop functionality. Added "Frames orientation" and "Frames scaling" options to "Crop" dialog
* improved reflow functionality. Added "Source interlinear spacing" and "Target interlinear spacing" options to "Crop" dialog
* improved detecting custom pages frames splits functionality. Now instead of searching pure white split, it tries to find "whitest" split
* improved responsiveness of application during long-run operations (crop, auto-frames etc.)

Comming soon:
- Auto-detecting frames blocks. By using this feature it will be possible automatically convert complex pdf magazines etc.

PDFCropper is really great software! I bought my Sony Reader prs-505 a month ago and firstly was really disappointed as I wasn't able to read comfortably any of my books in PDF format.
I started to google and found some reviews about pdfcropper.
This tool helped me to solve the most of my problems with fitting PDFs into small Sony Readers screen.

What I really enjoy is reflow option, when pdfcropper analyses the text in PDF and creates new one with any font size that you choose.
Another good feature came with the latest update -- ability to split PDF to several files. It is useful because sometimes Reader is too slow when reading large files.
I wanted to read books on my native language, but it wasn't possible as Reader understands only Latin symbols. PDF cropper solved this problem as it may insult fronts right into PDF files.

It is somewhat difficult to understand a concept of frames which PDFcorpper use to resize the pages. But with the assistance of the author Vlodimir Stefanyuk I handled with it. :thanks:

I received my iRex iLiad Book Edition as a gift, a couple days ago, I was extremely happy since, I can use it to view my manga (comic) collection with it, therefore I tried so many softwares to bring out the best view, and I came to the point to see that "PDFCropper" is the perfect choice for eternal use.

Since, some manga tend to be wordy, which leads to using small fonts, I found it still difficult to read them, even with the iLiad screen.

I did try some other softwares that auto split pages and rotate them to landscape, but they weren't as flexible as PDFCropper.

If you're using your e-reader for viewing manga/comics, I highly recommend using PDFCropper.

This is how I use PDFCropper to read manga:

For wordy manga save the PDF in landscape mode: Allow the software to auto frame all the pages, if any frame doesn't bring out the panel, you can just customize that page only to your liking, which is something other softwares don't allow.

For non-wordy manga save the PDF in portrait mode: Since we want to view the pages in portrait mode, we will work with one frame only on all pages.

Most manga tend to have a lot of white spread, even though they are still readable with portrait mode, you can enjoy reading them even better when all those white spread are removed.

Turn off the "Odd/Even Pages" & "Custom None" on the first page, delete one of the frames, then position the frame to be around the panel only instead of the whole page with the extra white spread, this will auto-position the other pages in the same position as the first one, if one of the pages doesn't have a white spread and you need the whole page, then right-click and set the page to "Custom" to position the frame for this page only, you can also "Copy Page Settings" for any page and just apply it on another page with "Replace Page Settings" which is another favorite function of mine. Explore more by trying the "Odd/Even Pages"

I hope manga fans, find these simple instructions, helpful in assisting them to the joys of reading their favorite books with their respective e-reader devices.

If anyone still needs help with their manga viewing, I will be more than happy to help them out. I have googled a lot, and I came across softwares that meant for manga/comics, but they just weren't as perfect as PDFCropper!

Change log:

v1.40

* improved auto-frames functionality. Added possibility to detect frames blocks (see "Detect custom pages frames block" and "Split vertically detected frames blocks" options in "Auto-frames" dialog)!!!

Coming soon:
* Improved frames reflow functionality. Adding support for images

Hi vstefanyuk

Just tried PDFcropper on some pdfs for an Iliad. It works very well and the results have made reading A4 pdf's a dream.
I have tried various versions of IPDF, but when zoomed, they generally take ages to load pages and and eat up the battery in doing so. Much better in all respects to the iRex supplied pdf reader however :-)
Pre-cropped pages load much faster.

A basic help file and an option to change text colour would really be tops.

Updated to v1.41

Change log:

v1.41

* fixed bug with auto-frames "detects frames splitting" functionality (hangs in some cases)
* fixed bug with auto-frames "detects frames blocks" functionality (incorrect frames ordering)
* increased speed of pdf displaying
* improved reflow functionality. Paragraghs are displayed with indenting

Updated to v1.5

Latest version can be downloaded at www.pdfcropper.com (http://www.pdfcropper.com)

Change log:

v1.5

* improved reflow functionality. Added images support!!!
* changed reflow functionality. Now frame reflow option is specified on pages set (odd, even, group or custom pages) level instead of page level
* improved auto-frames functionality. Added "Detect custom pages frames reflowness" option. When this option is used frame is treated as reflowable if it contains some text and doesn't contain relative large (< 10% of frame square) vector graphics
* added full support for page rotation (0°, 90°, 180°, 270°). Changed rendering, auto-framing, reflowing, cropping functionality to take in account page rotation
* improved pdf rendering speed
* changed pdf rendering. Migrated pdf displaying and page images rotation code to Java (this is one of the steps required before implementing Linux-version)
* added predefined settings for Cybook Gen3
* updated "Samples" section at www.pdfcropper.com

Main Features

User interface allows to:

* view original pdf, navigate via table of contents or directly via page number, zoom in/zoom out, specify desired page view
* interactivly change frames settings, skip pages, specify custom pages, combine pages into groups
* specify frame settings for all pages, odd/even pages, page groups or separatly for custom pages
* flip pages, add/delete frames, specify frame size/placement/ordinal/reflow, use frames with the same size, keep frame ratio
* etc.

Auto frames functionality allows to:

* automatically detect inked area
* add up to 10000 frames per page with desired layout
* automatically detect custom pages frames reflowness
* define frames of custom pages by detecting frames blocks (eq. recognition)
* define frames of custom pages by detecting frames splits (eq. smart cut)
* skip empty pages
* etc.

Crop functionality allows to:

* prepare pdf via pages cutting, via pdf reflow or by combining both methods
* add tables of contents, create clickable table of contents pages
* reflow text and images
* increase/decrease font size, rotate reflow pages, justify text of produced pdf via reflow method
* specify desired text encoding and embed fonts
* specify frames orientation and scaling
* skip empty output pages
* create pdf by reusing original pdf pages. This allows to create pdf's with very high quality and smallest size (almost the same as original pdf). This is unique feature, at time being the is no other fully functional software that can do it
* create images pdf, thicken produced page images
* slit output pdf by multiple files
* etc.

Updated to v1.51

Changes:

* fixed bug with reflow functionality (in some cases line breaks were detected incorrectly)
* cosmetic gui changes

Comming next:

* context help

Thanks for this great program!

I have a question; is registration automatic, or do we have to get a code from you personally? The reason I ask is that I would like to try the trial version tonight and upgrade tonight if it's suitable. I've got a business trip coming up on weds that I'd like to have reformatted a lot of PDFs for.

I guess my question is really if I decide the product is for me tonight will I be able to get the full version straight away?