I am considering getting a Cybook Gen3 to read my programming books and graphics-intensive conference articles (SIGGRAPH papers, etc.) I guess I would like to know if:
1)The Cybook can handle the kinds of PDF files I want to throw at it decently
2)How the PDF reading experience is in the device. I don't mind a little of horizontal or vertical panning and zooming if I can get the nice form-factor of the Cybook (Iliad is too big for my intended use, and too expensive)

I was wondering if any Cybook Gen3 owner with the new firmware build 796 would mind posting a few thoughts and a few shots of complex PDF files opened in the device. Here are a couple of (legal) PDF files that are interesting to me:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/cg_tutorial_excerpts.html

Could someone give those PDF files a try and give me some input? Thanks a lot!

PDFs like these are prette well readable with the latest firmwareupdate if you turn it by 90 and ready the top-half first and then the bottom-half, the only thing that I would prefer was to center a zoomed pdf for cases like this one where there is a large frame around the text

Running the file through a programm that cuts the edges off a pdf-files (i think i have read about at least one that can do it in the forums) will help to increase the readability.

Do not expet it to work too well on the images though (especiall for a document like that showing different graphical features) - 4 shades of gray are simply not enough for that.

I can read pdf technical drawings and specs on the cybook with the latest firmware & as Pulp says, they are readable, especially with the pan mode. However the Pan mode "jumps" rather than gradually moves as you may expect in a pan, so keeping track of a tech drawing is challenging. It was never really designed for this and some of my pdfs are A3 rather than A4. For A4 drawings etc though it is useable.

The DR1000S which I have as well, does it much much better, bigger screen of course & the pan is gradual rather than a series of large jumps.

One of the programs that “cuts” white margins of Pdf files is Adobe Acrobat (not cheap of course).
It can be made the same “cut” to all the pages, different in groups of pages or one can go up to the detail of having a different cut for each page.

Here you have 2 photos of the Cybook screen taken from one of the Pdf's you point (page 171 top and 177 bottom), and cropped with Adobe Acrobat:

Hi! Concerning PDFs on the Cybook.

I'm wondering if anybody has read math books on the Cybook? Does it work well?

I see several users (recycledelectron (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19059) and Mike's Place (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20080)) has used the Sony PRS-505 for math, converting PDFs to LRF. Since LRF is not supported by the Cybook, can these kind of PDFs be converted to a more Cybook-friendly format, e.g. Mobipocket?

Hi

No.
The unique acceptable way for math and other complex graphics in PDF’s to be converted to Mobipocket is by converting them as images.
This is a very long and cumbersome process.

What I advise is to do what I point above: crop all the white margins of the PDF files, read them in landscape (if needed) using the zoom options of the Cybook.

Best regards,

Or wait for the ePub version of the firmware. It will provide two things: ADE PDF support (so better PDF displaying) and ePub support some form of MathML so it is able to display simple and complex formulas