MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Kindle DX: 5 Reasons I May be Returning Mine

rijker · 07-03-2009, 12:18 PM

Mac, I use basically just three: Acrobat Pro, Microsoft Word 2007 (with Microsoft's Create PDF add-in) and Adobe Photoshop. (other programs for less $$ probably work too - if you are student or faculty you can often get academic discounts on the software). The PDF forum here in Mobileread has a ton great info about PDF processing btw.

for really tough cases it's fairly easy to set up an automated process in Photoshop (export jpgs from Acrobat Pro, dump into Photoshop, run the process to darken text, lighten background, remove speckling etc. and create PDF. Once you get things to your liking, you can apply to other documents with ease. Sounds like a lot of time but isn't - once you get going, just minutes. Btw, we do this kind of stuff at work for archival kinds of material - so if you just want to more easily read an e-book, photoshopping may be bigtime overkill!

You can do a lot of improvement (and quickly!) in Acrobat Pro, including my favorite - 'fit to width' which can really make some PDFs more readable in the DX. File size can often be nearly cut in half with no discernable loss in quality (makes things load faster)

Since the DX doesn't have PDF zoom, I've found that a surprising number of (non facimile) PDFs can be made a lot more legible simply using Word and Acrobat Pro:

1. Open PDF in Acrobat Pro and export it as HTML 3.2 (my machine takes forever if I try to export directly to MS Word format or fancier HTML - your luck may be better, play around). Time = less than 1 min.

2. Right-click and open html document in Word 2007. Marvel at how well it survived the transition! Increase font size (Times 18pt works best for my DX) Use search & replace to add space between paragraphs or etc. (tip: you can automate this entire process with a macro) Reflow text, align left, get rid of parts you don't want etc. time = less than 1 min - 4 min depending on skill level.

3. Use Microsoft's free "Create PDF" add-in to save as PDF. 30 seconds. Done.

Just the tip of the iceberg -there are too many tools, sites, tutorials, forums out there to list, since so many of us deal with PDFs every day. good luck - r.

07-03-2009, 12:18 PM	#8
rijker curiouser and curiouser Posts: 12 Karma: 328 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Seattle, WA Device: Kindle DX, K1,K2, iTouch 16gb	Mac, I use basically just three: Acrobat Pro, Microsoft Word 2007 (with Microsoft's Create PDF add-in) and Adobe Photoshop. (other programs for less $$ probably work too - if you are student or faculty you can often get academic discounts on the software). The PDF forum here in Mobileread has a ton great info about PDF processing btw. for really tough cases it's fairly easy to set up an automated process in Photoshop (export jpgs from Acrobat Pro, dump into Photoshop, run the process to darken text, lighten background, remove speckling etc. and create PDF. Once you get things to your liking, you can apply to other documents with ease. Sounds like a lot of time but isn't - once you get going, just minutes. Btw, we do this kind of stuff at work for archival kinds of material - so if you just want to more easily read an e-book, photoshopping may be bigtime overkill! You can do a lot of improvement (and quickly!) in Acrobat Pro, including my favorite - 'fit to width' which can really make some PDFs more readable in the DX. File size can often be nearly cut in half with no discernable loss in quality (makes things load faster) Since the DX doesn't have PDF zoom, I've found that a surprising number of (non facimile) PDFs can be made a lot more legible simply using Word and Acrobat Pro: 1. Open PDF in Acrobat Pro and export it as HTML 3.2 (my machine takes forever if I try to export directly to MS Word format or fancier HTML - your luck may be better, play around). Time = less than 1 min. 2. Right-click and open html document in Word 2007. Marvel at how well it survived the transition! Increase font size (Times 18pt works best for my DX) Use search & replace to add space between paragraphs or etc. (tip: you can automate this entire process with a macro) Reflow text, align left, get rid of parts you don't want etc. time = less than 1 min - 4 min depending on skill level. 3. Use Microsoft's free "Create PDF" add-in to save as PDF. 30 seconds. Done. Just the tip of the iceberg -there are too many tools, sites, tutorials, forums out there to list, since so many of us deal with PDFs every day. good luck - r.