MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - PRS-500 PDFrasterFarian

alex_d · 12-20-2006, 05:58 PM

--- THE LATEST VERSION IS 2.5.x ---
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10402

I was upset with the Reader's PDF support, and tried to figure out what could be done about it. Indeed, many people say PDFs are hard to read because of the small letters. This is not true! (Just try printing something on a laser printer.) Instead, Sony royally messed up the font rendering. This little script is the solution.

PDFrasterFarian renders (rasterizes) PDFs on the computer the correct way, then runs the results through several image processing filters to greatly increase boldness, contrast, and legibility. The result is a BBeB .lrf ebook file that you'll have actual pleasure reading.

The advantages of converting the vector-based PDF into a bitmap book are:

+Far better legibility
+Fast page turns (~2s no matter what)
+Autocropping (which doesn't get reset with each page turn)
+Can display the PDF as half a page per screen, or even a quarter of a page per screen (and one page per screen too, of course)
+Automatic international font support
+100% preserved formatting and graphics
+Table of contents
+You can enter the correct title (also author... you can use this for sorting)
+Fixes PDFs that the Reader can't normally read (eg Google's books)

Disadvantages:

+Conversion takes time (5-20 minutes per 100 pages, but it's twice as fast with a dual-core chip)
+Only one layout per file supported. Ie, can't switch from portrait to landscape mid-read. This is a limitation of rastered, as opposed to vector, graphics.
+File size may increase, especially when splitting each page into many screens. However, not by much.

--INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS--
1. Unzip the rar archive.
2. Double-click 'install' or 'install.cmd'
3. Please take some ritalin and read.
-------------------------------------

The install/uninstall scripts put a context menu option for pdfs into windows explorer. If you right-click a PDF and choose to convert, the script will ask and explain in detail a few parameters before converting. When it's done, out pops a .lrf.

12-20-2006, 05:58 PM	#1
alex_d Addict Posts: 303 Karma: 187 Join Date: Dec 2006 Device: Sony Reader	PDFrasterFarian - makes A4/Letter PDFs usable --- THE LATEST VERSION IS 2.5.x --- https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10402 I was upset with the Reader's PDF support, and tried to figure out what could be done about it. Indeed, many people say PDFs are hard to read because of the small letters. This is not true! (Just try printing something on a laser printer.) Instead, Sony royally messed up the font rendering. This little script is the solution. PDFrasterFarian renders (rasterizes) PDFs on the computer the correct way, then runs the results through several image processing filters to greatly increase boldness, contrast, and legibility. The result is a BBeB .lrf ebook file that you'll have actual pleasure reading. The advantages of converting the vector-based PDF into a bitmap book are: +Far better legibility +Fast page turns (~2s no matter what) +Autocropping (which doesn't get reset with each page turn) +Can display the PDF as half a page per screen, or even a quarter of a page per screen (and one page per screen too, of course) +Automatic international font support +100% preserved formatting and graphics +Table of contents +You can enter the correct title (also author... you can use this for sorting) +Fixes PDFs that the Reader can't normally read (eg Google's books) Disadvantages: +Conversion takes time (5-20 minutes per 100 pages, but it's twice as fast with a dual-core chip) +Only one layout per file supported. Ie, can't switch from portrait to landscape mid-read. This is a limitation of rastered, as opposed to vector, graphics. +File size may increase, especially when splitting each page into many screens. However, not by much. --INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS-- 1. Unzip the rar archive. 2. Double-click 'install' or 'install.cmd' 3. Please take some ritalin and read. ------------------------------------- The install/uninstall scripts put a context menu option for pdfs into windows explorer. If you right-click a PDF and choose to convert, the script will ask and explain in detail a few parameters before converting. When it's done, out pops a .lrf. Last edited by alex_d; 06-04-2007 at 03:08 AM.