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Old 06-03-2008, 02:45 PM   #4
HarryT
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Quote:
Originally Posted by manchuia View Post
So, in essence, there is not an sub $500 7" e-ink reader solution that will consistently allow you to read PDFs?
Take an A4 page. Reduce it on a photocopier so that it fits into a 120 x 90 mm rectangle . Now imagine that printed on a very low-resolution dot matrix printer.

That is what an A4 PDF looks like on a 6" reader.

The "problem" is with the PDF format. It's not an eBook format. It was not designed or intended to be an eBook format. It makes the worst imaginable eBook format.

All "real" eBook formats know about the "structure" of text. They know what a paragraph is, what a line is, what a word is. Hence, they can "reflow" to be displayed properly on a small or large screen.

All that's in a PDF file are instruction like "draw the letter 'A' at coordinates (x,y) on the sheet of paper". There are no paragraphs, no lines, no words, even. Just individual "draw a letter" type instruction. Hence it can't be "reflowed".

Some modern PDF's DO contain "reflow" tags, but they are rarer than hen's teeth.
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