Classic Can someone review nook's PDF support?

[fuzzy_dunlop]

Would anyone who has purchased a nook elaborate a bit on PDF capabilities? I’m having trouble finding detailed information in a central place and want to get a feel for what PDF’s in my library I will actually be able to read, which will probably come down to how well nook's reflow works.

1. Easy tagged novels like the one's here, how's the display? http://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp

2. How about slightly more graphic intensive docs, like non-fiction or computer books with the occasional graph, picture or text insert?

3. Really tough PDF’s, double column graphic and formatting intensive ones.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/medi...de%20final.pdf

4. Non-European language PDF’s, like this Japanese PDF: http://www.mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au/publication_pdfs/6970/DOH-6970-JPN.pdf


5. Large file size PDF’s, 10MB or more. Does the device work normally or is there considerable lag when opening and viewing files?


I've listed these PDF's because they are free and public, if you have your own files feel free to describe them instead, thanks.

[gulo]

Could someone also check if Nook displays eastern European characters correctly ?

for example http://diplomovka.sme.sk/zdroj/3511.pdf

[wallcraft]

For a methodology for comparing PDF capabilities, see eBook Reader PDF Capabilities which is used in the E-book Reader Matrix. So far, this row is blank for the Nook.

Many EInk devices are using mobile Adobe Digital Editions for PDFs, but there can still be a huge difference in capabilities. The worst are the Kindles, and a Sony PRS-300 is typical for a basic device with:

Full Page; Landscape; Single Page Reflow; Table of Contents; Hyperlinks;

The PocketBooks are currently best of the ADE-based devices, with:

Full Page Continuous; Landscape Continuous; Two Column; Manual Crop Margins; Autocrop Margins; Single Page Reflow; Zoom Images in Reflow (?); Table of Contents; Hyperlinks; Text Search; Dictionary Lookup;

So far I have seen little difference in the single-page reflow capability between devices. This may mean that reflow has not improved since the old mobile ADE version in the Sony devices, or that the lack of a screenshot capability on most EInk Readers make differences hard to document. The easily documented difference is the number of font sizes in reflow.

[binkman71]

So far my experience with PDF on nook is...bad.

The ePub stuff is great, etc., but the PDF support is a little wonky right now. For example, I have my nook's font set to "Extra Small". Well, with that setting the text in PDF files is unreadable and microscopic. If I set the font then to "Medium," the PDF generally becomes readable.

Keep in mind the nook also has no ability to switch screen orientation. So putting PDFs into landscape mode is not an option. The books I have don't really have contents, some free novels I downloaded, so I can't really check links and such for ya.

The title pages of the books is generally a full page graphic -- which doesn't show up as full page on the nook if the font isn't at least Medium. Why the graphics are dependent on the font setting, I do not know.

There's some other weird graphics issues as well. For example, one book I'm trying has a couple of map pages in the beginning, laying out the fantasy world. These show up as blank on my nook. Likewise, reverse text is not reversed. The dedication page text is not centered on the nook, but is on my PC. Etc. etc. etc.

That said, paragraph breaks are honored, so text seems quite readable. To be honest, I haven't really sat down with some of these books, as I'm still organizing and trying things out on the device. But these are my intial impressions of the PDF support...

K.

[ckole]

What I don't like is no ability to "go to" a page number. All of my PDF's don't have a TOC with links. However, I can read the TOC and see page numbers. Give me a way to go to a page number even if a PDF page may get extended over a number of screens.

Also, landscape mode and a possible zoom feature for images would be nice.

Don't buy this reader if you plan on reading more PDF's than epub docs. I would wait for a large screen device like the DX but with better PDF support.

Otherwise, I really like the Nook. It is my first ereader and I don't read a lot of books. The Nook is making me enjoy this more.

[stangri]

#3 cabinet office -- loads fast flips pages fast.

Oh and there was no problem with the embedded graphics either, should have taken a pic of that too.

#4 japanese pdf -- loads fast, flips pages fast.



gulo -- no problem with the slovak text either, but one page was weirdly small:


all the other pages regular (large?) font size as per image attached.


I've also had access to some russian fb2-files and using epubgen 0.5 (embedding the fonts) I can convert it to epub which reads fine on nook.

[fuzzy_dunlop]

Thanks everyone for the detailed responses and really appreciate the pics as well.

Reading through this forum you soon realize that there is no perfect device for PDF's but this seems to be about what I was hoping for.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by stangri

gulo -- no problem with the slovak text either, but one page was weirdly small:

This looks like a page that did not reflow, and so shows the full page in its original form. Is there a font size that always gives this view for all pages? On the Sony's, S is always the original page and the other font sizes are reflowed (if possible). I have some screenshots from The Sony Windows eBL in Font Sizes on Pocket Pro. The Pocket Pro scans are in landscape, but the screenshots from eBL show a full page in "S" and then reflowed in "XL".

[stangri]

I just checked the first ten, maybe dozen pages of this document, this was the only one with the problem.
It looked like it's been generated from the MS Word and I'm guessing the author used the TOC-generating feature so maybe TOC is in different font/style.

[gulo]

thanks a lot for checking ! I will be reading a lot of czech/slovak books on my Nook

[opal1012]

Has anyone tried using Calibre to convert your PDFs to ePub format? If so, what do the results look like?

[afv011]

Originally Posted by opal1012

Has anyone tried using Calibre to convert your PDFs to ePub format? If so, what do the results look like?

I tried that, and a bunch of other tools (convert to HTML from Adobe, online converters, ...). None gave satisfactory results, the converted Epub was next to unreadable. I'm still looking for the right tool to convert PDF to Epub, if that exists.

[garrettwp]

Can anyone compare the pdf's on the nook to the Sony units? E.G. the PRS-505 or PRS-600? I bought the Sony PRS-600, but returned it as the contrast was so horrible, the text was barely readable. I am interested in the Nook as it offers most of the features that the Sony has. But I will wait until after the new year to see if any other devices come out.

- Garrett

[garrettwp]

Sorry for the double post.

- Garrett

[mangaboy898]

I wanted to bump this forum to see if anyone had any new opinions about nook's pdf support now that it's been over half a year, and new firmware and such have been released.