kindle touch wifi questions

[henders254]

deleted

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by henders254

Most of my books are in PDF format, does Amazon provide any service to convert the books in Amazon's format? Or can I do so without much hassle using Calibre?

Current Kindles can display PDF. Not as well as larger tablets, but OK. No need to convert.

It depends on the PDF. Some, if not most, PDFs look like pooh on any small screen device. If the PDF was originally created for printing on 8.5" x 11" paper then chances are really high it will look like crap on any eInk 6" screen.

You can convert non-DRMed PDFs into mobi and lots of other formats, but chances are again very high that it will look like rubbish. PDFs are layered documents designed to be printed, therefore extracting the text and images in a usable way is often enough to drive you crazy.

Bottom line is that eInk readers work well with reflowable text, but not well at all with PDF files. I think if you are going to primarily read PDFs on an eInk reader, then you will be disappointed and frustrated.

Kindles are very good at using Amazon purchased books. They allow you to highlight, bookmark, make notes, and keep track of where you are in the book, and you can sync this information to other Kindles and Kindle apps. However, side-loaded books are different and require more attention and work on your part to sync.

[HarryT]

PDF is not an eBook format, but a digital representation of a printed page. A PDF document will rarely convert well to other formats, and cannot be displayed well on a screen that's significantly smaller than the page size that the document is formatted for.

If you want to read eBooks, I would urge you to buy your books in proper eBook formats, not PDF.

[markdek]

Originally Posted by HarryT

PDF is not an eBook format, but a digital representation of a printed page. A PDF document will rarely convert well to other formats, and cannot be displayed well on a screen that's significantly smaller than the page size that the document is formatted for.

If you want to read eBooks, I would urge you to buy your books in proper eBook formats, not PDF.

What he said

[geekmaster]

Most of the ebooks in my collection are research and thesis papers, and sadly, they are almost all PDF files. Some PDF readers (such as one I used on my PDA years ago) support text reflow, and I was able to use that to switch between a properly rendered "almost readable thumbnail view" and a reflowed but readable text view.

I have not yet seen a PDF text reflow option in PDF readers I have used on my kindles. But for me, reflow (like you see on web pages when resizing the web browser) works quite well most of the time.

But for use on my kindles, I have to convert some of them to "normal" ebooks to read them (with mixed results).

In the Developer's Corner forum, hawhill's muPDF program (jailbreak required) has some nice features that makes PDF reading on the K3 much more enjoyable. I am looking forward to when it gets ported to the K4 and K5.

[Lazer]

I've viewed several PDF's on my K3 and they are easy to read. I've tried to convert them using Calibre to a mobi file and it's been a disaster but I didn't spend any time with a learning curve.

I'd hold off for a couple of weeks since Amazon is rumored to release new Kindles in early September.

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by henders254

Most of my books are in PDF format, does Amazon provide any service to convert the books in Amazon's format? Or can I do so without much hassle using Calibre?

Amazon will convert PDFs for you if you email the file to your device with the word 'convert' in the subject line. calibre will convert DRM-free PDFs to mobi. That said, the conversion from PDF is likely to have serious formatting errors and you might be better off reading the the files as PDFs on a computer or tablet or even on the Kindle itself.

You mentioned using Overdrive, you will want to choose the Kindle format there instead of PDF.