Need an opinion from experienced users

derekstevensx · 03-29-2008, 02:01 PM

Hi, I'm considering the purchase of an e-book reader. I've done a fair bit of research and it seemed like to me that Sony's PRS-505 offered the most value
for the price. I was wondering if anyone had any experience using this reader (or possibly another) to view academic journal articles? Most of the articles are available as PDF files and there seems to be readability issues with these file types often with most e-readers. I usually have to read a great deal of these, and printing them all out would be expensive and wasteful, and sitting at a laptop for hours isn't much fun either. If the articles read easily on the reader that would be great. I understand the margins can usually be edited with acrobat to fit the reader better as well. There just isn't any way that I can see how well this works in practice without spending a lot of cash, and opinions seem to vary on this a lot. If anyone can share some experience with this I'd appreciate it very much.

I'm not dead set on the Sony reader and would welcome additional
suggestions if another option is comparable in price (around $300 US).

Thanks

I should add most of the articles are in psychology so they are mostly text.

pilotbob · 03-29-2008, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by derekstevensx

Most of the articles are available as PDF files and there seems to be readability issues with these file types often with most e-readers.

This has been discussed alot NO reader is going to display a readable PDF if the PDF is formated for 8.5x11 document, excepting perhaps the iRex Iliad.

Generally you will need to convert them to text. If the documents are mostly text you should be ok. If there are alot of graphics, it doesn't work very well.

BOb

RWood · 03-29-2008, 05:44 PM

There are several programs that can split 2-column PDF text files and render them for the Sony. It is an option but not one that I would base a purchase decision on. What it does is to widen the character stems and loops making them a bit more bold. It is still often a hard slug to read a whole book or paper that way.

Any 6" screen is going to have a hard time rendering a document formatted in an 8-1/2" by 11" frame. Add to that the normal white space around it (which can be removed with the available tools) and you still have a tough read.

If you can convert the PDFs to text these can be loaded to the Reader as a TXT, DOC or (through conversion) as an LRF file. I have converted many for my own use and the process is painless. (Well, almost painless.) Thankfully what I have converted has had few if any graphics because, as pilotbob said, these may not convert well (full page graphics in particular.)

03-29-2008, 02:01 PM	#1
derekstevensx Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: undecided	Need an opinion from experienced users Hi, I'm considering the purchase of an e-book reader. I've done a fair bit of research and it seemed like to me that Sony's PRS-505 offered the most value for the price. I was wondering if anyone had any experience using this reader (or possibly another) to view academic journal articles? Most of the articles are available as PDF files and there seems to be readability issues with these file types often with most e-readers. I usually have to read a great deal of these, and printing them all out would be expensive and wasteful, and sitting at a laptop for hours isn't much fun either. If the articles read easily on the reader that would be great. I understand the margins can usually be edited with acrobat to fit the reader better as well. There just isn't any way that I can see how well this works in practice without spending a lot of cash, and opinions seem to vary on this a lot. If anyone can share some experience with this I'd appreciate it very much. I'm not dead set on the Sony reader and would welcome additional suggestions if another option is comparable in price (around $300 US). Thanks I should add most of the articles are in psychology so they are mostly text. Last edited by derekstevensx; 03-29-2008 at 02:23 PM.

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03-29-2008, 05:44 PM	#3
RWood Technogeezer Posts: 7,233 Karma: 1601464 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Virginia, USA Device: Sony PRS-500	There are several programs that can split 2-column PDF text files and render them for the Sony. It is an option but not one that I would base a purchase decision on. What it does is to widen the character stems and loops making them a bit more bold. It is still often a hard slug to read a whole book or paper that way. Any 6" screen is going to have a hard time rendering a document formatted in an 8-1/2" by 11" frame. Add to that the normal white space around it (which can be removed with the available tools) and you still have a tough read. If you can convert the PDFs to text these can be loaded to the Reader as a TXT, DOC or (through conversion) as an LRF file. I have converted many for my own use and the process is painless. (Well, almost painless.) Thankfully what I have converted has had few if any graphics because, as pilotbob said, these may not convert well (full page graphics in particular.)

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