PRS-300 Microsoft eBooks + PRS300?

[rich0d]

Heya, it's my b'day next month and I've asked my girlfriend to get me a PRS300 as this'll be great for me as I'm attempting to study for my MCITP:EA exams soon, and I was wondering - how well does the PRS300 handle Microsoft books with graphics and text etc? Any first hand examples\experiances would be awesome.

Thank you.

If you mean Microsoft Reader .LIT books the PRS300 can't read them at all. The main formats readable on the PRS300 are EPUB, LRF, DOC, RTF, and PDF. To view LIT files you will have to strip away the DRM (digital rights management) and then convert them to another format. If you mean Microsoft DOC and RTF then the PRS300 does a good job with them, or at least the RTFs. I've never tried the DOC format, but it should work fine.

PDFs are not that great on any small screen reader especially if they have multiple columns and/or a lot of tables and charts. Text only PDFs are generally okay though as long as they are not bitmapped images rather than reflowable text.

[rich0d]

The MCITP self paced learning box set came with a CD with all of the books in pdf format, I'm just wondering how the PRS300 handles the formatting of them... They're secured PDFs. If you want, I could email you across one and you could give it a whirl on your PRS300 and let me know how it looks?

[grooks]

Any PDF that has pictures/charts/graphs will not look very good on a 300 or any 5"/6" device. The standard font size will be very small and any attempt to go to the next size will mess up the pictures/charts/graphs. You can attempt to view the PDF in landscape mode but this will take each page and and break it into a top half and bottom half. Some find this a little more acceptable

[palo]

There is a converter out there for lit books

p

Originally Posted by rich0d

The MCITP self paced learning box set came with a CD with all of the books in pdf format, I'm just wondering how the PRS300 handles the formatting of them... They're secured PDFs. If you want, I could email you across one and you could give it a whirl on your PRS300 and let me know how it looks?

The PRS300 only views secured PDFs if they are secured with Adobe Digital Edition. If Microsoft used another DRM then they won't work. My guess is that since these are technical books they probably won't display well on a small screen. Best bet would be to open one on your computer and see how large the page is and whether it uses a lot of images, charts, tables, multiple columns, etc.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by rich0d

The MCITP self paced learning box set came with a CD with all of the books in pdf format, I'm just wondering how the PRS300 handles the formatting of them... They're secured PDFs. If you want, I could email you across one and you could give it a whirl on your PRS300 and let me know how it looks?

I don't think the 300 is a good solution for technical PDFs, The 600 has pdf zooming which might make it manageable. If technical books were the reason I was getting a device, I would consider the Kindle DX, PRS-900, irex dr800 or 1000 or the iPad.

For recreational reading of novels the 300 is outstanding.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by palo

There is a converter out there for lit books

p

But then again, the OP isn't interested in lit, he is interested in PDF with graphics.

My experience says that the PRS300 is horrible for that sort of thing.