Taming the PDF beast

ravizvoice · 04-02-2007, 10:43 AM

Hi All,

Happy to be joining the reader community here :) Just got hold of my new PRS-500, thanks to my brother, who picked it up for me in the US. It isn't released yet in India, where I am from.

I was hoping to move to the PRS-500, many of my PDF Docs (tutorials / API references / Programmer Guides) that I had downloaded and lined up for reading. I was disappointed to see the way they showed up on the device. Even attempted the conversion utilities such as JAP, PDFRastafarian, etc. and the display of the output LRF files was still a challenge to my near-sighted vision.

I've come up with a Word macro that can be used to format the PDF text content (i.e. no images) and save it as an RTF file. Using it, I've moved some of the Python Docs to my PRS-500, and I am happy with the result. The font sizes are reasonably large, and the file is also compact (more or less the same size as the original PDFs), allowing you to pack more files.

I tested it on Office Word 2003. Hope it works on earlier versions too. If it is useful, I can explore doing a similar thing for OpenOffice.

The attached zip file contains the formatter macro and the Instruction Manual. Would be happy to answer any queries.

Thank you.

NatCh · 04-02-2007, 11:43 AM

Welcome to MobileRead, ravizvoice, way to make an entrance!

sic · 04-02-2007, 12:29 PM

Hi

re: Python docs
you can find the build sources for those docs online.
You can then tweak the LaTex scripts so that they produce an output with the desired page size...
I got some more-or-less acceptable results, not perfect though.

this of course doesn;t solve the more general problem where you only have access to the PDF files...

ravizvoice · 04-02-2007, 01:50 PM

NatCh, thanks for the welcome

sic, i just mentioned Py Docs as an example. The macro is intended for generic use, to improve the readability of any PDF (A4 / US letter) document on a PRS-500. For example, I tried formatting ECMAScript spec (http://www.ecma-international.org/pu...t/ECMA-262.pdf) using this macro and could get a nice RTF copy for my Reader.

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04-02-2007, 11:43 AM	#2
NatCh Gizmologist Posts: 11,615 Karma: 929550 Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Republic of Texas Embassy at Jackson, TN Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3	Welcome to MobileRead, ravizvoice, way to make an entrance!

04-02-2007, 12:29 PM	#3
sic Addict Posts: 202 Karma: 692 Join Date: Oct 2006 Device: SONY reader	Hi re: Python docs you can find the build sources for those docs online. You can then tweak the LaTex scripts so that they produce an output with the desired page size... I got some more-or-less acceptable results, not perfect though. this of course doesn;t solve the more general problem where you only have access to the PDF files...

04-02-2007, 01:50 PM	#4
ravizvoice Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2007 Device: Sony PRS-500	NatCh, thanks for the welcome sic, i just mentioned Py Docs as an example. The macro is intended for generic use, to improve the readability of any PDF (A4 / US letter) document on a PRS-500. For example, I tried formatting ECMAScript spec (http://www.ecma-international.org/pu...t/ECMA-262.pdf) using this macro and could get a nice RTF copy for my Reader.

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