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Old 01-18-2012, 04:05 AM   #1
GvilleBridge
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Best eInk ereader for PDFs? or How do I cope with PDFs on the Kobo Touch?

I love my Kobo Touch for ePubs but every time I try reading a PDF I get frustrated with the clumsy navigation and, I suppose, entire set of limitations. Up above in MobileRead forums, for example at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&highlight=PDF it appears that there is a great deal of frustration out there about viewing PDFs and not much consensus on good PDF readers among 6-7" devices.

I'd like to ask Kobo users about (1) any success with PDFs on other devices (6-7" eInk ereaders preferred) or (2) any tips or tricks for happy viewing of PDFs on the Kobo Touch.

Tnx!
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Old 01-18-2012, 08:54 AM   #2
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I always rotate the page and zoom till text width fills the page; one finger to scroll through the page, then scroll/move to the right side to see the black area with the "next" (>) arrow.
Well, it's not as straightforward as for epub, but it works. And, sooner or later (sooner, I hope), PDFs will die leaving room for the ePub!
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Old 01-18-2012, 11:18 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Geco View Post
I always rotate the page and zoom till text width fills the page; one finger to scroll through the page, then scroll/move to the right side to see the black area with the "next" (>) arrow.
Well, it's not as straightforward as for epub, but it works. And, sooner or later (sooner, I hope), PDFs will die leaving room for the ePub!
This is what I do, as well. I only attempted to read a PDF on my Kobo wifi once and didn't enjoy the experience at all. I've read a few PDF books on my Kobo Touch, though, and find the experience much better.
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Old 01-18-2012, 11:19 AM   #4
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Old 01-18-2012, 11:51 AM   #5
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Depends on what you are reading, but using k2pdfopt has proven to be very helpful in converting (mostly academic) PDFs to be easily readable on the Kobo Touch screen.

Official webiste is http://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/
(and I think there is a thread in this forum about it)
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Old 01-18-2012, 12:00 PM   #6
Solitaire1
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I've tried to read PDFs on my Kobo Touch (KT) and didn't like the experience. I sized some PDFs for the KTs screen size and loaded it on my KT. Unfortunately, it didn't work very well. Instead of the text appearing at the top of the screen, it seemed to jump around a bit like it was centering the page on the screen, and in some cases the bottom line of the page was cut off. Due to this, I've started reformatting my ebooks as EPUBs for use with all of my ereaders.

As far as other devices used for reading PDFs, I've found the Sony ereaders work very well as long as the PDF is sized for the screen. When that's the case, the PDFs look exactly as I intended (one of my main reasons for choosing PDF when formatting my ebooks) and it is easy to navigate around the ebook. I haven't often tried it with PDFs that are not sized for my ereader's screen because I've found that not very readable due to the small size of the text, and I dislike reflow.
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Old 01-18-2012, 10:03 PM   #7
GvilleBridge
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Thanks all. I think the prevailing opinion is that the current generation of b&w ereaders isn't very good for PDFs--a real shame for so many textbooks, technical publications, scholarly pubs, etc. would be fine in eInk.

I downloaded K2PDFopt (http://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/) and found it works only about as well as the PDF>ePub conversion in Calibre. The interface is DOS-ish, with numerous options for fiddling around with the format. Menu at http://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/help/...v134a_menu.png

It processes page by page, taking time, and produces a reformatted PDF that may display on an ereader. I wonder, though, for Acroreader wouldn't read either of the two outputs. As well, one wouldn't convert to ePub in Calibre--the govt's 9/11 Commission report under DRM? how absurd!--but the other converted to an ePub OK for Just Reading.

BTW K2PDFopt wants to be on the desktop (in Windows) but you can drag PDFs from wherever they are to the icon, and the output is put in the same folder.

Last edited by GvilleBridge; 01-18-2012 at 10:07 PM.
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Old 01-19-2012, 05:50 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
How do you cope? You don't. You pull your hair out till your bald.
Not so bad, indeed. Also, without rotating and so on, looking at full straight page, you can just double-tap on the screen and an automatic 200% zoom is there, allowing you to read and scroll the page. That's easier, isn't it?
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Old 01-19-2012, 07:22 AM   #9
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I have seen someone reading a pdf on KT and it was perfect. The page seemed to have been written with a larger(16-18 maybe) font and only on the center. There were less words per line, maybe 2/3, from a normal print but the user didn't have to zoom and scroll. Unfortanetely I can't say how he did it, what book it was because I was on a bus, and it took me a few minutes to realize: hey he's reader is just like mine, a Kobo Touch, and then what an ugly book he has there, after that I realized it was a PDF and wow...smooth.
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