Issues in PDF page navigation on Kobo touch

[Michele Mesiti]

Hi everybody, this is my first forum post, and I bring problems.
English is not my mother tongue, so please forgive me for my bad grammar/poor vocabolary use.

I bought my kobo touch ten days ago, the software is updated to version 2.3.1. Since 6 inches are not very much to read a PDF, I usually zoom in, but with some PDF files the results are just wrong.

These PDFs are native PDFs or conversions from DJVU files that on PC just look well. I had also tried to manipulate them with "k2pdfopt", but the problem remained.

When zoomed in or not zoomed in but in landscape mode, the Touch may fail to detect where the edge of the page is. It may hide text, in the sense that I would not be able to see the top of the page (even scrolling, of course), or the left side, or bottom or right. At some zoom on some PDFs even the opposite can happen, that is the kobo thinks the page is really bigger than what it is, and I have to look for the text in a white sea, scrolling around. In this case I can see all the text, fortunately, but it's a bit tiring to reach the border of the page to go on the next one.
In both cases, it happens that what you see on the screen and what you see on the "navigation minimap" are not consistent with each other.


It depends on the PDF file I'm reading, but the bug is really reproducible (the bug is always present with some PDFs), so If it can be of any use I can provide some PDFs that trigger the problem. Is there any way to submit a bug report, I would be happy to cooperate.

I would also be happy if someone could give me directions on how to use k2pdfopt to alleviate or eliminate the problem; but I suspect it is a software bug and not a problem on my PDFs.

[zztush]

I think kobo only support their PDF books. Sideloaded PDF and converted PDF might have problems on kobo.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by zztush

I think kobo only support their PDF books. Sideloaded PDF and converted PDF might have problems on kobo.

I have never seen a Kobo supplied PDF. As far as I can tell, all PDF have to be sideloaded.

For the problem, there seem to be some navigation problems with PDF in the current firmware. I has been discussed here, but I haven't paid much attention as I don't tend to use PDF. Unless they have complicated formatting (lots of tables, pictures, multi-column etc), it is generally better to convert them to ePub.

[Michele Mesiti]

I tend to read physics and mathematics books/articles as pdf files.
I tried to convert them to epub, but I didn't like the result. I will try that again anyway.

Edit: mathematics formulae in EPUB are translated horribly.

My question really is:

1. is there some way to create and send bug reports with reproducibility cases to the developers? The navigation is really smooth, there is just probably a programming mistake on the firmware.

2. If I were able to de-update my kobo to a precedent firmware, would it fix the problem?

[robko]

Originally Posted by Michele Mesiti

1. is there some way to create and send bug reports with reproducibility cases to the developers? The navigation is really smooth, there is just probably a programming mistake on the firmware.

Kobo does keep at least some degree of an eye on the forum for issues and people in the external beta group will usually point out issues like this that are coming up here to them in case they missed it. It's probably worth starting a support ticket with Kobo at help@kobobooks.com anyway, since priority of fixes are likely tied to both the seriousness of the problem (this would logically rank up there) and # of people with the problem.

Originally Posted by Michele Mesiti

2. If I were able to de-update my kobo to a precedent firmware, would it fix the problem?

I believe if you go back a version or two this would fix that problem, yes.

[HesselM]

Hi All,

i'am new to Kobo Touch (and this forum). But i have the same problem as Michele Mesiti: i read a lot of scientifical papers (all in pdf) with lots of forumales/tables/graphs/et cetera in a4 paper size. When i soom in, the left and right part of the pdf are "overwritten" by the navigation bars.

My current firmware version is 2.3.1.

Robko is mentioning that a downgrade could help fixing this problem: how can i do this? I've googled around and can not find information about it.

Michele Mesiti: Where you able to "fix this problem"?

Hessel.

[HesselM]

Originally Posted by HesselM

Hi All,

i'am new to Kobo Touch (and this forum). But i have the same problem as Michele Mesiti: i read a lot of scientifical papers (all in pdf) with lots of forumales/tables/graphs/et cetera in a4 paper size. When i soom in, the left and right part of the pdf are "overwritten" by the navigation bars.

My current firmware version is 2.3.1.

Robko is mentioning that a downgrade could help fixing this problem: how can i do this? I've googled around and can not find information about it.

Michele Mesiti: Where you able to "fix this problem"?

Hessel.

Hi All,

I just "fixed" this problem by manually upgrading to 2.4.0 (using the link in:https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=185660)
A warning for others who are upgrading manually: make sure you are downloading the correct version. I downloaded the version for the "older" touch, which made my ereader un-bootable. It just stalled during "restart".

By opening the case and directly inserting the microSD in my computer, i was able to download the correct version on the card. When the card was replaced in the eReader, it booted and installed correctly.

Hessel

[Michele Mesiti]

Hi there! I was able to fix this by downgrading to 2.2.0.

ProbablyI will follow your instruction and upgrade to 2.4.0.

Thanks.

[novou]

Yeah, I had the same problem. It is fixed in 2.4.0 though the auto-zooming is still a bit odd (pages left aligned instead of centered, until your fuss with the zoom settings) But overall, the Kobo PDF support blows the other major eReaders out of the water.