Hacks Kindle 2 and PDFRead 1.8

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by unrequited

Thanks for the nrhtml2mobi update nrapallo, and to the other questions to me, yes, the text is crisp and very readable while maintaining great diagrams/tables.

If you want even crisper results, try using 500 DPI with the pdfread-MinFilter5-mod-bin.zip I compiled for the Sony update:

EDIT: 14 Oct 2008 - FOR SONY USERS (fixed that Sony .lrf bug that stretched short pages!)
After executing the PDFRead Installer, from pdfread-MinFilter3-mod-bin.zip unzip the modified PDFRead 1.8.2.1 bin files (using the original MinFilter 3 dilate) into the bin directory and overwrite the existing files. Should you wish to try the new MinFilter 5 dilate, unzip pdfread-MinFilter5-mod-bin.zip into the bin directory instead! (Note: you may have to increase the DPI to 500 when using the MinFilter 5 dilate to get acceptable results!)

[pengrus]

Originally Posted by nrapallo

I'll include a 'Kindle 2' Profile in the next release of PDFRead.

Look forward to this. Please let us know once the best setting is confirmed. This maybe the only answer to some foreign language as well.

Thanks!

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

As a substitute for paper. Unless it's for an established stage play (which would not be prone to changes), it would be mostly for the initial read through (for one who has to stacks of scripts). Although, if pages with changes could be substituted on the fly, I could see ebook readers used more often (but will never replace paper entirely until there are larger screens with note taking ability - a flexible Plastic Logic iLiad reader that can be rolled or folded up and stuck in one's back pocket).

Another .pdf script to .prc option exists.

While I was answering a similar .pdf stageplay to .prc post here, I tried my own advice on your test script and guess what, it translated very well using Mobipocket Creator v4.2 build 40!

Check the attached resulting .prc as well as the entire folder created by MPC when it converted the .pdf to .prc.

It's not perfect, but may be easily tweaked and even edited!

EDIT: Attachment removed at the request of the writer!

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by nrapallo

Another .pdf script to .prc option exists.

While I was answering a similar .pdf stageplay to .prc post here, I tried my own advice on your test script and guess what, it translated very well using Mobipocket Creator v4.2 build 40!

Check the attached resulting .prc as well as the entire folder created by MPC when it converted the .pdf to .prc.

It's not perfect, but may be easily tweaked and even edited!

Great minds thing alike! I originally started by converting the script with MobiPocket Creator with my results here and here as a test for someone who wanted to buy and Kindle and needed to know how scripts would look. As you can see from that thread, I advised him that the formatting would be lost but would be okay just for reading.

It was that thread that got me to thinking there had to be a way to render scripts properly on the Kindle. When an Amazon thread brought up PDFRead, I had my "ah ha!" moment.

So basically, converting with MobiPocket Creator is okay but finding a way to keep proper formatting is needed in the long run. Maybe a 6 inch screen will never work and we'll just have to wait for at least an 8 inch screen.

Thanks for going out of your way to help me figure this out. I really appreciate it!

[Hantra]

Is there a way to do technical manuals, keeping the graphics readable, but also making the text searchable? Just curious. . .

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by Hantra

Is there a way to do technical manuals, keeping the graphics readable, but also making the text searchable? Just curious. . .

As far as I know, the text, if converted with PDFRead will not be searchable because it will actually be an image of the text. You won't be able to change the text size or zoom.

There are readers that will read pdfs of technical manuals natively (not the Kindles) but I don't know which ones would be able to search them (maybe the Sony 700?).

[badgoodDeb]

[This is partly to get me subscribed to this thread, so I can find it tomorrow ...] but I'd also like to know [and need to go to bed, or I'd look it up myself] if I can run PDFRead on a mac? If it's a dumb question, I'll look it up tomorrow!

bgDeb

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

[This is partly to get me subscribed to this thread, so I can find it tomorrow ...] but I'd also like to know [and need to go to bed, or I'd look it up myself] if I can run PDFRead on a mac? If it's a dumb question, I'll look it up tomorrow!

bgDeb

While I don't use nor have access to a Mac, I've been told PDFRead 1.8 can be made to work with Mac OSX. This thread, PDFRead 1.8.2 working on Mac OS X discusses how to go about doing this. You need to use the Mac OSX equivalent for the different programs used in the PDFRead bin directory. Unfortunately, the GUI is Windows only so you would need to use the command line.

To create .prc ebooks, you also need to have the Mobiperl package installed and use the modified html2mobi. Otherwise, you can try substituting the Calibre command line tools like any2mobi.

p.s. you can subscribe to any thread without posting by using the option within the Thread Tools menu at the top of the thread called 'Subscribe to this Thread'

[daffy4u]

Today I was reading a Kindle Blog written by switch11 because it was all about Kindle 2 Tips and Hacks. I like to keep these tips on my Kindles, so I set out to create a little mobi book.

I copy and pasted the text into a Word Document. I set the page size to 4.5 inches by 5.75 inches. I added a header and page numbers (just because I could). I also used hard page breaks to get each tip on its own page (unless it was very short and then I'd put 2 on a page). The font was TimesNew Roman at 12pts.

First I tried running the Word file the MPC but wasn't happy with the results, so I decided to use PDFRead after creating a PDF file with CutePDF Pro 3.6 (the free version) using the same page dimension (4.5 inches by 5.75 inches). I've been using this software for years but never explored all the features available even in the free version.

The results were a pages sized to fit my Kindle but with a huge white border around it. I used the advanced crop tools to create a rectangle around the text on the first page that would be big enough to work for all pages in the PDF. Having that page number at the bottom of the page helped me to make the correct size rectangle. I now had a PDF with a very small border (there is a watermark at the bottom of the first page only which covers the page number - hey, for free what do you want).

I ran that PDF through PDFRead and got a nice sized and very readable pdf.

Edit: As I play more, it looks like this works best with PDFs you create yourself to fit a 6 inch screen. I'm not having much luck with PDFs created previously for 8.5 and 11 in pages (I'm still trying the script PDF in the first post to work).

[daffy4u]

Bump for Savory and PDFRead test.

[erickson77]

Perfect! This seems to by what I've been looking for to view Lonely Planet pdfs on the Kindle.

I'm just having one problem: Any idea why, on the document I processed with pdfread, the font gets progressively darker with each page. The last 10 or 15 pages are just black splotches. Am I doing something wrong? Settings? Other than this, the pdf reads beautifully on my Kindle II. Thanks!

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by erickson77

Perfect! This seems to by what I've been looking for to view Lonely Planet pdfs on the Kindle.

I'm just having one problem: Any idea why, on the document I processed with pdfread, the font gets progressively darker with each page. The last 10 or 15 pages are just black splotches. Am I doing something wrong? Settings? Other than this, the pdf reads beautifully on my Kindle II. Thanks!

Weird. Can you upload some screen grabs from your K2 (alt+shift+g then look for the images in the "documents" folder)?

Also if you could upload a few pages of the original source material to play with along with the settings you used, we could play with and try to figure out what's going on.

[erickson77]

Ok, here are three screen shots (an early page--nice and crisp although the settings need work and it should probably be half-page, landscape; a middle page where the text has become illegibly dark; and the last page, which is not recognizable as text). By the way, I tried various settings on pdfRead and they all had this problem of darkening text. I'm also attaching the .prc file and the original pdf file that I was trying to convert. Thanks for the help!

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by erickson77

Ok, here are three screen shots (an early page--nice and crisp although the settings need work and it should probably be half-page, landscape; a middle page where the text has become illegibly dark; and the last page, which is not recognizable as text). By the way, I tried various settings on pdfRead and they all had this problem of darkening text. I'm also attaching the .prc file and the original pdf file that I was trying to convert. Thanks for the help!

That .pdf is malformed. It has limitations where the second half of the .pdf was not properly decoded.

If you can extract the images, then you can try running it through PDFRead as In Format: ImgDir. I tried, but the last half of the file didn't extract well.

Or try printing the .pdf to another .pdf using a pdf driver and using the new .pdf as input to PDFRead.

[daffy4u]

Wow erickson77, those images looks like the government got to your file and blocked out everything they considered top secret information.

As nrapallo says, there is something wacky going on with your pdf. It's encrypted. When I tried to open it, I saw this lovely little pop-up.