Classic Nook and PDF...again.

[Slvtmong00se]

Hi everyone
I've been using the nook for about 4 months now and have often come to this site looking for help.

Im building a large ebook library and want to maintain it at a high quality. My only two requirements are:
1) the "goto" feature of nook work with all files
2) it be readable and well (if not perfectly) formatted.

I'm having quite a lot of trouble with PDF files. Calibre doesnt convert them too well, AABBY finereader takes forever and produces many errors, so finally ive decided to try cropping out whitespace.

Ive managed to do it too, using god knows which utility (got dozens lying on my desktop now) so that each page in the pdf shows just the text, no white things around it.

However when I load this new file into the Nook, and set it to small (to disable reflow) I get the exact same thing i did when i started. The font is too tiny and *Horizontally* about a third of the screen to the right is just not being used.

Any ideas for which utils/settings to use to get Nook to just display these files at a larger, readable font? Please, any and all suggestions are welcome, ive been at this for 3 weeks now!

[Slvtmong00se]

87 views, no replies

[Pranananda]

Does the PDF reader on the Nook have a "Full Screen" option for displaying PDF? That helps on other readers.

[Slvtmong00se]

@Pranananda
Nope.

Also, ive now experimented with converting pdfs to jpegs, resizing and then recompuiling but this completely destroys text readability. any ideas for that then?

I really just want one method to start actually using my huge pdf library.


For the jpeg route, i followed this tutorial:
http://thegrownupsarelying.blogspot....-e-reader.html

finally, when using the tool to recompile the jpegs into a pdf, it doesnt work when i tell it to keep original size...anyone used this software before? are there any better ones?

[Pranananda]

Slvtmong00se,

Have you tried some of the tools offered in the PDF forum for cropping? There is BRISS, which makes it easy to crop an entire PDF.

You might also take a look at PDFReflow, if you are willing to convert your PDFs, and they are somewhat simple novels rather than technical documents.

As for converting zip file of jpegs, I have had good luck with Jomic to convert zip and rar archives into PDF documents.

[Audra73]

Slvtmong00se,

I am having the same issues. What I found was Mobipocket Creator. I import my PDF file and then edit the HTML file that is created. The output is a PRC file, which Calibre converts to EPUB really well. I have been able to "fix" some of the worst files with this process by opening the HTML file and using find/replace in notepad to get rid of hard line breaks, which are standard in PDF files. This includes creating table of contents so that I can use goto/chapter functionality.

Unfortunately, there is one set of PDF files that just won't work, even when I use this process. Since it is only 20 books of my 1400 book library, I've chosen not to sweat the small stuff.

I found this method on the Calibre threads. Unfortunately, this is a one file at a time process and can be time consuming. I am a novice at this stuff and I am still trying to figure it all out. If there is a better, more efficient way, I haven't stumbled onto it yet.

[rokuez]

ugh reading this stuff makes me want to reconsider getting a nook

pdfs readability is a must


not so much graphics

[iandix]

Originally Posted by rokuez

ugh reading this stuff makes me want to reconsider getting a nook

pdfs readability is a must not so much graphics

I don't know any ebook reader that handles .pdf 100% ..if you only want to read .pdf files then maybe you need a iPad

[lionel47]

Originally Posted by iandix

I don't know any ebook reader that handles .pdf 100% ..if you only want to read .pdf files then maybe you need a iPad

I agree. I read PDFs on my nook. I regularly print long articles on web sites to PDF for reading later on my nook. Hasn't caused me any issues. I also regularly PDF documents from work and read them.

[rokuez]

Originally Posted by iandix

I don't know any ebook reader that handles .pdf 100% ..if you only want to read .pdf files then maybe you need a iPad

actually graphics may come in handly

also who knows how any specific pdf will look it could be an old scan of a manuscript etc

i'll probably go with a 16 gb wifi ipad

and just use the iphones 3g via tether

[iBeth]

Originally Posted by rokuez

ugh reading this stuff makes me want to reconsider getting a nook

pdfs readability is a must


not so much graphics

I was worried about this too, but most of my pdfs are trouble-free. I think a lot depends on how the pdfs were created. My older pdfs are image-based and I have trouble getting those to be readable. But more recent pdfs have reflowed with no trouble. My biggest problem with pdfs was getting the metadata right, and calibre solved that problem very easily.

I don't think any e-ink reader is 100% perfect with all pdfs. An iPad might be a better bet if pdfs are your one and only concern.

[fuzzy_dunlop]

Nook reads most PDF's comfortably. However, with really troublesome PDF's try soPDF (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32066) there is also a Windows GUI available (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67739).

It crops out white space and cuts each page into two, this fixes most PDF's where the font is too small to read even with reflow.

Two drawbacks, you lose all your bookmarks once you convert with soPDF, although you can add them later, and it overlaps each page in case text was cut off mid-line, although this is a setting which you can play around with. Good luck.