Fit PDF to screen height

[Hugo]

I have several PDFs I want to read on the Kindle.

They are presentations, with large fonts and complex layouts.
Kindle 2 with firmware 2.3 handles them just fine, they are quite readable in landscape mode.

However, when stretched to fit the Kindle screen horizontally, every page is just slightly bigger than one screen vertically.
So all pages are split right before the bottom edge. When paging through the document, every second page is almost blank, except for a small stripe from the previous page.

As far as I know there is no way to zoom PDFs on the kindle.
Can I somehow add some padding to the left and right border of each page in the PDF? (I do not have the original files used to generate the PDFs)
If the pages were just a little bit wider, then each page would fit on one screen.

[JMikeD]

Nope. Nothing you can do about it. The Kindle is not a good platform for viewing PDFs. It's best to convert them to something else.

In fact, I would argue that a PDF file is good only for printing out a hard copy, which is what it was designed to do.

Mike

[wallcraft]

You will still get 2 pages for each original page, but you could try soPdf with fit 2xWidth and a large percentage overlap (perhaps 30%). This should give you most of the original page on both of the pair of pages. There is a GUI for soPdf if you are not comfortable with the command line.

[Hugo]

You will still get 2 pages for each original page, but you could try soPdf with fit 2xWidth and a large percentage overlap (perhaps 30%).

Thanks, but I would not prefer that to the current status.

My goal is really to speed up paging through the documents, so I do not have to press next twice and have double loading times for each page.

I tried soPDF with the "fit to height" option, but that seems to do something else.

The following however works just fine: I drew some red rectangles to the left and right border of a page in the document with PDF Xchange Viewer. This prevents the kindle from cropping the white border and zooming in, and now the page fits perfectly on a single kindle screen.

I just need a way to automate this process for thousands of pages. Is there a command line tool that can draw in PDFs?

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Hugo

I just need a way to automate this process for thousands of pages. Is there a command line tool that can draw in PDFs?

Try pdftk's background or stamp options. The "stamp" could be a solid border around the part of the page you want to keep.

[davidspitzer]

Originally Posted by JMikeD

Nope. Nothing you can do about it. The Kindle is not a good platform for viewing PDFs. It's best to convert them to something else.

In fact, I would argue that a PDF file is good only for printing out a hard copy, which is what it was designed to do.

Mike

in some instances a pdf is just required for reading - conversion is not really a viable option - i.e. a two column textbook with a half page of footnotes on each page for example. I read pdf's just fine on my kindle DX - To say that Kindle is not a good platform for pdf's, in my opinion, may be a bit of hyperbole. I have 20 textbooks on mine ranging from 10 to 400 meg n size - all of them work just fine

The key for me was to scan all the book in black and white (best contrast) and crop all the white space in acrobat pro - i can read all of them comfortably in potrait with all of the formatting intact - I also delete all the pages before page one so that my pdf pages correspond to my physical page numbers - when my teacher says "turn to page 478" i simply type "478" and i am there.

I beleive the Kindle DX is a great opton for PDF's - yes other readers can zoom but why would you want to if you can just read a full page at a time (zooming and panning around to read is not very ergonomc for me)

[jft]

I wrote a small script for me that does the job for A4 landscape presentations.

One drawback with this method is that the pdfs are converted to images and then combined again to one pdf in the end. So you loose some sharpness. But for most of my presentations it is ok.

I create the background image with a black border, that prevents the kindle from cropping and than centre the original pdf pages inside that background image.

The script uses 120dpi to raster the pdfs and the resolution of the background image is chosen to fit an A4 landscape page. Adjust as you like.

Just start the script in a path with pdfs, and each of the pdf files is converted and stored in the "final" folder inside the current folder.

No guaranties. Use at your own risk. Ignore the error messages of composite.

Requirements:

- Linux
- imageMagick
- ghostscript

#/bin/sh


if  [ ! -d convert ]; then

        mkdir convert

fi

if  [ ! -d final ]; then

        mkdir final

fi

typeset -i number

number=0

for DATEI in *.pdf; do

        echo "processing $DATEI ..."

        OUTDATEI=final/${DATEI/.pdf/-resize.pdf}

        convert -bordercolor black -size 1550x996 xc:white -border 2x2 convert/back.png

        exitValue=$?

        number=0

        while (( exitValue == 0 )); do

                numberZero=`printf %03d $number`

                composite -quiet -gravity center -density 120 ${DATEI}[${number}] convert/back.png convert/output_${numberZero}.pdf

                exitValue=$?

                (( number++ ))

        done


        (( number-- ))

        gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -q -sOUTPUTFILE=$OUTDATEI -dBATCH convert/output_*.pdf

        rm  convert/*

done



exit 0

[baker2gs]

Originally Posted by davidspitzer

in some instances a pdf is just required for reading - conversion is not really a viable option - i.e. a two column textbook with a half page of footnotes on each page for example. I read pdf's just fine on my kindle DX - To say that Kindle is not a good platform for pdf's, in my opinion, may be a bit of hyperbole. I have 20 textbooks on mine ranging from 10 to 400 meg n size - all of them work just fine

The key for me was to scan all the book in black and white (best contrast) and crop all the white space in acrobat pro - i can read all of them comfortably in potrait with all of the formatting intact - I also delete all the pages before page one so that my pdf pages correspond to my physical page numbers - when my teacher says "turn to page 478" i simply type "478" and i am there.

I beleive the Kindle DX is a great opton for PDF's - yes other readers can zoom but why would you want to if you can just read a full page at a time (zooming and panning around to read is not very ergonomc for me)

I think that's the problem I'm having with viewing PDFs on my Kindle, the white space on the outside causes the text to be very small. Is it easy to crop large amounts of pages the same way with Acrobat Pro? If so I might consider giving that a try.

I don't like how you convert it to PRC or another format with Mobi Creator or Calibre and it just mashes everything together, making pages numbers in them middle and chapters starting in weird areas.

[davidspitzer]

[QUOTE=baker2gs;825051]I think that's the problem I'm having with viewing PDFs on my Kindle, the white space on the outside causes the text to be very small. Is it easy to crop large amounts of pages the same way with Acrobat Pro? If so I might consider giving that a try.

I don't like how you convert it to PRC or another format with Mobi Creator or Calibre and it just mashes everything together, making pages numbers in them middle and chaperienc

unless its straight text its best to leave in native pdf - crop off all the white space and you will have a much better experience

[lilman]

Originally Posted by baker2gs

I think that's the problem I'm having with viewing PDFs on my Kindle, the white space on the outside causes the text to be very small. Is it easy to crop large amounts of pages the same way with Acrobat Pro? If so I might consider giving that a try.

Yes it is easy to crop white space. I use ImageMagick to so in my manga processing program. The command is something like:
convert -fuzz 15% -bordercolor white -trim name_of_image.jpg output_name.jpg

-Edit-
Oh wait, you're trying to trim the white space around a pdf. I haven't tried that with ImageMagick. It may be able to do that too using the same command. I'll go try it out.

-Edit 2-
It does work for pdfs! Just run command:
convert -fuzz 15% -bordercolor white -trim input.pdf output.pdf

[baker2gs]

Originally Posted by lilman

Yes it is easy to crop white space. I use ImageMagick to so in my manga processing program. The command is something like:
convert -fuzz 15% -bordercolor white -trim name_of_image.jpg output_name.jpg

-Edit-
Oh wait, you're trying to trim the white space around a pdf. I haven't tried that with ImageMagick. It may be able to do that too using the same command. I'll go try it out.

-Edit 2-
It does work for pdfs! Just run command:
convert -fuzz 15% -bordercolor white -trim input.pdf output.pdf

Yeah I think that's the ideal thing to do with a pdf, crop the white edges although I was trying to find a batch way of doing it.

I can't get ImageMagick to work, it wont open the PDF. Are there any good step by step instructions to get it installed and set up correctly? Running on Windows 7.

[lilman]

Originally Posted by baker2gs

Yeah I think that's the ideal thing to do with a pdf, crop the white edges although I was trying to find a batch way of doing it.

I can't get ImageMagick to work, it wont open the PDF. Are there any good step by step instructions to get it installed and set up correctly? Running on Windows 7.

I don't have Windows 7 so I can't help you with the install, but I do know of an easy way to pseudo-batch trim your pdfs. Copy all the pdfs you want to trim to a new folder, then open a command prompt in that new folder and run:

mogrify -fuzz 15% -bordercolor white -trim *.pdf

The mogrify command is similar to convert except that it overwrites the input file (which is why I said copy the pdfs to a new folder, otherwise you will lose the originals). The above command should trim the white space of all the pdfs in the folder.

[SamuraiXSendai]

Originally Posted by JMikeD

Nope. Nothing you can do about it. The Kindle is not a good platform for viewing PDFs. It's best to convert them to something else.

In fact, I would argue that a PDF file is good only for printing out a hard copy, which is what it was designed to do.

Mike

AT first I was going to say, you've got it backward, the PDF is a poor platform for viewing on a small device, but your second sentence indicates that's what you meant. PDF's are just a terrible means of reading electronic text on anything smaller than a DX. For mobile use, they are virtually useless. At my library we have over 50,000 journals online and 95% of them are PDF. Look good on the computer monitor, not so good on the phone.

[baker2gs]

Originally Posted by lilman

I don't have Windows 7 so I can't help you with the install, but I do know of an easy way to pseudo-batch trim your pdfs. Copy all the pdfs you want to trim to a new folder, then open a command prompt in that new folder and run:

mogrify -fuzz 15% -bordercolor white -trim *.pdf

The mogrify command is similar to convert except that it overwrites the input file (which is why I said copy the pdfs to a new folder, otherwise you will lose the originals). The above command should trim the white space of all the pdfs in the folder.

Can you provide some detail how you have these programs installed? It shouldn't be too different for me. I have ImageMagick installed but the Manga I've downloaded and I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do with it.

[lilman]

Originally Posted by baker2gs

Can you provide some detail how you have these programs installed? It shouldn't be too different for me. I have ImageMagick installed but the Manga I've downloaded and I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do with it.

Well now that you have manga scans and ImageMagick installed, I'm guessing you want to be able to process your scans into a kindle friendly format (proper screen size, dpi, white borders trimmed, etc...) and possibly make pdfs out of the scans.

Here are some of your options:
1) All of the scan processing can be done using ImageMagick. The commands for this can be found here: http://www.imagemagick.org/script/convert.php.
2) You could use a program I wrote that automates the ImageMagick commands: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75628. This is what I use to get manga on my DX. It will process a lot of manga at once and it can make a pdf of each chapter automatically.
3) Another option would be to use Mangle. If you want a pdf then you can use ImageMagick to create one from the output of Mangle. The command would be something like:
convert *.gif out.pdf

If you have any further questions about preparing manga for the Kindle, please make another thread or post in my program's or the mangle thread as this thread is only supposed to be about fitting pdf to screen height.