12-24-2012, 01:23 PM | #31 |
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Re: reading PDFs on an ereader, check out mobipocket creator. Does a FAR better job at converting than calibre, and you can convert either the final .mobi or better yet the intermediate .html to ePub. Only reason I have a Windows vm on my mac.
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12-24-2012, 05:11 PM | #32 |
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If a simple program can do the conversion from PDF to a format that works, reflows, and is easily readable, that proves that it is easy and feasible for the reading software on the Kobo to do the same, or at least that part of it that allows the PDF to be read easily.
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12-24-2012, 05:21 PM | #33 |
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David Soulayrol is absolutely correct. The whole point of the PDF format is to allow the author/publisher, not the reader, to control the appearance of the document. It was designed to support typography properly. Think of it as a page sized image, designed to allow printers to duplicate the look of an original document.
Even html/epub/css does not have all the functions of PDF (or of real typography), and therefore, conversions involving graphics or tables will never be very successful. If you don't like how PDF documents render on a device, get your material in another format more suitable for the device.. |
12-24-2012, 05:48 PM | #34 | |
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12-24-2012, 06:25 PM | #35 | |
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step by step
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thank you |
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12-24-2012, 10:30 PM | #36 | |
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12-25-2012, 01:04 AM | #37 | |
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And of course a simple scanned PDF, which I think is largely what people want to read, is impossible to do any of this with anyway, at least without the additional step of OCRing which introduces a whole extra bunch of problems. |
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12-25-2012, 01:34 AM | #38 | |
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Attached is a screenshot showing the original PDF, the files MobiPocket creator created, and the end-product .ePub after importing and converting with Calibre (I imported the files over to MacOS as MobiPocket unfortunately is Windows-only, so this is even easier in Windows). The original PDF is unreadable with tiny text, while converting directly with Calibre results in a mess of layout artefacts, but using MobiPocket as the front-end results in a final .ePub that looks like an official ePub, for a book that's very unlikely to ever get an ebook release. Would be amazing if Calibre could do this itself, but it's really focused on transcoding between well-formed XML formats, not intelligently dealing with layout issued from a PDF. I've also had good success with MobiPocket with multi-column documents, and even some docs I scanned and OCR'd myself using Acrobat. Calibre doesn't even come close. p.s. tried to convert the same book from PDF to .html with Acrobat to see how they stack up: the Acrobat conversion was totally unreadable: inserted random spaces inside words everywhere for reasons I can't figure out since they're not in the raw text if I just copy-paste it. The only thing Acrobat seems to have over MobiPocket is better handling of tables. Also the notable downside of costing money. Last edited by stewacide; 12-25-2012 at 02:07 AM. |
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12-25-2012, 02:14 AM | #39 |
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I think when come down to the format support issue, you would have also to consider the business model of the e reader maker: do they want to make money mainly on the device they are selling you, or mainly on the e books which you will by from them?
I think for kobo, it is quite clear, they use high hardware specification to attract customers, but the end goal of doing this is probaly not to sell it for only 129, but they want the device to lead you to buy their books -- currently mostly (if not only) epub formats. If they were to make glo to adapt better on other formats, they will spend more (on the format adatpation developments) and earn less (since you will be less willingly to buy their books because you will have much broader choice of books to read conviniently from and not to buy from them). So base on this point of view, it is easy to explain why kobo is doing what ever it takes to make glo looks better and ads, but once you have got it, you realize you just don't want to use glo to read formats like pdf, and then you settle down by thinking it is just probaly a epub reader, and start to consider if you should by an epub from kobo store. In contrast, like sony readers, eventhough sony has its own online book store, but it seems sony focuses more on hardware profits, at least more than kobo does. This could explain why sony makes its reader more pdf format adaptive and a lot features that makes you read conviniently, but at the same time, down grading the hardwares on the recent models, while attempt to rise market price of the product. So basically in the end, I think for the issue of formats, it is how the companies want to profit will mostly deternmine what kind of reading experiences the customers will eventually get in the end. Last edited by ghero; 12-25-2012 at 02:27 AM. |
12-25-2012, 02:57 AM | #40 | |
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It is quite clear from the discussion - and I am sure I mentioned it somewhere - that we are NOT talking about scanned image PDFs. Last edited by jusmee; 12-25-2012 at 03:01 AM. |
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12-25-2012, 02:59 AM | #41 | |
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12-25-2012, 05:43 AM | #42 | |
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thanks |
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12-25-2012, 06:06 AM | #43 | |
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no .epub
Thanks for your prompt reply
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The way through Pdf->MobiPocket(.html)->Calibre(epub) is actually what I did. And how to make an ePub with MobiPocket without using calibre? There is no obvious choice to convert to .epub or .mobi. There is an option to make epub but the result is a punch of files;.html, .opf, .prc, .xml, .jpg, .png |
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12-25-2012, 08:15 AM | #44 | |
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12-25-2012, 09:45 AM | #45 |
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Think about it for a second! MobiPocket ..... Why on earth would a program that was designed solely for the purpose of making Mobi content have the ability to create an alternate format such as ePub that was totally foreign to the ecosystem that the Mobi format was intended for.
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pdf, reflow, support, turn page, zoom |
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