Kindle 3 pdf reading...

[earltedly]

I'm thinking about getting a Kindle 3 in order to read Apple developer documentation. This usually comes in the form of PDFs though...

I was wondering if anyone would be able to test out this PDF for me and see how it looks on the Kindle 3?

http://developer.apple.com/library/i...tiveC/ObjC.pdf

Lastly, does anyone have any recommendations for reading this kind of content on the Kindle 3? Should it be read as a PDF or should it be converted to some other format first?

I'm working on macs, so although I could access a Windows machine, it would be a lot of hassle

[DDHarriman]

Hello

I do not have a Kindle 3, but any 6” eBook reader will give you the same results.
Personally I think it’s too small reading and useless.
I do advise a bigger screen reader - today you have just the Kindle Dxg.
Or as you are a Mac man, why not the Ipad? people say wonders about it (but to read indoors or in the shade)…

I’m sending two photos (not great quality) taken from the file in a Sony prs 505 (same screen size as the Kindle), one portrait full page and one landscape half page… you will be the judge.

Best regards,

[imdqmznh]

Hi,

have a look at these Kindle3 screenshots.

Best regards,

[tomsem]

I find it very helpful to crop the margins/headers/footers. Kindle still shows you the page number (both the 'physical' and 'logical'), and I generally don't miss the chapter label. Cropping makes it much more readable in full-page (portrait). And in this case, in landscape, the cropped pages require only 2 instead of 3 page turns to 'consume'.

[Falcao]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I find it very helpful to crop the margins/headers/footers.

How this crop can be done?

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Falcao

How this crop can be done?

I use Acrobat, but this thread describes some other options:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6328

[DDHarriman]

Hello Falcao

It can be done with several utilities that you can find in this forum, just check around.
And it can be done with, per example Adobe Acrobat (the pay creator, not the free reader) in a pinch.


imdqmznh and tomsem

Can you be so kind and post actual photos of the kindle machines showing the pages you have post here? Thanks!

Best regards,

[aquawater]

Originally Posted by earltedly

I'm thinking about getting a Kindle 3 in order to read Apple developer documentation. This usually comes in the form of PDFs though...

I was wondering if anyone would be able to test out this PDF for me and see how it looks on the Kindle 3?

http://developer.apple.com/library/i...tiveC/ObjC.pdf

Lastly, does anyone have any recommendations for reading this kind of content on the Kindle 3? Should it be read as a PDF or should it be converted to some other format first?

I'm working on macs, so although I could access a Windows machine, it would be a lot of hassle

Check this post here by tomsen. You will know what book it is in the screenshot #3
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...7&postcount=21

In my opinion, viewing Apple Dev documentation is too small in K3, but landscape viewing turn out to be nice.

[jphphotography]

So far I've been unimpressed with half of the pdf's I've tried on my kindle, with some pdfs if you try to change the font you just get the options "fit to screen, 150%, 200%, 300%, actual size". If you choose any other than fit to screen you have to scroll horizontally. If the original pdf is using small font then it won't be easy to read on the Kindle, if the original has decent sized text then it'll probably be fine. I'm not sure if the whole non-scalable text problem occurs on every pdf though, I have an electronics dictionary pdf on my kindle that doesn't seem to have any issues so it must be something with the formatting of the original pdf.

I also found reading books in landscape mode a bit of a pain due to the location of the page turn buttons. It would have been nice if they included an extra set of page buttons on the top of the kindle for landscape viewing.

All in all though I'm still really happy with my Kindle.

One option that might also work is running the pdfs through either Amazon's convert service or through Calibre's converter. I tried Calibre with a text only pdf and it seemed to correct the issue.

Hope this helps

[ollie256]

How do you transfer the PDF from Calibre to the Kindle? I am trying to "send to Device" but nothing happens?

[Starko]

Originally Posted by Falcao

How this crop can be done?

Because often even and odd pages have different margins, sometimes it can be not as straight forward as one would hope to have best cropping. You can go for the lowest (or rather largest) common denominator but then you end up with too much white space.

When i have time and want to have the best output (least white space) i use Nitro PDF Professional. It allows to crop single page, range of pages and all pages combined with the choice for even, odd or both.

For quick crops I found one free utulity on the web with good graphical user interface (no command-line tool) called PDF Scissors which seems to be the easiest tool. Ans as it turns out this program was written by a fellow Kindle user!
It is impressive - first it scans all pages and overlays them graphically on top of each other - that way you can easily find optimal cropping size. You can preview your cropping by going through each page and adjust.

It's a java App, probably runs on all platforms. Brilliant for quick croppings!

[Mark Rehorst]

The larger screen is really much better for pdf viewing. I can read this just fine (with my reading glasses on) in portrait mode. Simply rotating to landscape gives enough zoom that I don't need my reading glasses.

Note that page numbers in the file corrspond to those reported by Kindle. That means you won't have to offset the numbers from the TOC to get where you want.

Duokan can display a slightly enlarged, easier to read image in portrait mode and can access and use the pdf's TOC. I can't make any screen captures from Duokan (I don't think they have that feature built in), but in this pdf Duokan is better, but setting up and using Duokan may not be worth the effort to you.

[scenox]

Originally Posted by ollie256

How do you transfer the PDF from Calibre to the Kindle? I am trying to "send to Device" but nothing happens?

You have to add pdf to the list of allowed formats (settings -> sending books via mail or something like that and double click at formats)

[Cosmoon]

After cropping do you convert the pdf to MOBI or do you put it on the ereader as cropped pdf?

[willus]

There are a number of utilities that attempt to re-paginate letter-sized PDFs so that they fit better on a 6-inch reader screen, but work at the graphical level so that figures and formulas are not lost, e.g. k2pdfopt, PaperCrop, and pdfread.