Comparison classic PDF vs PDF reflow

[josecastanon1]

Hi , i´ve been playin´and reading a little since i finnaly got my reader yesterday and wanted to know what is that terrible experience i missed since my new 505 already got the pdf reflow thingy which i have used and enjoyed in many different books of different field, those being photo books, novels, articles, repair manuals and science books, without too much trouble , is there a video somwhere or photos that show how the same PDF is rendered in reflow/ non reflow devices? thanks guys

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by josecastanon1

Hi , i´ve been playin´and reading a little since i finnaly got my reader yesterday and wanted to know what is that terrible experience i missed since my new 505 already got the pdf reflow thingy which i have used and enjoyed in many different books of different field, those being photo books, novels, articles, repair manuals and science books, without too much trouble , is there a video somwhere or photos that show how the same PDF is rendered in reflow/ non reflow devices? thanks guys

I haven't seen a video like that. But the bad experience you missed is easy enough to imagine.

Assume you have a PDF document which is formatted as though it were on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. With 1" margins all around, that give you a text box 6.5" x 9". Now display that on a screen which is perhaps half that size. What happens?

Best case, you can reduce the zoom factor on the PDF to fit it all on the smaller screen, but the text might become so small as to be unreadable. Failing that, you get text that extends off the right edge of the screen, and you have to scroll sideways to read it. That's actively painful.

It's possible to tag PDFs so that the viewer software on whatever device and properly rewrap the text to that it fits on the screen, and the new firmware for the PRS can take advantage of the tagging. I suspect it won't help you if you get a PDF that hasn't been created with the necessary tags.

For the most part, I think PDF is the format people here get only if what they want isn't available in any other format. It wasn't really designed for ebooks, and maps poorly to the task.
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Dennis