MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - PDF dimension changing

kidblue · 10-19-2010, 10:13 PM

Looks great - I need to charge my Kindle (I leave wifi/3G on, so it only lasts a few days) to get it delivered and see it on the screen...

The auto-crop kind of puts Briss to shame, as awesome as Briss is. For my purposes, just seeing the text and now squeezed into the right aspect, I'm really confident this could make a huge difference for a lot of PDF readers, and a big population of folks who want to read text-based PDFs like screenplays. You're all the way across the country, but next time you're in L.A., I'm buying you a beer.

Now comes the major question: What is the process of turning this into an executable application outside of the Shell? I know that's something that's built-in with Applescript/Automator (obviously Mac-centric), but I've never messed with it. Maybe that's a weekend project to learn...

UPDATE:

So here's something interesting; Because the script crops not to a set margin, but to the widest point the text hits, most pages are slightly different in width. What we end up with is a stretched full-page but somehow, the Kindle is still attaching margins. See attached.

Why are there still margins? The point of squeezing was to get the text tight enough to fill the page, right?

The next experiment is going to be cropping the pages in half as per Briss (it's back in action, I shouldn't have opened my big mouth!) and then running the script, to see if it evokes the right aspect but on a smaller page.

Is there a way to adjust the script to actually output "Kindle-sized" (as opposed to aspect-ratio) pages? Would that make a difference?

10-19-2010, 10:13 PM	#24
kidblue Connoisseur Posts: 79 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: Kindle 3	Looks great - I need to charge my Kindle (I leave wifi/3G on, so it only lasts a few days) to get it delivered and see it on the screen... The auto-crop kind of puts Briss to shame, as awesome as Briss is. For my purposes, just seeing the text and now squeezed into the right aspect, I'm really confident this could make a huge difference for a lot of PDF readers, and a big population of folks who want to read text-based PDFs like screenplays. You're all the way across the country, but next time you're in L.A., I'm buying you a beer. Now comes the major question: What is the process of turning this into an executable application outside of the Shell? I know that's something that's built-in with Applescript/Automator (obviously Mac-centric), but I've never messed with it. Maybe that's a weekend project to learn... UPDATE: So here's something interesting; Because the script crops not to a set margin, but to the widest point the text hits, most pages are slightly different in width. What we end up with is a stretched full-page but somehow, the Kindle is still attaching margins. See attached. Why are there still margins? The point of squeezing was to get the text tight enough to fill the page, right? The next experiment is going to be cropping the pages in half as per Briss (it's back in action, I shouldn't have opened my big mouth!) and then running the script, to see if it evokes the right aspect but on a smaller page. Is there a way to adjust the script to actually output "Kindle-sized" (as opposed to aspect-ratio) pages? Would that make a difference? Attached Thumbnails Last edited by kidblue; 10-19-2010 at 10:44 PM.