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Old 12-19-2007, 04:33 PM   #4
jnash
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jnash began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 12
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Orlando, FL
Device: Sony PRS700, HTC Here, and iPod Touch
What hibernate docs look like

It's really hard to get an idea of what something looks like from the discussions here on the forum. I decided to try and give a concrete example. I downloaded the Hibernate documentation you linked to and converted the PDF to a Sony e-book LRF file using free software available elsewhere on this forum (PDFLRF). This gave me two files, the original PDF file and an LRF file.

The way PDFLRF works is to render each page of the PDF as an image, trim off white space such as margins, rotate the images 90 degrees so they display on the e-reader in landscape mode and give the widest possible page width and, finally, cut the images in as intelligent a way as possible so each image is the correct size for the e-reader. It then collects all those images into the LRF file. The LRF file created by PDFLRF is 510 pages long (the PDF was something like 229 pages).

I then copied both files to the e-reader and looked at them. The e-reader can rotate its display by 90 degrees at the push of a button so I looked at the PDF in portrait and landscape mode. The PDF in portrait was essentially unreadable. The font used is already quite thin and when it is scaled from 8.5x11 to 3.5x4.75 everything is just too small to read.

I rotated the display to landscape mode. This was much better. You can actually read the text though it is still quite thin "spidery". Attached is an image (pdf.jpg) of what it looks like.

I then took a look at the LRF version (lrf.jpg). This is very readable and I have no problem recommending the e-reader to read this particular document. Notice that it is automatically in landscape mode and it no longer has extraneous white space on the margins.

There are a couple of things that bare pointing out. First, If you are trying to use the document on the e-reader as a reference instead of "light reading" then you will be interested in the table of contents. In this case you might find the PDF easier to work with since the page numbering of the document actually matches with the TOC. On the other hand, the LRF file will display the printed page number when you view that section of the text so you could guess at the approximate LRF page and then scroll forward or backward at most one or two pages to see exactly where you are in the document.

Second, the e-reader has to work a bit to render each page of the PDF. I have found that sometimes page-flips in a PDF document are fraction of a second slower than when viewing an LRF.

Third, the code example blocks in this PDF have a non-white background. This makes the code blocks essentially impossible to read in the PDF mode because the black of the font and the gray of the background come out too similar when viewed on the reader.

All in all I wouldn't hesitate to use my e-reader to read this document as in an LRF format. I have read other scientific journal articles in the same way and it has not been a problem. My only complaint is that occasionally I find that I want to look back one or two paragraphs but I find that I have to page back. This isn't a big deal though and it is certainly a lot better than hauling around 229 pages of loose leaf as in this example!

-Jon
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