Quote:
Originally Posted by Torwan
I thought the Kindle had the option to zoom in on small print...shouldn't that solve the problem with PDF-files?
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The problem with zooming to view PDFs is that you can only see small part of the page at a time and moving around while zoomed is pretty cumbersome on an eInk device due to the slow screen updates.
The Sony PRS-x50s probably have one of the best Zoom features among the eInk readers. There are several pre-defined column mode zooms, plus a custom zoom where you can just drag the screen image with your finger using the touch screen.
I find that my Sony does a fair job with text-only PDFs using it's built in re-flow. And reading a few pages in a technical eBook with zoom isn't too bad, but I wouldn't want to read a long complex technical E-book using only the zoom feature. For some technical PDFs with complex page styles, I use the Sony's landscape mode, which is kind of like the zoom-to-page-width setting on a PC's PDF viewer. In this mode I can usually at least read the document, but it's not the greatest; workable, but just a little too small to be really pleasant.
Still, between the multi-column modes, page zoom, and text-reflow, the Sony is at least workable for PDFs.
I found the Kindle's PDF handling a little more awkward, because there is no touch screen drag while zoomed, and no multi-column modes, and no built in text re-flow, even for text-only documents.
When all else fails, I read PDF's on my Netbook, rotating the PDF's 90 degrees, then holding the device like a real book, with the long axis of the screen vertical. My Netbook has a native resolution of 1024x600 and a 10 inch screen, which makes reading in full page mode much easier.