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Originally Posted by jusmee
it opens, but I cannot read it because the text is way too small, and if I zoom in, then the page turning no longer works (unless you laboriously slide it off the side and touch on the arrow that appears)
How are we meant to read PDFs when the software behaves like this?
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You are correct. So correct. But it is easy to fix...
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Originally Posted by jusmee
It's really not a question of satisfaction. You simply cannot read the PDF I tried. Zoomed out, it is far to small to be human readable. Zoomed in, you can read it - only bits at a time as you pan around, and you can't turn to the next page without multiple swipes or touches. I am starting to wish it wasn't a touchscreen device, and they'd provided a button to turn the page.
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In landscape mode, zoomed to the max to use up your margins (usually around 240%), is it big enough? I think probably it is, for you and for many, and then you can read it without panning left to right. So all you need is a way to move down in the page, and to the next page. They should make this a page tap in some location of the screen (for both cases, so it is JUST LIKE the epub reading). Don't even need a button. They can fix it!
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Originally Posted by Marbles
I find reading PDF's easier on the Touch even though you have to screw around with the page turns. It at least keeps it the size that I have chosen.
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Yes, you have to screw around. We agree, this is bad bad bad. Also, it keeps the size, BUT if you accidentally tap twice too fast, it "zooms" to 200% (which for me, usually means SHRINKING from a higher zoom), or to 100%, which of course is even worse. Then a pain to fix it.
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Originally Posted by BWinMill
Alas, there isn't much that we can do about it at the moment. This is due to a limitation of PDF files colliding with a limitation of eInk displays.
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I think that rather it is because PDF's are defined to really take, in most cases, 8 inches horizontally. You can't shrink them in portrait mode to fit a page on the screen (for a normal book) and make them readable You can try to reflow, but they are not designed to do that, and in general, it is very hard to do it nicely. But shrinking to fit about 1/2 page or so in landscape mode (a zoom of typically about 240% given typical margins) makes them quite readable, leaving only the problem of advancing in the document.
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Originally Posted by BWinMill
You have a couple of options here. You can try making a constructive suggestion to Kobo to improve page turning when zoomed in (easy to implement, thus realistic) or to add an option to reflow text in PDF files (more difficult, thus less realistic).
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Yes, "REALISTIC". Very. Contrary to your earlier quoted pessimism, it is easy to fix. PAGE TURNING must be improved, and it is EASY. More precisely, MOVING DOWN IN THE DOCUMENT must be improved. Not just page turning -- one command to MOVE DOWN (which may or may not require a page turn in each particular case).
Reflowing is way too hard. Impossible in general really. Unreasonable to ask for it. We do not want to be unreasonable! But this is a VERY reasonable request, easy to do, and important. I mean, making moving through (the most common and typical) pdf files the same easy task as moving through epub files? No brainer!
The option of tap-to-move-down in document can easily be generalized nicely to multi column operation, at least for the typical 8x11 pdf (journal articles, magazines, books with multi columns). Just set the number of columns (say it is N) and tap-to-move-down will actually move up to top of page from bottom of page the first N-1 times.
It is EASY, and, unlike many requested changes, it is IMPORTANT.