Quote:
Originally Posted by Pjama
I hope they fix their software. I also hope they add landscape, and put the reading progress bar back. I know they won't, but it doesn't stop me hoping.
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For Notebooks, it seems it would be trivial to add some templates that are intended to be used when the device is in Landscape (and have the UI in that orientation to match when you select them).
The problem is that for both PDF and Print Replica, Kindle platform assumes that the document's long axis is 'up'. When it is not, there's a mismatch between the document 'up' and the UI 'up'.
There are not very many textbooks (if any) where the long axis is not up/down, but if you want to review a slide deck, there should be a way to match the UI up to the document up.
Scribe does show an Orientation Layout option but it's greyed out, and in any case would not handle the 'slide deck' use case correctly.
I'd rather it automatically oriented the UI to match the document 'up', with best fit. For a slide deck, it would make you physically rotate the device to review it.
Print Replica support in the apps is also deficient:
-- it doesn't matter how large your screen is, the PC/Mac apps will not give you 2 page mode for PDF or Print Replica.
-- the Android/iOS apps don't have any Layout options for PDFs or Print Replica: fit to screen when device is in portrait mode, fit-to-width when it is in landscape mode. That's okay on a small screen, but on tablets it makes landscape very unpleasant, and once you have a 10-13' screen you start to want a 2 page option, or at least a way to go to 100% (or even fit to height) instead of having it fixed at 150%+ zoom (it doesn't let you zoom out at all).
-- at least iPads with M1 or M2 chips need 2 page support, as they may be connected to large displays to extend desktop.
-- If they plan on supporting Print Replica on all current Kindles, it needs to have small screen accommodations (involving landscape device usage, auto cropping etc). PDF support had some of this (though not as good as the competition), so that should be the bar to get over for PR.