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Originally Posted by joedevon
So $200 is a good price, right?
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$200 is an excellent price, and the first e-ink device that has a standard price at that level will have trouble keeping it on the shelves.
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How does Sony compare to Kindle for PDF files?
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Sony is better; it supports PDF natively. Kindle converts PDFs, and how well it goes depends on the original design.
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Should I reformat the PDF's to better handle the Sony?
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Depends on the PDFs. Letter-sized pages can be hard to read on the Sony. (Or rather, are hard to read; it's more hardship for some people than others.) Most will reflow the text with the "+" button, but that doesn't always work; if the design was complex, it can scramble things a bit. (OTOH, if the design was simple, like journal articles, it usually works very well.) It won't reflow scanned image PDFs, though; those would need to be OCR'd and converted.
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Can Kindle files be read on Sony w/ some conversion program?
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The DRM has to be removed first, which is of troublesome legality. Non-DRM'd Kindle-able books are Mobipocket, either .mobi or .prc, and would need to be converted before reading on the Sony;
Calibre will do that easily.
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What does Calibre do that you guys are talking about?
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It converts files to Sony Reader (LRF) format, and the new beta version converts to ePub as well. It can take files from several different formats, allows you to edit the metadata and put covers on them, and save to LRF with your choice of settings. (Font sizes, margins, chapter breaks, etc.)
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BTW, the Sony already keeps freezing on me. I think the 1000+ Zend Framework PDF manual is scaring the little gremlins inside the E-Reader that run around turning on and off the pixels.
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The Reader doesn't deal well with very large PDFs--however, if you wait for them to load, they're generally okay. It could take several minutes, but it should only take that long the very first time it's opened. If you install it with the Sony Library software (which I don't touch), it may pre-load for you, and not need the extra time.
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Maybe reformatting it can help? Hmm, I used to have Acrobat on an old computer, but not this one. Anyone know of a good open source replacement for PDFs?
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For ones without complex formatting, gmail it to yourself, and open as HTML; save out the HTML file.
Calibre can convert it, but it removes the pictures.
P.S. if the manual is openly available, I'd be happy to help convert it, or at least chop it into smaller pieces that'd be easier for the Sony to load.