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jswinden · 03-28-2010, 11:24 AM

PDF was originally designed to make it possible to easily and electronically exchange workplace type and size of documents. That translates into 8.5" wide by 11" tall--the size of printer paper. Back in the 1990's that was the typical size of a workplace document. PDFs really were not designed for viewing on computer monitors as much as for facilitating the easy transfer of an electronic document to someone else who could then print it out. Unfortunately even though PDFs can be formatted in any size they are still commonly formatted into the large 8.5" by 11" portrait size which is difficult to read on any eBook reader with a small portrait screen and even on large computer monitors which tend to have landscape orientation. Many eBook readers can view PDFs in portrait view but the text is usually too small to read. The same eBook readers often allow you to view PDFs in landscape mode where the text is larger and more readable, but then at best you can only view half a page at a time.

The quick answer is yes you can view PDFs on the Sony readers and many other brand readers as well, but the experience is often not that good, and PDFs are extremely bloated files that tend to load slowly and have slow page turns. To read a PDF as it was intended would require either printing it or using a device that is close to the page size specified in the PDF, which is commonly 8.5" by 11". Otherwise the reading experience probably will not be very good. Trying to adopt printer era, non-reflowable documents to eBook readers will most likely never work well unless the eBook reader is so big as to no longer be portable or comfortable to hold while reading, or the standard size for PDFs is substantially reduced and/or the orientation changed from portrait to landscape.

Bottomline in my opinion is that a text only PDF read on an eBook reader that can reflow the text is an okay, but slow, experience. Large PDFs that contain tables and charts that cannot be easily reflowed will never look right on an eBook reader with a screen much smaller than the page size specified in the PDF file. So scientific journals and papers and college textbooks typically do not lend themselves well to eBook readers.

03-28-2010, 11:24 AM	#3
jswinden Nameless Being	PDF was originally designed to make it possible to easily and electronically exchange workplace type and size of documents. That translates into 8.5" wide by 11" tall--the size of printer paper. Back in the 1990's that was the typical size of a workplace document. PDFs really were not designed for viewing on computer monitors as much as for facilitating the easy transfer of an electronic document to someone else who could then print it out. Unfortunately even though PDFs can be formatted in any size they are still commonly formatted into the large 8.5" by 11" portrait size which is difficult to read on any eBook reader with a small portrait screen and even on large computer monitors which tend to have landscape orientation. Many eBook readers can view PDFs in portrait view but the text is usually too small to read. The same eBook readers often allow you to view PDFs in landscape mode where the text is larger and more readable, but then at best you can only view half a page at a time. The quick answer is yes you can view PDFs on the Sony readers and many other brand readers as well, but the experience is often not that good, and PDFs are extremely bloated files that tend to load slowly and have slow page turns. To read a PDF as it was intended would require either printing it or using a device that is close to the page size specified in the PDF, which is commonly 8.5" by 11". Otherwise the reading experience probably will not be very good. Trying to adopt printer era, non-reflowable documents to eBook readers will most likely never work well unless the eBook reader is so big as to no longer be portable or comfortable to hold while reading, or the standard size for PDFs is substantially reduced and/or the orientation changed from portrait to landscape. Bottomline in my opinion is that a text only PDF read on an eBook reader that can reflow the text is an okay, but slow, experience. Large PDFs that contain tables and charts that cannot be easily reflowed will never look right on an eBook reader with a screen much smaller than the page size specified in the PDF file. So scientific journals and papers and college textbooks typically do not lend themselves well to eBook readers. Last edited by jswinden; 03-28-2010 at 11:44 AM.