Better PDF support?

vdp · 10-02-2011, 06:00 AM

Hi everyone,

I have a question regarding the current options for viewing PDFs and technical docs in general on DXG.
I didn't follow this forum closely for several months, and I am not sure if I am up to date with the new developments.
I have a Duokan version from January installed. It mostly works with DJVU and PDF and I really like the options they provide - table of contents, two-column mode for academic papers and so on...
But still, there are plenty of PDFs which require preprocessing/cropping on a PC before I am able to comfortably read them. For example if the document has wide margins around the text, the letters appear tiny, even in landscape mode. And there are others(although not many) where the fonts are simply too small(e.g. if they have figures in the margins) and can't be read comfortably on one DXG screen. Now if the Chinese guys were willing to share their code, perhaps many of the shortcommings of their firmware could have been fixed by now by the community, but obviously they are not planning that (and that's their right of course).
Apart from Duokan, I am still have the original Amazon firmware 2.5.5, with its pathetic support for PDFs and idiotic fixed levels of magnification - clearly not an option for most of the PDFs.

What are you using for reading technical docs in PDF format? Are the new versions of the Amazon's firmware and Duokan significantly improved in this area?

Are you aware of any promising embedded PDF viewers that can be relatively easily ported to Kindle? Do we already know enough in order to interface reliably with the DXG's firmware (framebuffer, special keys ...)? How much work do you estimate will be required to port a PDF viewer to Kindle?

Thanks!

reprep · 10-02-2011, 06:27 AM

I generally use the stock pdf viewer of kindle 3.2.1 on my kindle DXG. The main reason i prefer this over the stock 2.5.8 pdf viewer is the contrast selection. You can increase the black level which makes a lot of pdfs readable. Also you can use the dictionary and take annotations on the 3.2.1 pdf viewer unlike the 2.5.8 one.

I mainly use the duokan pdf viewer for its two column viewer. Also now duokan has a manual pdf crop option which you can specify the margins around the text, and it zooms to the area you specified. This option seems like the answer to your problem (wide margins problem)

But in general duokan seems to not render pdfs (especially the ones with tables and graphics) as good as the stock pdf viewer. So unless i have a specific need for two column view, or the pdf has wide margins i stick to the 3.2.1 pdf viewer.

As far as i know there isn't an alternative pdf viewer except duokan out there. So there isn't much choice for now.

10-02-2011, 06:00 AM	#1
vdp Enthusiast Posts: 45 Karma: 10842 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Kindle DXG	Better PDF support? Hi everyone, I have a question regarding the current options for viewing PDFs and technical docs in general on DXG. I didn't follow this forum closely for several months, and I am not sure if I am up to date with the new developments. I have a Duokan version from January installed. It mostly works with DJVU and PDF and I really like the options they provide - table of contents, two-column mode for academic papers and so on... But still, there are plenty of PDFs which require preprocessing/cropping on a PC before I am able to comfortably read them. For example if the document has wide margins around the text, the letters appear tiny, even in landscape mode. And there are others(although not many) where the fonts are simply too small(e.g. if they have figures in the margins) and can't be read comfortably on one DXG screen. Now if the Chinese guys were willing to share their code, perhaps many of the shortcommings of their firmware could have been fixed by now by the community, but obviously they are not planning that (and that's their right of course). Apart from Duokan, I am still have the original Amazon firmware 2.5.5, with its pathetic support for PDFs and idiotic fixed levels of magnification - clearly not an option for most of the PDFs. What are you using for reading technical docs in PDF format? Are the new versions of the Amazon's firmware and Duokan significantly improved in this area? Are you aware of any promising embedded PDF viewers that can be relatively easily ported to Kindle? Do we already know enough in order to interface reliably with the DXG's firmware (framebuffer, special keys ...)? How much work do you estimate will be required to port a PDF viewer to Kindle? Thanks! Last edited by vdp; 10-02-2011 at 06:17 AM.

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10-02-2011, 06:27 AM	#2
reprep Addict Posts: 202 Karma: 6720 Join Date: May 2011 Device: amazon kindle DXG	I generally use the stock pdf viewer of kindle 3.2.1 on my kindle DXG. The main reason i prefer this over the stock 2.5.8 pdf viewer is the contrast selection. You can increase the black level which makes a lot of pdfs readable. Also you can use the dictionary and take annotations on the 3.2.1 pdf viewer unlike the 2.5.8 one. I mainly use the duokan pdf viewer for its two column viewer. Also now duokan has a manual pdf crop option which you can specify the margins around the text, and it zooms to the area you specified. This option seems like the answer to your problem (wide margins problem) But in general duokan seems to not render pdfs (especially the ones with tables and graphics) as good as the stock pdf viewer. So unless i have a specific need for two column view, or the pdf has wide margins i stick to the 3.2.1 pdf viewer. As far as i know there isn't an alternative pdf viewer except duokan out there. So there isn't much choice for now.

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