Newbie question, native pdf support ?

[massyah]

Hi everyone !

I'm considering a prs-505, now that it's available in France.

I'd like to have a streamlined way to upload books to the reader, but since I'm on Mac, I understood that only Calibre and USB disk like interfaces are available.

Calibre will be fine (I think !) for drm'ed files sold on fnac, but does not work well with my pdfs. The generated LRF looses most interesting content (e.g. formulae and diagrams... ).

So, I'd like to know if:
I can drag drop directly some pdf's files on the reader
OR if I need to convert them to lrf first ?

Second - related question-, do you think that any of these 2 pdfs are well formatted for the sony ? If you could just load them natively and tell me if they are readable.

http://www.labri.fr/perso/soueidan/landscape.pdf
and / or
http://www.labri.fr/perso/soueidan/portrait.pdf

If you're interested, I'd gladly send you the python script I've used to "tile" a4 formatted pdf on two half-pages.


Thanks a lot !
Sam.

[pilotbob]

Sure you can certainly use Finder to just copy stuff over. Assuming the PDF has no DRM. If it is Secure Adobe protected you will need to activate the device to your Adobe ID and that can only be done on a Windows machine.

BOb

[=X=]

The portrait was not readable. The landscape was however, if your script could get rid of the margin maybe the PDF would look acceptable. (Note flip the Landscape 180 the other)

What is wired is even the reflow did not work on the PDF.


You might also want to look at PDFRead or PDFLRF which turn the PDF to images while preserving the layout.
=X=

[massyah]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Sure you can certainly use Finder to just copy stuff over. ...
BOb

Thanks ! I always feel the need to triple check such basic features

Originally Posted by =X=

The portrait was not readable. The landscape was however, if your script could get rid of the margin maybe the PDF would look acceptable. (Note flip the Landscape 180 the other)

What is wired is even the reflow did not work on the PDF.

Thanks for helping me on this one. I've changed my script and reuploaded two new versions. Would you mind checking if the portrait one is still undreadable ?
Furthermore, the portrait one should be compatible with the reflow feature, how does it go ?
And finally (promise, that's my last one ), I've read that the prs-505 can switch to landscape mode by holding the zoom button for 5 seconds, does it render the portait file readable ?

Originally Posted by =X=

You might also want to look at PDFRead or PDFLRF which turn the PDF to images while preserving the layout.
=X=

Unfortunately, I'm on a mac, so there's no way to run PDFLRF. Furthermore, I need to upload pdf to the sony on the move by using various computers. Thus I can't assume that PDFRead dependancies hold.

That's the reason behind my small script, it doesn't use any external library (it's built with pypdf, a self contained hand made pdf parser). And it's definitely faster, since it doesn't rasterize the pdf.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by massyah

If you're interested, I'd gladly send you the python script I've used to "tile" a4 formatted pdf on two half-pages.

I WANT IT!!

The PDF looks great! There is still some problems with the top/bottom margins but the PDF is very readable.

Note since the SONY reader can toggle between landscape and portrait there is no need for a landscape PDF.

Also the text reflow does not work. You might need to set a Cropbox to be within the MediaBox. I believe PDF reflow uses the Cropbox as a way to text reflow. In my limited experience removing margins from PDF, I usually modify the CropBox value.


=X=