PDF for Cybook

[Hipopotamo]

Hi to all! I am new in all this of reading devices. I just buy a Cybook Gen3, and as to other users I have some problems with some PDF files.
I tried a lot of solutions posted in this forum, included the PDFRead Conversion, that at the moment is the best.

There is some good final software to convert/transform/crop/cut the PDF files to be readable in Cybook??

Thanks in advance!!!

[Boeboe]

The best solution for pdf files is imo the mobipocket creator software. Give it a try.

[JSWolf]

There is no perfect solution for converting PDF. No program can do it without any errors.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is no perfect solution for converting PDF. No program can do it without any errors.

This is true. However, *some* programs do better than others. Mobipocket Creator does a basic job of it, but exporting from Adobe Acrobat to Word's .doc is a better solution and one can then edit out the crud that exporting leaves behind. I've been experimenting with simply using Acrobat to export, Word to edit and either MobiCreator or BookDesigner to create the mobi versions. Some PDFs are simple to re-format through this process, others require a great deal of editing work. I hope to have a BBQ rubs and marinades PDF re-formatted soon so I can carry it with me to my 'rub factory'.

Derek

[Hipopotamo]

Thanks to all for your replies. I tried with Mobipocket Creator, but it is totally unusefull for PDF's with mathematical formulas and tables of numbers, wich is the kind of pdf files I read. I will keep trying with some other options! If someone gets the right software, please create a Thread to let us know!!!

Today I sent an email to Bookeen camplaining about this issue. It's really not very ethical (and legal) to sell something that it is suppose to do something, and at the end, it does not do it!!!. So I guess if they don't give me some answer, I will complaing in some cunsumer organization of France, if I found one over the internet!

[Vesper]

Originally Posted by Hipopotamo

Thanks to all for your replies. I tried with Mobipocket Creator, but it is totally unusefull for PDF's with mathematical formulas and tables of numbers, wich is the kind of pdf files I read. I will keep trying with some other options! If someone gets the right software, please create a Thread to let us know!!!

The only thing that works more or less successfully, at least for me, is abbyy's pdf transformer (or more or less worked since I've given up on pdfs atm).
But - and it's a big but - if pdf is complicated you have select fields manually and make pictures of formulas. Depending on the number of pages that can be rather tiresome...

DrS

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Hipopotamo

Thanks to all for your replies. I tried with Mobipocket Creator, but it is totally unusefull for PDF's with mathematical formulas and tables of numbers, wich is the kind of pdf files I read. I will keep trying with some other options! If someone gets the right software, please create a Thread to let us know!!!

Today I sent an email to Bookeen camplaining about this issue. It's really not very ethical (and legal) to sell something that it is suppose to do something, and at the end, it does not do it!!!. So I guess if they don't give me some answer, I will complaing in some cunsumer organization of France, if I found one over the internet!

But it does do what it says. It opens PDFs (within it's memory limits). Of course, there is a lack of features in zooming, hyperlinks, etc. but no one said it would open every PDF and display it conveniently for everyone.

The problem with PDFs is they are designed with a particular page and font size. If you try to open a PDF designed for A4 size in a screen which is 9x12cm, you should expect problems, no matter what. It's like displaying a color picture in a b/w screen, or a very detailed diagram in a low resolution TV screen, it just cannot be perfect. Now, PDFs crafted for the Cybook work fine, just like b/W pictures in a b/w screen and low resolution images in TV screens.

I understand your frustration, but it's possible you expected too much (although future firmware versions may include additional options for displaying PDFs). In the meantime, maybe something like pdfcrop is useful?

[DDHarriman]

Hi Hipopotamo

First of all it depends on what the effort and time you want to spend to convert PDF’s into something else the Cybook can represent well.

The best solution is the one who can revert the PDF (any type of it) into individual parts: mainly the text, formatted if possible, and images.

My experience is: think of the PDF as an actual sheet of paper.
To get a digital file as similar as in you would get if what you have in a sheet of paper, as if you had build it in lets say word, the best solution is to use a OCR program.
The market leaders in OCR software are: Finereader Pro 16 and Omnipage Pro 16.

After reverting your documents in, lets say a Word doc file or other format, you can convert it to mobipocket file, and thus read it without a problem in your reader.

Problems: it will take time, sometimes lot, it will cost money (ex: the cost of the OCR software), a bit.

Depending of the sophistication of the PDF file (or lack of) you can get quite good conversion results from Mobipocket Creator and of Mobipocket Reader for the PC import option function.
As the sophistication of format, or images, maps, photos, mathematic formulas, Greek scientific expressions, etc… appear, the quality of the conversion declines fast to a point of being useless.

As I say, I think the OCR program option is the best option, as lets one have control of how the OCR process operates: per example you can mark a part of your PDF with a mathematical expression as a image, the OCR process will not try to convert it and thus will not come out with the normal crap outcome as Mobipocket Creator/Reader does, because it just tries to covert everything to text, loosing formatting and not recognizing most of the letters/numbers and making the result useless.

Other option will be to buy a reader that can show a A4 PDF one can read.
For the crop of readers one can buy today, the unique solution is the Ilead, and that would mean you would have to sell your Cybook and buy new reader… but that is another story.

Bets regards,

[Hipopotamo]

Thanks to all for your replies. They are very helpfull.
Neverless I don't agree that Bookeen sells a product that does what it says. In their web site they don’t specify the PDF limitations, in the specs it is very clear that the PDF is a supported format; I am not a technology expert, so, I have to guess that the PDF files have limitations?. If that were clearly specified I wouldn’t bought the Cybook. Now I can’t change it for some other device, because I am far far away from Europe or USA, and I bought the Cybook in a travel I made to Europe. And at the end, I bought a device that it suppose to read PDF files!, so I don't think that it is me the one who have to change the device, I think they just have to give me a solution.

I think that it is not very creasy to claim for something that it is, in the best of the cases, been treated in a tricky way by Bookeen. Mine while, I will keep trying different options.

Thanks to all!!!!

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Hipopotamo

Thanks to all for your replies. They are very helpfull.
Neverless I don't agree that Bookeen sells a product that does what it says. In their web site they don’t specify the PDF limitations, in the specs it is very clear that the PDF is a supported format; I am not a technology expert, so, I have to guess that the PDF files have limitations?. If that were clearly specified I wouldn’t bought the Cybook. Now I can’t change it for some other device, because I am far far away from Europe or USA, and I bought the Cybook in a travel I made to Europe. And at the end, I bought a device that it suppose to read PDF files!, so I don't think that it is me the one who have to change the device, I think they just have to give me a solution.

I think that it is not very creasy to claim for something that it is, in the best of the cases, been treated in a tricky way by Bookeen. Mine while, I will keep trying different options.

Thanks to all!!!!

Hipopotamo,

Well, I agree that the implementation of PDFs in the Cybook Gen3 is NOT what one would find on a PC, I doubt very much that it is a 'deception'. The Cybook *does* display PDF files. And, were one to export to Word, re-format to a 'custom' 3.5" x 4.75" page (600 x 800 pixels) and then re-create as a PDF file, one would have a perfectly readable-by-the-Cybook PDF file. The limitations of the PDF format are, by no means, a fault of Bookeen.

And there has been enough discussion of the failure of 6"-display e-ink ebook readers to handle USLetter or A4 size PDF files over the past six or more months that even the most cursory search by a potential customer would reveal this flaw. One *has* to do research when one is shopping for an ebook reader; it is going to be a significant purchase and, as with buying a car, the customer cannot expect to make the best decision without doing that research.

Still, most of these solutions are quite do-able on any Windows PC simply by downloading OpenOffice to a USB thumb-drive along with Mobipocket Creator and a PDF editor. So being away from your home PC shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Derek

[Boeboe]

Originally Posted by Hipopotamo

Thanks to all for your replies. They are very helpfull.
Neverless I don't agree that Bookeen sells a product that does what it says. In their web site they don’t specify the PDF limitations, in the specs it is very clear that the PDF is a supported format; I am not a technology expert, so, I have to guess that the PDF files have limitations?. If that were clearly specified I wouldn’t bought the Cybook. Now I can’t change it for some other device

That's the thing: NO other device of this size can display all pdf files correctly (in fact, of all the devices I've tried, the bookeen had the least trouble), simply because of the fact that almost all PDF documents are designed for A4 format, where reflowing text isn't always possible.

You might want to take a look at the iLiad: it's an A4 e-reader and therefore the only e-reader capable of displaying PDF correctly. Disadvantages: because of it's size it's not convenient to take it along with you and it is VERY expensive.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Boeboe

You might want to take a look at the iLiad: it's an A4 e-reader and therefore the only e-reader capable of displaying PDF correctly.

The iLiad most certainly is not an A4 reader. It's not even A5, in fact!

[lordmax]

Hi to all


I'm new here so please be patient with my bad english and my lack of knowledge about past sentences.

For converting pdf in a cybook format I suggest to use the new OpenOffice (3.0 beta) with the PDF extension. It can open pdf and convert them into odf file.
Next you can try http://bookmaker.simplicissimus.it/ that convert a .doc or, better, .odf into a well formatted pdf document for CyBook.
Give it a try.

[Mikeyboards]

Originally Posted by lordmax
For converting pdf in a cybook format I suggest to use the new OpenOffice (3.0 beta) with the PDF extension. It can open pdf and convert them into odf file.
Next you can try [url

http://bookmaker.simplicissimus.it/[/url] that convert a .doc or, better, .odf into a well formatted pdf document for CyBook.
Give it a try.

I just tried using Open Office BetaV3 to open an existing pdf file, after adding the pdf-import extension to the program. But the contents of many or most of the pages are offset to the right once it's been imported.

Same thing when I used Open Office to open an htm file, then save as an odt file, then convert to pdf using the bookmaker site you mentioned. The text in the resulting pdf file is cut off at the right side.

Oh well... Actually, I'm finding Mobipocket Reader (on my PC) does a pretty good job of converting the pdf's to prc's. And then when I put them on my Cybook, they're quite readable. I can resize the fonts and everything. But I'll keep my eye on these discussions; valuable information being shared!

Thanks to everyone for participating!