PRS doing well with pdfs?

[Strykor]

Hello,
I wanted to ask how good the sony prs does with pdf documents and which of those is the best in handling them. Thanks in advance.

[Latinandgreek]

Hello Strykor! I often read PDFs on my 505, and I find that it handles them very well. However, the PDFs that I read are mostly text-based PDFs with very little pictures or graphs. The PRS 600 and 900 (I'm not sure about the 700, I haven't looked into it) probably handle PDFs better, as they have a real zoom feature, not just the text reflow (text enlargement), and in addition the 900 has a larger screen. I haven't seen the 900 in person, but there are video reviews on youtube that you can have a look at if you are interested to see how it manages PDFs. Also, the 600 and 900 have a feature that lets you mark up the text, which you may find useful, and I believe (don't quote me on this one) that you can click on the words in text based PDFs to read their dictionary entry.

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.

[s3ntient]

Originally Posted by Latinandgreek

[...] and I believe (don't quote me on this one) that you can click on the words in text based PDFs to read their dictionary entry.

Sorry for quoting you, but in actual fact it depends on how the PDF was made. If you created the PDF using LaTeX then the dictionary doesn't work, this is also the case for books you download from sites that let you download "custom PDFs" (feedbooks, etc) since they most likely use LaTeX to create the files on the fly.

If you use Adobe then the dictionary will work without issues.

[Mike_73]

As a short answer, I'd say yes, pdfs work pretty well on the 600.
Text only pdfs can be reflowed to different preset sizes so that the font gets bigger.
If you have a mix of text and graphics (even pdfs made out of pictures), you can zoom in and pan around.
I had the 505 before and I tend to (maybe absolutely) say that the 600 with its zoom capability handles pdfs soooo much better.

[Geppetto]

I agree. I read A5 size PDFs on landscape mode without zooming or reflowing.

[Meine]

resizing the font size tends to make sentences break on the screen. At least in most of my pdf's if I go from S>M or S>L the sentence flows till the end of the screen and starts again on the next row with a hard enter then following at the point where the original sentence stopped before the next one starts.
Just to show how it looks like:

Original display form in small:
This is a test text to show you how the
text in a pdf behaves when using a sony
prs-600 reader.

In medium or large you get something like this:
This is a test text to show
you how the
text in a pdf behaves when
using a sony
prs-600 reader.

I do need to note that I also had a few pdf files that did reflow the text in a natural way when enlarging the font.
This is a test text to show
you how the text in a pdf
behaves when using a sony
prs-600 reader.

The manual zoom is quite nice when viewing images and graphs in pdf's and works quite fluent as well so that is most likely a big plus.

[Mike_73]

The zoom is absolutely a big plus. Using pdfs with graphics and charts and the like was not as much fun on the 505.
As for linebreaks I admit it can sometimes be a little confusing. But usually I get it and I don't bother too much about it.

So far I think the 600 gives the most bang for the buck when it comes to pdfs.

[Bltprf502]

My 300 does great with PDF's... I may be returning my 900 because the 300 suits my needs as well or better.