pdf formatting

[Ron46]

Since there are no font or other formatting options with JBL, I have been creating pdfs, BUT the formatting on the reader is very inconsistent. One page will have a small font, another a larger font, then back to smaller font etc. Also the margin sizes vary. I have experimented with several page sizes and margin settings and always get inconsistent results.

If I look at any of these generated pdfs on my computer with Acrobat, they look fine. The inconsistency does not seem to be in the file, but in the JBL's interpretation of the file and in it's display. Any solutions?

PDFs were my last hope of having ANY formatting control whatever on this reader, and even that seems to fail. I bought 3 Jetbook Lites (2 gifts) after an initial evaluation of my own with the expectation that bugs would be eventually weeded out. I am beginning to really regret my unfounded trust.

[jblitereader]

What are you talking about? If your file is in any format other than pdf, you have 6 font options. Don't use pdf, dude. If you have control over those files, use something else like html, text, prc, or something else. PDF is about the worst ebook format for an ereader.

[GhostHawk]

Totally agree with livingenzyme.

My prefered format is .rtf, followed by .epub and then straight txt.

PDF's get converted to straight text.

[Ken Maltby]

Right, the JBL is almost as bad as all those paperbacks I used to reject for lack of
formatting and uninspired font choices. You shouldn't put up with that! If you want
to view your books in PDF, then by God, the reader should be able to conform to how
you want it to work!! Consumers of the world, UNITE!

Luck;
Ken

[jblitereader]

For the record, even if you spend $500 on one of those super expensive sony, you're still going to have formatting problem with pdf. Blaming JBL for this is like blaming the dog breed beagle for your dog's habit of pooping on your lawn. Every dog, no matter what breed, will poop.

[Ron46]

Livingenzyme- if you create a pdf file you can use ANY font you want and any other formatting you want. You are not restricted to Arial or Verdana. I have quickly made pdf files that look exactly like a printed book with Times New Roman and single line spacing and they look fine on a computer, so the generated file is correct. In fact, they look like a printed book on the JBL as well, much more so than JBL's native formatting, EXCEPT 1 of of 10 pages that changes the font size. It is the inconsistency I am trying to account for. The device should display the pdf file according to the file contents, not as it pleases. This is a glitch that should be fixed, not ignored because the reader did not cost $500. Furthermore, I do not believe that ALL book readers have inconsistent pdf rendering, just because you say so. Perhaps, but I doubt it.

[Ron46]

What are the 6 font options? My Lite with firmware 15d offers me Arial and Verdana (2 fonts that are sans seriff and nearly identical, so I count them as one).

[Ron46]

GhostHawk - what do you mean pdfs are converted to plain text?

Here are two pictures of my JBL screen. One is plain text the way the JBL displays it- and it displays rtfs and epub files the same way.

The second is a pdf. It has 1. Times New Roman Font (unavailable on JBL) 2. A margin on the left (unavailable on JBL txt, rtf, epub) 3. Single line spacing instead of 1.5x (not settable in JBL txt, rtf, epub). In short, it looks like a real book. To ME, it is a vast improvement. Maybe to some, it doesn't make any difference or they can't see it.

So since you can only control formatting by using a pdf file, it seems to be a good solution. But to go back to my original post, I may read this pdf file for 5 or 10 pages, then all of a sudden I get one page where the font gets bigger and the margin goes away. Then the next page goes back to proper formatting. I guess I did not state this as clearly as needed.

[jblitereader]

Originally Posted by Ron46

Livingenzyme- if you create a pdf file you can use ANY font you want and any other formatting you want. You are not restricted to Arial or Verdana. I have quickly made pdf files that look exactly like a printed book with Times New Roman and single line spacing and they look fine on a computer, so the generated file is correct. In fact, they look like a printed book on the JBL as well, much more so than JBL's native formatting, EXCEPT 1 of of 10 pages that changes the font size. It is the inconsistency I am trying to account for. The device should display the pdf file according to the file contents, not as it pleases. This is a glitch that should be fixed, not ignored because the reader did not cost $500. Furthermore, I do not believe that ALL book readers have inconsistent pdf rendering, just because you say so. Perhaps, but I doubt it.

Ok, so let me get this straight. You're actually bothered by the font style? You have to have such and such font or you can't read it? If this is the case, by all means spend $500 on a unit with more features. I don't mind.

I've only read one thing on jbl with pdf format. It was a short story, so it wasn't long. Even then, I didn't notice the inconsistent font sizes that you said. I'll upload a longer pdf file and see what I'll find. I'll get back to you on this.

The reason we're recommending you against using pdf is because of the format of the page. The screen is small enough. To any normal person, it's more comfortable to read a font bigger than ant size. That's what you can do with the other formats. You have 6 font sizes to choose from. With a pdf file, the only way to make the text bigger is to increase the view size of the entire page. That means that you have to scroll the page right and left and up and down to read. May be you're comfortable with this, but to the rest of us, it's downright annoying.

But again, if you want to spend more money on a unit that you have many font styles to choose from as well as a bigger screen to comfortably read the pdf files, you go right ahead. I don't mind.

Edit.

Can you post a picture of one of these pages when the font size fluctuates?

[mazer]

First of all, hello to the forums. I just got my JBL on Thursday and have been reading non-stop.

Ron46, I'm interested in experimenting with pdf's as well. What program are you using to modify the .pdfs? Is there any free software that would allow this kind of editing? Ideally, I would like to choose a font that I enjoy, justify the text, and have a small margin on the left and right side.

Also, I've heard in other rumblings around the internet (who can remember where) that saving the .pdf to the proper dimensions of the JBL's screen would alleviate formatting problems.

After some experimenting it may become obvious that using .epub is still the way to go, due to being able to easily re-size the text. Then again, a properly justified text with nice margins may be more desirable.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[greenapple]

Originally Posted by Ron46

Since there are no font or other formatting options with JBL, I have been creating pdfs, BUT the formatting on the reader is very inconsistent. One page will have a small font, another a larger font, then back to smaller font etc. Also the margin sizes vary. I have experimented with several page sizes and margin settings and always get inconsistent results.

If I look at any of these generated pdfs on my computer with Acrobat, they look fine. The inconsistency does not seem to be in the file, but in the JBL's interpretation of the file and in it's display. Any solutions?

The font sizes kept changing because jBook tries to resize the PDF to fit the screen, based on some algorithm. The best way to keep font sizes consistent when viewing a PDF file on a jBook is to use the zoom level setting, say at 100%, 200%.

[Ron46]

Mazer- Open Office has a word processor (called Writer) with a save to pdf selection. It is available for free for Windows and for Linux. Open any txt file in Writer and go to format/page and change the page size dimensions to what your reader screen is- something like 3"x5". You have to narrow the margins as well to 0.3" left, 0.2" other three sides (or so). (If you get an error, it is related to your printer driver, so ignore it- you are not going to print it so you don't care about your printer margins.) Then select all and change the font to whatever you want, justify the text etc. and save to pdf. Try it on the reader and tweak as needed. You can get similar results to the photos in my previous post. The benefit of creating the pdf from a page size matching the reader is that you do not have to use any zoom functions to read the text. Most pre-made pdfs are not so good because they are all made from the default 8 1/2 x 11 page size.

I can give you the exact numbers if you want, but I have to go to my other system to get them. This will get you started and a little tweaking is easy- you just have to re-generate the pdf each time till you get it right. Then save the word processor file, delete the text, and just keep re-using it by pasting in new text and save with a new name.

[mazer]

Edit: Thank you, Ron! Here's what I got from Writer using 3" by 4" with .05 margins. Properly justified text, with Andalus font. I even inserted a test image. Looks superb!



I have gone through about 50 pages and don't see any formatting errors. It looks like the JBL isn't trying to use OCR on this file. Only drawback is not having the book title and percentage readout, which I will gladly live without to have a beautifully formatted text!

Interestingly enough I tried something similar with Word 2007 last week and had horribly bad results... Open source software wins another round! /Edit

Awesome Ron, thanks for the information. I guess I'm about to reinstall open office!

If I can't get it to something I like I'll probably ask for your numbers.

By the way, when looking at other pdfs... Some pages were messed up because the JBL looked like it was trying to OCR the text and only getting certain pages or words to convert, which of course throws off the font and everything else. Do you think that is what was going on with your original problem?

Perhaps there is a font that the JBL has no chance of succeeding with OCR. And that would lead to perfect pdfs that would stay as intended.

[jblitereader]

I guess I don't understand the point of what you're doing since I'm a speed reader and couldn't care less what the font is as long as I can read. If it makes you happy to hit the page turn button 10 times more often, I say go for it.

[mazer]

Do you work for Apple? That's the only explanation I can figure that would explain your apparent purposeful distaste of getting a device to do WHAT YOU WANT IT TO DO.

People have different levels of vision. Andalus font at this size makes it easy for me to read at arms length. I have no problem hitting the page turn key more often because it is literally about .1 seconds between refresh, fast enough to finish books like there is no tomorrow.

I find serifs more pleasing to the eye. And just as there are tone deaf people who don't understand why someone would want to listen to good music on an expensive stereo, there are people who can not differentiate between what is clearly in front of them.

I take the Apple thing back, because they are entirely based on aesthetics ,to the point of robbing functionality. You appear to be against both.

Why not just spit in the face of professional publishers everywhere. People get paid to format books so that, when you buy a hardcover, it doesn't look like the garbage you see in many of the ebook files that circulate the internet. Part of that process is selecting a font, and IT MATTERS to some people. Just as you have your opinion about not caring what font you're reading, other people have their opinion of being annoyed by crap-tastic fonts, or worse; bad formatting. Arial and Verdana aren't bad, but I prefer Andalus.

And go ahead and use the JBL to justify a text file... It is horrid. Compare it to the justification from the screen shot.

Just appreciate the fact the JBL actually offers functionality that people want (actually, Open Office does!), namely, the ability to define their own aesthetics. I'll never understand people like yourself with that 'closed source, my way or the highway' attitude.

While you're at it... Ask yourself why other fonts even exist. In your world, Arial would be plastered on every sign, every company logo, every web page, and children would be beaten if their handwriting did not conform exactly to Arial specifications. That is the essence of the argument I am getting from you.