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Old 11-02-2008, 07:50 AM   #1
ktakeda
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Reading PhD theses with formulae, figures and tables

Hi,
I'm seriously wanting to get a PR-505 in the UK. As an engineering lecturer my main job for it would be to read PhD, MSc and undergraduate theses.

These are A4 page format, containing equations, figures and tables. They are typically 100-300 pages each, so an e-book would be perfect to allow me to read these when on the road, and save me lugging them to and from home without breaking my back.

They are usually submitted as PDFs. So my question is:

- Can I reflow technical PDFs to be really readable on a PR-505?

I am willing to pay for software to do this. I already have Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection CS4, but haven't delved into it for this application.

Many thanks,
Dr Kenji Takeda
www.ktakeda.net
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Old 11-02-2008, 08:20 AM   #2
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Unfortunately, none of the 6" eink devices are going to be good enough for you. You'll most likely want to get an iRex iLiad or an iRex DR1000S. You'll want the larger screens.
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Old 11-02-2008, 11:08 AM   #3
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Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
Unfortunately, none of the 6" eink devices are going to be good enough for you. You'll most likely want to get an iRex iLiad or an iRex DR1000S. You'll want the larger screens.
Hi Jon,
Thanks for that. Just been looking at the iRex products, particularly the iLiad They look great but are rather expensive. I already have a Toshiba M700 Tablet PC (12.1" rotatable screen) that I use for reading these PDFs, but it is heavy, has poor battery life and the screen isn't nearly as nice as an e-book.

Do you think any of the PDF reflow software make these A4 documents readably on a small Sony screen? I would be able to live with using it in landscape mode.

Also, do you think the iLiad (8.1" screen) would be fine?

Thanks,
Kenji
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Old 11-02-2008, 11:29 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ktakeda View Post
Do you think any of the PDF reflow software make these A4 documents readably on a small Sony screen? I would be able to live with using it in landscape mode.
I think you can download the most recent Sony software and DE to see how these would look. Make sure to size the window down to the physical Sony screen size.

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Old 11-02-2008, 11:49 AM   #5
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I think you can download the most recent Sony software and DE to see how these would look. Make sure to size the window down to the physical Sony screen size.BOb
Hi,
Yeah, I've been reading about those but not sure if they'll really work! Don't really want to spend £200 just to find out.

If anyone has a few minutes, be VERY grateful if you could try out the following test PDF (868kb) on a PRS-505 (or iLiad!) and take a photo to show how it renders. Either raw, or after processing through some funky software

http://www.soton.ac.uk/~ktakeda/temp/ebooktest.pdf

MANY thanks,
Kenji
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Old 11-02-2008, 12:20 PM   #6
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Hi,
Yeah, I've been reading about those but not sure if they'll really work! Don't really want to spend £200 just to find out.
I'm sorry, what? That software is free for the d/l?

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Old 11-02-2008, 03:10 PM   #7
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I'm sorry, what? That software is free for the d/l?

BOb
Hi,
I read that the Sony software now allows PDF reflow.

Cheers,
Kenji
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Old 11-02-2008, 03:18 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ktakeda View Post
Hi,
Yeah, I've been reading about those but not sure if they'll really work! Don't really want to spend £200 just to find out.

If anyone has a few minutes, be VERY grateful if you could try out the following test PDF (868kb) on a PRS-505 (or iLiad!) and take a photo to show how it renders. Either raw, or after processing through some funky software

http://www.soton.ac.uk/~ktakeda/temp/ebooktest.pdf

MANY thanks,
Kenji
If I get a chance later this evening I'll try it on my 505
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Old 11-02-2008, 05:42 PM   #9
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Will upload pics in a mo - but a text overview first

You'll be fine if you are long-sighted or have good glasses... the pages look fine on the default size, but the text is a little small.

Zooming in the text and images look fine, but the equation on the first page becomes utter gibberish - it's all clumped up into one squashed-spider looking mess.

I need to process the pics first - I shoot RAW on a fairly beefy DSLR, and the file sizes are, um, large...
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Old 11-02-2008, 06:40 PM   #10
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Pics of the first page - I got a couple of the images as well, but no zoomed in ones of the chart.

Normal zoom:

First level zoom:

Second level zoom:
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Old 11-02-2008, 07:48 PM   #11
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Hi,
That's really interesting. The first zoom level, with correct equations. looks pretty okay. I have a 12.1" Tablet PC, so have tried viewing the PDF in full-screen landscape mode and ti comes out around 6" high, so I think I get a feel for the font size.

Is it possible to remove the white margins at all? That would improve it.

Be interested to see how the other two pages come out with embedded images.

I now have to decide between the affordable Sony, bigger iLiad, and largest but probably easiest for reading iRex DR 1000!

Thanks, you're really helping me decide - I think
Kenji
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Old 11-02-2008, 07:54 PM   #12
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Glad to help!

I have no idea if it's possible to play around with the margins - this is just the PDF directly plonked onto my 505

I didn't get pics of the last page at zoom levels, but page two, with the pics (again, normal, first level, second level zooms):

The image is OK, but it screws up the annotations.



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Old 11-02-2008, 08:52 PM   #13
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Thanks for taking the time and care doing those. Looks like it does a reasonable job out of the box for those PDFs. Be grateful if you might be able to post a higher-res version of page 1 or 2 at deault zoom, so I can actually read the text to get a better feel for it. It seems to capture all of the equations and fancy formatting in that view well.

The 8" screen on the iliad looks better (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ight=pdf+iliad), but it costs twice as much!!! Decisions, decisions.....

Thanks again for doing that. I guess my final question is:

Would you buy a PRS-505 to read those PDF files I sent?

Thanks again,
Kenji
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Old 11-02-2008, 09:03 PM   #14
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I'll get higher res files up tomorrow

If you have the right tools to edit PDFs with you might be able to do something with the margins - Creative Suite has whatever Acrobat Writer is called these days in it?

If PDFs like that were the only sort of thing, or the majority of what I was going to read on it, I think I'd seriously consider paying the extra and getting the iliad. However, if cost was an issue, and I was going to read other stuff as well, then I might go with the 505. The larger screen does have an advantage for this sort of thing though.

Two caveats: I used to read technical documents on my N800, which was far from ideal. And I'm a bit long sighted and as a result find smaller text easier to read than larger text.
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Old 11-02-2008, 09:06 PM   #15
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Tech books

I have both the iRex and Sony 505. I try to read tech papers/books on iRex because of the screen size but sometimes I carry only Sony with me. I run my papers/books through pdflrfwin (used to be in this forum, google it), it does great job removing white spaces and making everything looking better on the reader.

I'm sure you can read your docs on the reader without a problem.
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