Can any Ebook reader justify PDF documents?

balboa baggins · 09-27-2010, 06:12 AM

Hi,

I just bought a Kindle and it was my intention to put on it technical (IT) books to study in my free moments on the underground and also the cross stepper at the gym. Much to my disappointment it does not justify text in pdf documents, and magnifying it makes only a few words readable at a time before you have to move it, which is entirely contrary to the point of having an easy portable reader. I have also tried using Calibre and Mobipocket creator to convert the PDFs, but the text becomes garbled and I lose the pictures (important in a technical manual). Is there any Ebook reader which can justify PDFs? If there is I will buy one.

Thanks Dudes.

Dulin's Books · 09-27-2010, 12:30 PM

much of it depends on the pdf itself and whether it can be reflowed or only zoomed. PocketBook does both very well with most PDFs. Some PDFs can only be zoomed. However the new PocketBook models due in a couple of weeks will reflow the pics in line with the relowed text- something no other ereaders do for now.

GeoffC · 09-27-2010, 01:00 PM

balboa baggins

Welcome to mobileread ....

Elfwreck · 09-27-2010, 01:04 PM

Ebook readers generally can't justify the text in PDFs, and how much they can do with them (reflow or zoom) depends a lot on how the PDF was made. A Kindle DX might work, depending on the size of text in the original, and whether you need color.

If you need to read letter-sized PDFs, your best option is probably either a netbook or tablet like the iPad, which doesn't need to resize them to make them readable. The other option is to convert to something like HTML or RTF, and then reformat the converted document to ungarble it & re-arrange the pictures.

jamesd-ie · 09-27-2010, 02:50 PM

Hi,

It would be worth giving PaperCrop: http://code.google.com/p/papercrop/ a go. It crops your PDFs into smaller chunks, divides up columns etc.
It has a lot of presets for different types of documents.

If any of the technical books you bought have are from SitePoint you can redownload them as mobi format which is used on the Kindle. Some other technical publishers may offer their books in epub format but you should be able to convert these using Calibre into mobi format.

901hw · 09-30-2010, 04:11 AM

What does justify pdfs mean??
Anyway the pdf support is the reason why i sent my kindle back and just got a sony prs 650. Due to the variuos pdf reflow and zoom functions, for example seeing a page cut up into 4 parts which is very handy or the option to remove the margins in pdfs I can easily read all my technical pdfs that I have tried up to now (physics books and papers). However I am used to reading all my A4/letter sized documents on A5 paper so I dont mind if the characters are a bit smaller.

balboa baggins · 09-30-2010, 08:52 AM

thanks guys. I think i will have to give up on the kindle and go back to printing my pdfs to paper.

TommyT · 10-03-2010, 03:26 AM

I think you are talking about PDF reflow - that is if you make text larger, it reflows it and does not just zoom in. Depending on a PDF, Sonys can do that. I think the old foxit was able to do that too.

As a rule, my sony 650 can reflow published (ie not scanned) one-column pdfs pretty well (with some weird page breaks from time to time which is not a big deal really).

citac · 10-03-2010, 09:19 AM

I think if you want the text to be justified, you will have to do it in Word or Acrobat Professional if you don't have an editable version of the document. Otherwise, if it's reflow you need, then what TommyT said is right.

Latinandgreek · 10-03-2010, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TommyT

I think you are talking about PDF reflow - that is if you make text larger, it reflows it and does not just zoom in. Depending on a PDF, Sonys can do that. I think the old foxit was able to do that too.

As a rule, my sony 650 can reflow published (ie not scanned) one-column pdfs pretty well (with some weird page breaks from time to time which is not a big deal really).

My Sony PRS-505 (and I imagine the 650 as well) can actually reflow scanned PDFs as well, if they are scanned with OCR.

09-27-2010, 06:12 AM	#1
balboa baggins Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Kindle 3	Can any Ebook reader justify PDF documents? Hi, I just bought a Kindle and it was my intention to put on it technical (IT) books to study in my free moments on the underground and also the cross stepper at the gym. Much to my disappointment it does not justify text in pdf documents, and magnifying it makes only a few words readable at a time before you have to move it, which is entirely contrary to the point of having an easy portable reader. I have also tried using Calibre and Mobipocket creator to convert the PDFs, but the text becomes garbled and I lose the pictures (important in a technical manual). Is there any Ebook reader which can justify PDFs? If there is I will buy one. Thanks Dudes.

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09-27-2010, 12:30 PM	#2
Dulin's Books Wizard Posts: 2,806 Karma: 13500000 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Portland, OR Device: Boox PB360 etc etc etc	much of it depends on the pdf itself and whether it can be reflowed or only zoomed. PocketBook does both very well with most PDFs. Some PDFs can only be zoomed. However the new PocketBook models due in a couple of weeks will reflow the pics in line with the relowed text- something no other ereaders do for now.

09-27-2010, 01:00 PM	#3
GeoffC Chocolate Grasshopper ... Posts: 27,599 Karma: 20821184 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Scotland Device: Muse HD , Cybook Gen3 , Pocketbook 302 (Black) , Nexus 10: wife has PW	balboa baggins Welcome to mobileread ....

09-27-2010, 01:04 PM	#4
Elfwreck Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,187 Karma: 25133758 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)	Ebook readers generally can't justify the text in PDFs, and how much they can do with them (reflow or zoom) depends a lot on how the PDF was made. A Kindle DX might work, depending on the size of text in the original, and whether you need color. If you need to read letter-sized PDFs, your best option is probably either a netbook or tablet like the iPad, which doesn't need to resize them to make them readable. The other option is to convert to something like HTML or RTF, and then reformat the converted document to ungarble it & re-arrange the pictures.

09-27-2010, 02:50 PM	#5
jamesd-ie Junior Member Posts: 9 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Dublin,Ireland Device: Archos A70	Hi, It would be worth giving PaperCrop: http://code.google.com/p/papercrop/ a go. It crops your PDFs into smaller chunks, divides up columns etc. It has a lot of presets for different types of documents. If any of the technical books you bought have are from SitePoint you can redownload them as mobi format which is used on the Kindle. Some other technical publishers may offer their books in epub format but you should be able to convert these using Calibre into mobi format.

09-30-2010, 04:11 AM	#6
901hw Connoisseur Posts: 54 Karma: 2178 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: germany Device: Trekstor Pyrus Mini, PB Touch Lux 2, Onxy Boox C67ML (maybe))	What does justify pdfs mean?? Anyway the pdf support is the reason why i sent my kindle back and just got a sony prs 650. Due to the variuos pdf reflow and zoom functions, for example seeing a page cut up into 4 parts which is very handy or the option to remove the margins in pdfs I can easily read all my technical pdfs that I have tried up to now (physics books and papers). However I am used to reading all my A4/letter sized documents on A5 paper so I dont mind if the characters are a bit smaller.

09-30-2010, 08:52 AM	#7
balboa baggins Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Kindle 3	thanks guys. I think i will have to give up on the kindle and go back to printing my pdfs to paper.

10-03-2010, 03:26 AM	#8
TommyT Member Posts: 12 Karma: 3448 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Sony PRS-650	I think you are talking about PDF reflow - that is if you make text larger, it reflows it and does not just zoom in. Depending on a PDF, Sonys can do that. I think the old foxit was able to do that too. As a rule, my sony 650 can reflow published (ie not scanned) one-column pdfs pretty well (with some weird page breaks from time to time which is not a big deal really).

10-03-2010, 09:19 AM	#9
citac Fanatic Posts: 556 Karma: 1020204 Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina Device: Lenovo Yoga Tab 2 (Android)	I think if you want the text to be justified, you will have to do it in Word or Acrobat Professional if you don't have an editable version of the document. Otherwise, if it's reflow you need, then what TommyT said is right.

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