Sony Reader Guide for creating optimized PDF content - Exclusive Preview

[Puffball]

Sony have seen the light in another area, too. Their latest MiniDisc Walkman, the MZ-RH1, can be used to extract ATRAC files from MDs and save them in other formats like mp3. Until now, MD has been a closed system, with no way of getting music data out except by making an analogue copy. Sony's MD management software was especially restrictive and hogtied by DRM considerations. No longer. Mind you, MD is on the way out and maybe they'e belatedly giving MD owners a way to switch to another format!

But I think Sony are beginning to realize that people want flexibility and are reluctant to buy gadgets which depend on proprietary formats. I must say I was surprised and gratified to find that the Reader accepts plain text, RTF and PDF. It's just a pity you can't use it as an external drive and have to use Connect (which I reckon must have been written in a hurry and is seriously deficient in features).

[yvanleterrible]

BTW That kid we sent to find a metric ajustable wrench found one! It was written 14mm on the shaft for the maximum opening size. He got the last laugh!

[llasram]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Hence I agree with llasram. We should figure out the exact usable screensize for our purposes.

Ask and ye shall receive: 88.184x113.854mm -- kind of. If we believe the Sony documentation, the pixels are 151x153um rectangles. After much hair-pulling and shouting "how is that possible!" I figured out that the current version of the Reader software is configured with identical horizontal and vertical dot pitch. It thus treats the pixels as 151x151um squares. So the usable screen area is actually 115.362 physical millimeters, but only 113.854 "logical" millimeters.

The attach PDFs each contain two pages filled with lines -- the first horizontal and the second vertical. Each line is 302um thick and separated by 302um of space from the next line. When the PDF page size exactly matches the rendered screen size, each line and blank space occupies exactly 2 pixels. The PDF for a 584x754 pixel display renders correctly, while the ones which stretch 1 pixel farther in either direction show scaling artifacts. Hence 88.184x113.854mm.

Enjoy!

[RWood]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

BTW sorry about the wescott name. It's a generic brand here for an ajustable wrench or ajustable 'spanner' for our 'over pond' friends.

OK, we also call that a "Monkey Wrench" in parts of the US.

[NormB]

Somewhere in the past I was researching the background of the adjustable wrench and as I remember it was originally designed by an Englishman named "Monke"; hence the name monkey.

[NatCh]

I've always called them 'crescent' wrenches.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by llasram

Ask and ye shall receive: 88.184x113.854mm -- kind of. Enjoy!

Excellent. Thank you!

[astra]

I followed instructions in the pdf file on the first page of this topic and I made a nice pdf from doc. I call this doc file also a valid doc file because I could turn it into RTF that the reader can read.
Then I decided to convert another PDF into sony pdf. First of all I converted pdf into doc then proceed as in a previous example. However, something is wrong with doc file that I get after convertion. I also cannot make RTF file from this doc. Connect would not transfer it to reader, it would hang. When I try to set margins in Word for this doc(as described in the instruction and worked for a valid doc file) it says that the margings I set up are too close to something or too small I don't remember. I call this doc file - invalid file, and I think the problem lies within PDF->DOC convertion. I have used different applications for it. I think it is not a problem. Just this pdf file is a bit odd.
My question is, whether I can edit in Word this invalid doc file so, that I can make a nice pdf?
Please do not suggest BD and similar application that loose text formatting during conversion, i.e. they convert PDF into simple TXT before they make another file. TXT loses any rich text formatting like italic styles.
So, I would like to edit in Word the invalid doc file which manges to retain all the nicities of PDF.
Is it possible?

Gosh, I hope I explained myself clear enough...

[RWood]

ABBYY Fine Reader and ABBYY PDF Transformer are two programs that retain formatting very well. I often use ABC Amber PDF Converter from www.processtext.com because the original PDF was based on a letter or A4 size and the Sony Reader screen is somewhat smaller. I will then edit the document in MS Word or OpenOffice (or even Notepad) depending on the final use of the text.

[astra]

Originally Posted by RWood

ABBYY Fine Reader and ABBYY PDF Transformer are two programs that retain formatting very well. I often use ABC Amber PDF Converter from www.processtext.com because the original PDF was based on a letter or A4 size and the Sony Reader screen is somewhat smaller. I will then edit the document in MS Word or OpenOffice (or even Notepad) depending on the final use of the text.

Tried both ABBYY Fine Reader and ABBYY PDF Transformer. They produce this weird doc file that I cannot format accordingly to instructions to make sony pdf or cannot make a valid RTF as I usually do it, i.e. select all, open Word pad, paste, check that it is Arial, Western then save. I cannot say it is the only pdf file that I have this problem with. I had a few other pdfs as well. Something happens during converting. On PC it looks perfect. However, some errors or unusual formatting occurs and I thought maybe someone knows what sort of formatting I can do in MS Word in order to repair it.

P.S. it is not a problem of my PC, I have tried it on another PC, the same results.

[Cheryllion]

Originally Posted by Puffball

If people haven't already got a copy, I can recommend OpenOffice.org, and not just for creating PDFs.

Hi! I've been using OpenOffice to create a PDF for my Reader and am having some good results (I just measured my screen and used those exact measurements to create my page). This may seem like a silly question, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to change the "author" from my name (which must be entered automatically somewhere, but I can't figure out where) to the actual author (in this case, Mark Twain)

Also, I set up the document to the correct size and used 10-pt fonts to start with. On the Reader, when I up-size to "Medium" the text actually looks smaller ("Large" does get bigger). Have you had this problem?

[dreams]

Welcome to MR, Cheryllion.

This thread hasn't be posted to for 3 years. If you are looking to read Mark Twain books or any books that are Public Domain, our MR Library, feedbooks, manybooks, and Project Gutenburg has them all for free and already formatted for your Reader. Just download lrf or epub formats. Here is a link to the Mark Twain available here on MR.

[bamboozled]

This guide has been the best for getting my docs to my new PRS-300. Using MS Word or OOo writer and Bullzip (instead of Acrobat). Works like a charm.

[pinenut]

Originally Posted by bamboozled

This guide has been the best for getting my docs to my new PRS-300. Using MS Word or OOo writer and Bullzip (instead of Acrobat). Works like a charm.

Thank you for sharing the info about Bullzip.
When you use Bullzip, what paper size do you select?

[roger64]

Originally Posted by Cheryllion

Hi! I've been using OpenOffice to create a PDF for my Reader and am having some good results (I just measured my screen and used those exact measurements to create my page). This may seem like a silly question, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to change the "author" from my name (which must be entered automatically somewhere, but I can't figure out where) to the actual author (in this case, Mark Twain)

Also, I set up the document to the correct size and used 10-pt fonts to start with. On the Reader, when I up-size to "Medium" the text actually looks smaller ("Large" does get bigger). Have you had this problem?

OpenOffice does not allow you to change all metadata. As you remarked, it keeps your name, even if it's about Mark Twain's book. There are a number of small programs that can do that for you; BECYPDFMeta edit is one of them.
http://www.becyhome.de/becypdfmetaed...iption_eng.htm
Works also for Linux using Wine.

I use a 12 pt font for good viewing resultats (Times New Roman). Of course, it also depends of your choice of font. For an epub, i also add an "interligne" of 120% (sorry English word missing here), which means about 22 lines in a page.