Kindle and formats clarification

[maciek_j]

Hi all,

I am just considering a purchase of an e-book reader and started by digging on this forum. I chose Kindle 3 because of: 1) a price, 2) 3G/wifi 3) I am Amazon customer anyway.
However, I find contrary or ambiguous information about formats conversion, which is crucial to me, cause I have a lot of technical books in PDF format.
Some of you write: "use calibre, and it works perfectly!" whereas others say: "forget about calibre, go through three conversion in a row, fiddle hard and you might end up with crap anyway"
So my question is: what can I expect? Will I have to scroll back and forth (because lack of reflow) which would make the PDF unreadable? I presume it happens only to PDFs, and then I will be able to reflow after conversion to mobi, right? What is the rate of PDFs that convert painlessly? Will I be able to change font size? Will I loose tables / pictures ?

I am that close to buying Kindle, but the PDF issue is the last thing that holds me back, so I will very much appreciate your help.

Moreover I might want to read free epubs; as far as I have learned here that works pretty well - true?

Thank you very much,
Maciek

[desertgrandma]

Welcome to MobileRead, maciek_j

Everyone has their opinions about pdf's and epub......I use Mobipocket Creator to convert pdf's , then import to Calibre.......super fast, actually, I like the results better, however, if the book is really badly done to begin with, nothing will help.

If the epub is drm free, Calibre will convert it easily.

Its a great program, a wonderful book organizing tool, and you can use it to email any book to your K.

Good luck with your choice.

[JaneD]

Well the kindle does not read epub. Again, you'd have to do a conversion. It's easy with calibre, but it sounds like you're not so hot on conversions.

I have not had good luck reading PDFs on my k3. The type is way too tiny. On the DX it was a different issue: the screen is so large that the PDFs worked out ok. For example, I would read PDFs of scripts on my DX with no problem, but on the K3 it's just too tiny to read. This is just my experience though, and I'm sure some others will be able to give their perspective.

If you are reading primarily text-based PDFs, Amazon will do a free conversion for you. You email the PDF to your Kindle email account, with the word CONVERT in the subject line, and it'll convert to azw format (readable by the kindle). This has worked well for me with text-only PDFs, but it can get wonky if there are columns or any other "fancy" formatting. (As in my scripts example: it would just destroy the tabbing & spacing and make it unreadable.)

Honestly, few of the ereaders work well with PDFs. You're probably better off getting an iPad (I know, $300 more, but it's true). JMHO.

[desertgrandma]

The Kindle DX, on the other hand, reads pdf's beautifully.

I've seen the SIL's textbooks and am amazed at the clarity of the pictures, and the nice formatting...

[tomsem]

I've pretty much given up on converting PDFs for my K3. In less time than it takes me to convert it, load it on my Kindle and see how well it works (which for me is 'not often'), I can crop the headers/footers/margins and read it directly.

I suspect cropping also can help out with conversion. One of the issues you can run into is failure of the conversion tool to ignore headers and footers, or failure of the PDF author to add tags to define the proper reading order, so you wind up with page numbers and headings inline with text, text out of sequence, etc.. Calibre has some sort of header/footer detection but it hasn't worked well for me and I've been too impatient to tweak it so as to work better on particular files. TOCs tend to get garbled as well. I'm no perfectionist, but it bugs me enough that I'd rather use the original PDF and deal with Kindle's PDF viewing limitations.

The K3's contrast adjustment is helpful in making small text more readable, and I can read most PDFs in portrait orientation. When that is still too small, landscape usually works well enough.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

The Kindle DX, on the other hand, reads pdf's beautifully.

I've seen the SIL's textbooks and am amazed at the clarity of the pictures, and the nice formatting...

No 6" E-Book Reader can display PDFs in a good way (that means: papers and other technical documents).

Go with a Kindle DX Graphite and you will be fine.

[ziegl027]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I've pretty much given up on converting PDFs for my K3. In less time than it takes me to convert it, load it on my Kindle and see how well it works (which for me is 'not often'), I can crop the headers/footers/margins and read it directly.

What do you use to crop them with?

[maciek_j]

Firstly, many thanks for your answers. I appreciate your help very much, but unfortunately don’t understand everything, probably because I have never had a reader and am new to this subject.
Just to make sure: I understand that either PDF on K3 screen fills up the whole screen (which makes it tiny) or after enlarging in has to be scrolled from left to right and back, which makes it very inconvenient to read, right?
Secondly: what is the difference between ‘genuine’ mobi, and mobi obtained from pdf? As I understand: they are both convenient to read on K3 (they reflow), but one converted from PDF might loose tables and figures, right? Anything else?

Thirdly….

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Welcome to MobileRead, maciek_j
Everyone has their opinions about pdf's and epub......I use Mobipocket Creator to convert pdf's , then import to Calibre.......super fast, actually, I like the results better, however, if the book is really badly done to begin with, nothing will help.

Do you refer to epub, PDF, or both?

Originally Posted by JaneD

I have not had good luck reading PDFs on my k3. The type is way too tiny. On the DX it was a different issue: the screen is so large that the PDFs worked out ok. For example, I would read PDFs of scripts on my DX with no problem, but on the K3 it's just too tiny to read.

What do you mean by 'too tiny'? If you are able to convert to native format (like mobi), then words should reflow and there should be no problem of screen size, no?

Originally Posted by tomsem

I've pretty much given up on converting PDFs for my K3. In less time than it takes me to convert it, load it on my Kindle and see how well it works (which for me is 'not often'), I can crop the headers/footers/margins and read it directly.

By directly you mean native Kindles way? So, in that case you might be forced to scroll left and right ?
And, yes, it's interesting, how do you crop it?

Originally Posted by joblack

Go with a Kindle DX Graphite and you will be fine.

Well, I think that next year I will buy a tablet anyway. I suspect there will be loads of them on the market and prices will fall. So, that will be a ‘full size reader’. Because of that I prefer to get a portable device now; one with e-Ink for eyes convenience, long battery life, etc. Moreover I reckon that 3G and wifi are super, and as far as I know DX doesn’t have both.
So, I would prefer sticking to K3.

[JeremyR]

Originally Posted by maciek_j

Just to make sure: I understand that either PDF on K3 screen fills up the whole screen (which makes it tiny) or after enlarging in has to be scrolled from left to right and back, which makes it very inconvenient to read, right?

That's correct.

Originally Posted by maciek_j

Secondly: what is the difference between ‘genuine’ mobi, and mobi obtained from pdf? As I understand: they are both convenient to read on K3 (they reflow), but one converted from PDF might loose tables and figures, right? Anything else?

I am not an expert on this, I have mostly tried converting PDFs of old pulp stories from a old pulp site that has them presented in their original magazine format.

Or in other words, the PDFs are in two columns of text (along with illustrations).

At least for me, when I try to use Calibre, it sort of just pushes the two columns of text together, making it unreadable.

On the other hand, Mobipocket Creator Publisher Edition (which is free from www.mobipocket.com) will do a pretty decent job of separating the columns, but you still lose some of the formatting.

It's readable, but it's not as nice looking as a mobi made from a plain text file, for instance, where it will look just like a novel.

But with one made from a pdf, you you might
have a
dropped line like this.

O
r maybe something like that.

Really, since all the software is free, try it yourself and see the results. Download the Mobipocket Creator

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/Downloa...ilsCreator.asp

And then Kindle PC (or the Kindle Emulator) from Amazon (I don't have the page for that handy)

[HarryT]

PDF was never intended to be an ebook format. A PDF file is a "digital image" of a specific printed page, and generally speaking will not convert well into any other format. PDF is a "terminal format" - ie, a format that you convert something else TO, rather than convert FROM.

[farleylai]

1. conversion from PDF to MOBI works fine only when the pdf contains only simple text and figures. Math formulas and tables are not preferable.

2. cropping pdfs with briss or something else usually gives you acceptable results under landscape mode.

3. installing Duokan provides complement PDF viewing features such as TOC, reflow, intelligent layout, etc. You can try it out.

[FF2]

" Originally Posted by maciek_j View Post
Just to make sure: I understand that either PDF on K3 screen fills up the whole screen (which makes it tiny) or after enlarging in has to be scrolled from left to right and back, which makes it very inconvenient to read, right?"

Actually, since adobe's pdf viewer does not FLOW, even reading certain pdf files on my computer is not always easy - scrolling left to right and up/down if it was in columns and getting the zoom right. I go after every product manual I purchase in pdf format but they are not always easy to navigate on my computer.

Harry: "PDF was never intended to be an ebook format. A PDF file is a "digital image" of a specific printed page, and generally speaking will not convert well into any other format. PDF is a "terminal format" - ie, a format that you convert something else TO, rather than convert FROM."

Righto. I've got pdf files in every conceivable dimension in those manuals I mention. They are no made for computer viewing. I've moved a few to my k3 with very mixed results. Obviously, pdf books (non-tech, few images) might be a bit easier to handle.

[JaneD]

Originally Posted by maciek_j

Firstly, many thanks for your answers. I appreciate your help very much, but unfortunately don’t understand everything, probably because I have never had a reader and am new to this subject.
Just to make sure: I understand that either PDF on K3 screen fills up the whole screen (which makes it tiny) or after enlarging in has to be scrolled from left to right and back, which makes it very inconvenient to read, right?
Secondly: what is the difference between ‘genuine’ mobi, and mobi obtained from pdf? As I understand: they are both convenient to read on K3 (they reflow), but one converted from PDF might loose tables and figures, right? Anything else?

Thirdly….


Do you refer to epub, PDF, or both?




What do you mean by 'too tiny'? If you are able to convert to native format (like mobi), then words should reflow and there should be no problem of screen size, no?




By directly you mean native Kindles way? So, in that case you might be forced to scroll left and right ?
And, yes, it's interesting, how do you crop it?


Well, I think that next year I will buy a tablet anyway. I suspect there will be loads of them on the market and prices will fall. So, that will be a ‘full size reader’. Because of that I prefer to get a portable device now; one with e-Ink for eyes convenience, long battery life, etc. Moreover I reckon that 3G and wifi are super, and as far as I know DX doesn’t have both.
So, I would prefer sticking to K3.

I mean that when I put a PDF on the kindle 3 with no conversion, the print's too tiny. If I do a conversion to mobi I can read it fine, it's just that PDFs won't always convert properly.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JaneD

I mean that when I put a PDF on the kindle 3 with no conversion, the print's too tiny.

That will of course depend on the PDF. It the PDF has been created specifically for the 6" screen size of the Kindle, then it will display absolutely fine. Unfortunately the overwhelming majority of PDFs that one encounters have been created for a much larger page size.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by ziegl027

What do you use to crop them with?

I use Acrobat, but there are plenty of other, free tools that can handle this task as well, if not even more efficiently.

But since I'm using Acrobat, I usually also take the opportunity to clean up the metadata (which is often just junk) and make sure the page numbers shown on each page match the PDF page number tags that are used by the viewer to reference pages and navigate with (they sometimes don't, particularly with PDFs of books which use different numbering sequences for different parts of the book, e.g. roman numerals to number preface pages etc.). So that if the TOC or index says something is on page 43, you can tell Kindle to Go To page '43' and wind up on the right page.

Note that disparity in PDF page labels reflects the PDF author's lack of attention to detail, and there's nothing Kindle or any other PDF viewer can or should do to correct it. However since Kindle does not (yet) support PDF links it is more important that the PDF page labels be 'correct' than it would be if you could just click on a link and go to the right place.