PDF Situation with the current Ereaders

[manchuia]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

iLiad will rotate them and show them 1/2 page at a time zoomed in to remove the margin. Can you live with that? It works well for some documents.

Dale

It's funny the iLiad is close to the perfect device for me except on two fronts:

It's large
It's expensive.

The latter actually ISN'T a real problem (I have spent more than the cost of an Iliad on phones, I have a large "gadget" budget). It's only a problem when put in the context of "will I really use this as much as I hope I will".

I made another thread to address that issue, so I won't take this on too far off course.

Thanks for the replies. Question though.

Why can my 4.1" N800 read / resize PDFs brilliantly while the readers (arguably newer tech) can't I know it's something with resolution but it's not clicking in my head (or maybe I just don't understand the e-ink tech well enough yet).

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by manchuia

Why can my 4.1" N800 read / resize PDFs brilliantly while the readers (arguably newer tech) can't

Part of the answer is that what is "good enough" for PDF display varies from person to person. The other part is that you can't scroll quickly on an E-Ink display (screen update takes too long), so the PDF display mode is typically based on whole screen refreshes and making major (e.g. half page) jumps in the document.

I don't read many PDFs, but the iLiad is a good PDF reader and the same techniques might work well enough on a 6" screen (particularly in landscape orientation). It will be interesting to see how well Adobe Digital Editions does with standard PDFs when it becomes available on the Sony PRS-505.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by manchuia

Why can my 4.1" N800 read / resize PDFs brilliantly while the readers (arguably newer tech) can't I know it's something with resolution but it's not clicking in my head (or maybe I just don't understand the e-ink tech well enough yet).

Because it relies on rapid screen redrawing for zooming and scrolling. eInk displays currently take comething like half a second to refresh the screen, so that approach just doesn't work.

[archerwoo]

it seems that V3 is the best choice for PDF

[leveck]

I am just waiting for my stimulus check to clear before ordering a prs 505. The metal construction clinched it for me...

According to all I've read, this device displays PDFs fine. Caveat: I own a copy of Acrobat Pro 8, and have already converted a few books to "optimum settings" for this device (larger font, smaller page size, small margins, etc.)

Using the settings as published by Sony, how well does this device actually perform with a PDF made especially for it?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by leveck

I am just waiting for my stimulus check to clear before ordering a prs 505. The metal construction clinched it for me...

According to all I've read, this device displays PDFs fine. Caveat: I own a copy of Acrobat Pro 8, and have already converted a few books to "optimum settings" for this device (larger font, smaller page size, small margins, etc.)

Using the settings as published by Sony, how well does this device actually perform with a PDF made especially for it?

Very well. I have read several (8) books from scifi-az.com that were formated this way.

BOb

[ttnl]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Very well. I have read several (8) books from scifi-az.com that were formated this way.

BOb

I have a question about this. Can I reformat an existing PDF file using Adobe 9 Professional to fit it better into the Sony Prs-505? Thanks.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by ttnl

I have a question about this. Can I reformat an existing PDF file using Adobe 9 Professional to fit it better into the Sony Prs-505? Thanks.

Sorry, I don't know the product well enough to answer that question. Is Professional the new Acrobat? If so, I assume you could.

BOb

[BookishDreamer]

Originally Posted by ttnl

I have a question about this. Can I reformat an existing PDF file using Adobe 9 Professional to fit it better into the Sony Prs-505? Thanks.

I don't have version 9 but I have used previous versions (7, 8) to change the size of a pdf. I found an online guide for converting files to fit the Reader, but don't have it bookmarked on my home computer. I'll check my work computer tomorrow.

Essentially, you change the document size to 3.57 by 4.82, margins .25 inches.

Dreamer

[BookishDreamer]

Ah-ha! Search long enough and you find what you seek! I found the instructions for formating PDFs for the Reader.

There's a link to the pdf just under the pictures of the Reader on the Make blog.

Dreamer

[akiburis]

The link on Make is to an older, unrevised version of the Sony PDF creation guide. A link to the revised version can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Reader

Actually, the only difference that I have remarked is that the revised version gives a corrected size for documents formatted to fit the Reader display: 3.47 by 4.54 inches, rather than 3.57 by 4.82 inches. However, this is not trivial--the former works out right, the latter doesn't.

It's also important to realize that it's primarily a guide to creating PDFs for the Reader, not to reformatting existing PDFs. These are different things. Reformatting an existing PDF is quite problematic, and not what this guide is mainly about.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by akiburis

The link on Make is to an older, unrevised version of the Sony PDF creation guide. A link to the revised version can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Reader

Actually, the only actual difference that I have remarked is that the revised version gives a corrected size for documents formatted to fit the Reader display: 3.47 by 4.54 inches, rather than 3.57 by 4.82 inches. However, this is not trivial--the former works out right, the latter doesn't.

It's also important to realize that it's primarily a guide to creating PDFs for the Reader, not to reformatting existing PDFs. These are different things. Reformatting an existing PDF is quite problematic, and not what this guide is mainly about.

While this guide is for the Sony it should work equally well for other devices that read PDF files. The only changes are likely to be for screen sizes and resolutions.

Dale

[BookishDreamer]

Originally Posted by akiburis

The link on Make is to an older, unrevised version of the Sony PDF creation guide. A link to the revised version can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Reader

Actually, the only difference that I have remarked is that the revised version gives a corrected size for documents formatted to fit the Reader display: 3.47 by 4.54 inches, rather than 3.57 by 4.82 inches. However, this is not trivial--the former works out right, the latter doesn't.

It's also important to realize that it's primarily a guide to creating PDFs for the Reader, not to reformatting existing PDFs. These are different things. Reformatting an existing PDF is quite problematic, and not what this guide is mainly about.

Thanks for the updated link and size information. I'll give it a try.

Dreamer

[ttnl]

wow, thank you for all your help. I will receive my Sony prs-505 sometime next week. I will try to reformat the PDFs. Last year I bought a PRS-500 and returned it because I didn't know how to make the PDFs more readable. So, let's wait and see how it turns out this time.

[manchuia]

I would also take a look at calibre. I am on a prs-500 and it's shooting about 50% for accurate conversion of complicated PDFs into a readable format.