k2pdfopt: optimizes PDFs for viewing on e-readers

[willus]

Originally Posted by Lili819

Hi willus, thanks so much for this AWESOME tool!

I love it and am trying to get the pdf to the most comfortable reading view (whereas pre-discovering your program I was simply trying to make the pdf useful).

I'm having trouble changing the size of the body text. I want to keep the pdf in native mode

I tried:
-n -odpi 400 (only the headers changed size)
-mode fw -ls- -odpi 400 (nothing)

Is there something else I should be doing instead?
Thank you!

@Lili819-- Thank you for the kind words. Is the text spanning the full width of your device (it should be)? If it is, and you want to stay in native mode, you can't make it any bigger because you can't re-flow text and stay in native mode. By forcing native mode, you're telling k2pdfopt to fit the text to your device and this is overriding the output dpi setting.

If you still have questions, or if the text isn't filling your device width, then it will help if you post (at least a few pages of) your source PDF document.

[Lili819]

Oh. That's unfortunate- its fitting the width of the device

I'll go try without native mode. Hmmm....
When I run it just normally it of course quarters the doc and makes the text big- but too big.

Do you have any tips for making the document look essentially native, but the text is larger?

Thanks for the quick reply!

[willus]

Originally Posted by Lili819

Oh. That's unfortunate- its fitting the width of the device

I'll go try without native mode. Hmmm....
When I run it just normally it of course quarters the doc and makes the text big- but too big.

Do you have any tips for making the document look essentially native, but the text is larger?

Thanks for the quick reply!

If you're not using native mode, you can use -odpi to adjust the output size, and -dr to improve the display resolution if it looks too grainy, e.g. -dr 2 will double the resolution. You can turn on OCR to recover the ability to search and highlight the text.

[curiouscat]

Thanks for all the help. Only thing now is lines are uneven which makes highlighting messy. redoing file with justification and wrap which should fix it from what I've read

[curiouscat]

Hi, justification and wrap didn't work It now looks correct but when text is highlighted there are these strange gaps. (see screenshot) Any way to get rid of them?

[willus]

Originally Posted by curiouscat

Hi, justification and wrap didn't work It now looks correct but when text is highlighted there are these strange gaps. (see screenshot) Any way to get rid of them?

There's not really a way to get rid of the gaps. They are there because k2pdfopt doesn't use exactly the same font as your document for the internal highlighting, so the aspect ratio of the "invisible" words doesn't exactly match the graphics being displayed, assuming that you used OCR? Or is your output still in native mode?

What do you mean by justification and wrap didn't work? What precise options did you choose? Are you still working on the same sample PDF file that you posted earlier?

[JensW]

Hi everyone,
as promised previously I just released version 2.0.0.0 of my Windows GUI for k2pdfopt. It includes quite a few new functions, including automatic download and installation of Tesseract files and much more.

Check it out on: http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~...pdfoptgui.html


Best regards
Jens

[Lili819]

Originally Posted by willus

If you're not using native mode, you can use -odpi to adjust the output size, and -dr to improve the display resolution if it looks too grainy, e.g. -dr 2 will double the resolution. You can turn on OCR to recover the ability to search and highlight the text.

*sigh*
I attempted to install the Tessaract libraries (which will def be helpful doing my Mandarin studies), but this led to a long, drawn out (still going) process of having to download the latest XCode which requires the latest OSX (which Ive been avoiding the past two years), which requires me to now backup some very large files that I've avoided completing this month.

But if at the end of this ridiculous and unforeseen process I can read the dozens of PDFs and chinese I've got sitting around on my Kindle... :

I'll post an update when its all completed. (Might be a few days :facepalm: )

Originally Posted by JensW

Hi everyone,
as promised previously I just released version 2.0.0.0 of my Windows GUI for k2pdfopt. It includes quite a few new functions, including automatic download and installation of Tesseract files and much more.

Check it out on: http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~...pdfoptgui.html

I'll def be trying this out once the above is completed.

[willus]

Originally Posted by Lili819

*sigh*
I attempted to install the Tessaract libraries (which will def be helpful doing my Mandarin studies), but this led to a long, drawn out (still going) process ...

Read my OCR help page carefully. You do not need to install any Tesseract libraries. Just the language training file(s). The Tesseract code libraries are already compiled into k2pdfopt.

[JensW]

For Mandarin I think you have to take care of which language training files you download since there are several for chinese. I have no idea of this language so I can't help you further, just so you know.

Greetings

[Lili819]

Originally Posted by willus

Read my OCR help page carefully. You do not need to install any Tesseract libraries. Just the language training file(s). The Tesseract code libraries are already compiled into k2pdfopt.

Yea, I saw that, but when it still wasn't working I figured I'd install Tesseract myself. Now I realize its the environment variables that need help. I see for a Windows machine that's no problem to fix, but I'm on OS X and I don't understand the directions I've found online (including the page you most helpfully linked to).

Anyone know how to step by step change env var on OS X? And by Step-by-Step I mean For-Dummies type of instructions


UPDATE:

It works!
If anyone is running OSX and can't figure out how to get the OCR to work, you can simply download RC Environment 1.4 and follow the directions.

Tahnks @willus!

[curiouscat]

Thanks for all the help. Guess you can't have everything but this is still a great tool.

[willus]

Originally Posted by curiouscat

Thanks for all the help. Guess you can't have everything but this is still a great tool.

Were you using native mode in that last example, or OCR?

[curiouscat]

I used OCR

[YaJT]

Its great software , but I have a repeatable crash.

native PDF input
native PDF output selected

the pdf file has blank pages between sections (or they look blank in pdf reader)

if I attempt to process whole file process crashes

if I skip the first blank page [#11] as follows ( -p 1-10,12- ) then it crashes on next blank page [#15]

The log as captured in JenW's GUI (2.0.1.0)

[...]
SOURCE PAGE 15 (14 of ...) (6.6 x 9.6 in) ... 4074 clear rows.
(dm=1, width=1, min_gap=42)

Hope this is enough to help repeat it.
[ Sorry cant post problematic PDF. ]