Scanned PDFs on Sony PRS-700

[alrumich]

I wonder if somebody could help me here. I am a grad student and want to get some digital reader for my readings. The problem is that most of my stuff is in scanned PDFs (i.e. a picture with OCRed text beneath it; or just picture, in case when the text cannot be OCRed). As far as I can understand the best option for this kind of PDFs is iRex readers, but they are way too expensive and iLiad Book Edition, which I considered, is out of stock everywhere. PRS-700 is said to have a native support for PDFs as well, plus touch screen for navigation, search and annotation. I have read tons of reviews of these devices but could not really find a definite answer to my question concerning PRS-700, so I wonder if anyone could do me a favor and test the attached file on their readers and post some pictures of the outcome. I do realize that most likely PRS-700 is to be used in the landscape mode, which is fine with me (I have been using Q1 Ultra for reading PDFs; it is pretty good for this purpose BTW).

What I need to know is whether the text is:
[1] readable, and
[2] can be searched and
[3] annotated.

Thanks a lot in advance,
Maxim

Addendum: I tried to check it myself in one of Borders, but it turned out that I cannot just stick an SDcard into a reader and open a PDF file; one needs a computer and Sony software to transfer PDFs to an SDcard via the Reader [frustrated...]

[dordale]

alrumich--

You don't have to use the Sony software to move your file to the SD card. The reader should scan the card when it's inserted or the reader is turned on and automatically see it. Not sure why that didn't work for you. Maybe the display model you were looking at had some issues.

Have you tried downloading the Sony software from their website and then displaying your document in it? That should give you a rough idea of how it would appear on the reader.

dordale

[alrumich]

Originally Posted by dordale

alrumich--

You don't have to use the Sony software to move your file to the SD card. The reader should scan the card when it's inserted or the reader is turned on and automatically see it. Not sure why that didn't work for you. Maybe the display model you were looking at had some issues.

Have you tried downloading the Sony software from their website and then displaying your document in it? That should give you a rough idea of how it would appear on the reader.

dordale

Yeah, their readers seem to be inoperable, because everyone can play with them, but there is no way to reset them, since they are "clad in iron". Anyways, it did not work for me.

Thanks for your suggestion to check Sony's software. It looks Ok in it, but still, I would like to see it on an actual device; I do not really want to spend $350 and figure out that it does not work for me.

[DDHarriman]

Hi

I do not have the 700, and thus I can just advise you about the reading experience, as the 505 (the one I have) has a very similar one to the 700 (besides the better screen contrast, etc…)

Crop the white margins (you can find in the forums solutions free and payed to do this), crop as much as you can, if you can live with it crop even the header and the page number, then read the text in landscape - the Sony lets you see the full, page in 2 halves, and the reading is quite acceptable.

Best regards,

[Silverexpress]

Curious OP,

Have you considered a netbook? For $250, you can get to view pdf's in color with a 1.6 ghz intel atom, wifi, 160 gb hd, BT, and either XP or Liniux. Free is the Adobe reader you can download from Acrobat.

I opted for the PRS-700 myself, but I gave up a lot for ultimate portability. The 700 renders very slowly. Zoom settings are not retained from page to page, and it is slow on high resolution pdfs with a lot of images.

If I were you, I'd wait for a touch screen netbook....coming soon.

I transfer pdfs directly to an 8gb SDHC card. I find going thru the Sony via usb cable a bit slow.

(I just realized what a Q1 was. Why do you want a PRS700 when you've got that thing? With this in mind, would you please elaborate?)

[alrumich]

Originally Posted by Silverexpress

Curious OP,

Have you considered a netbook? For $250, you can get to view pdf's in color with a 1.6 ghz intel atom, wifi, 160 gb hd, BT, and either XP or Liniux. Free is the Adobe reader you can download from Acrobat.

I opted for the PRS-700 myself, but I gave up a lot for ultimate portability. The 700 renders very slowly. Zoom settings are not retained from page to page, and it is slow on high resolution pdfs with a lot of images.

If I were you, I'd wait for a touch screen netbook....coming soon.

I transfer pdfs directly to an 8gb SDHC card. I find going thru the Sony via usb cable a bit slow.

(I just realized what a Q1 was. Why do you want a PRS700 when you've got that thing? With this in mind, would you please elaborate?)

Thanks a lot for advice, but I actually have a tablet PC (HP Pavilion tx2500) and UMPC (Samsung q1 ultra), which I use for for reading PDFs. Both are pretty good and I do not think I need another computer. Yet I was considering a dedicated device with long battery life, and without LCD screen. What I need to know now is the answers to my questions

[Silverexpress]

Questions:
What I need to know is whether the text is:
[1] readable, and
[2] can be searched and
[3] annotated.


Answers:
[1] Yes (it will appear small, but you can zoom or set the Font to a larger size)
[2] Yes
[3] Yes

What I did was click on the link of the file in your posting, and when Windows XP asked what to do with it I downloaded it directly to the reader's SD card.

Win XP see's the readers flash drives as external HDDs.

[alrumich]

Originally Posted by Silverexpress

Questions:
What I need to know is whether the text is:
[1] readable, and
[2] can be searched and
[3] annotated.


Answers:
[1] Yes (it will appear small, but you can zoom or set the Font to a larger size)
[2] Yes
[3] Yes

What I did was click on the link of the file in your posting, and when Windows XP asked what to do with it I downloaded it directly to the reader's SD card.

Win XP see's the readers flash drives as external HDDs.

Dear Jose,

Thank you very much for your answers (I apologize if the tone of my previous made you feel uncomfortable). I had a chance to test one of PRS-700 yesterday in another Borders store and, frankly speaking, was very nicely impressed with the outcome. I am totally fine with the quality of picture it gives. After all, even when printed, these PDFs are not of the finest quality. Besides, as I mentioned, reading in the landscape mode, half a page at a time, is also not a problem for me. Moreover, the device itself is very very nice.

Thanks again

[Pangolyn]

Originally Posted by alrumich

Addendum: I tried to check it myself in one of Borders, but it turned out that I cannot just stick an SDcard into a reader and open a PDF file; one needs a computer and Sony software to transfer PDFs to an SDcard via the Reader [frustrated...]

I didn't find that to be the case. In fact, the reason I settled on the Sony Reader was because I went to Target with a PDF of a game guide on an SD card and it was rendered beautifully. I've heard that there is demo firmware on some of the demo machines, so this may not work on all machines. It definitely works on the PRS505 in Target.

[Pangolyn]

Originally Posted by Silverexpress

I transfer pdfs directly to an 8gb SDHC card. I find going thru the Sony via usb cable a bit slow.

I agree about PDFs and SD through USB and the Reader. Unfortunately, that's the only way I've found to store the correct metadata for the file on the machine. If I have a big file to copy then I start Calibre and go watch TV.

[Pangolyn]

Originally Posted by DDHarriman

Crop the white margins (you can find in the forums solutions free and payed to do this), crop as much as you can, if you can live with it crop even the header and the page number, then read the text in landscape - the Sony lets you see the full, page in 2 halves, and the reading is quite acceptable.

If you use a Mac then the preview program built-in to the OS does a great job of trimming the whitespace. It is important to do on larger PDFs. I also read them in landscape for the same reason. I also convert some to B&W because PDFs with colored backgrounds (game guides) are very difficult to read with 8 shades of gray.

[alrumich]

Originally Posted by DDHarriman

Hi

I do not have the 700, and thus I can just advise you about the reading experience, as the 505 (the one I have) has a very similar one to the 700 (besides the better screen contrast, etc…)

Crop the white margins (you can find in the forums solutions free and payed to do this), crop as much as you can, if you can live with it crop even the header and the page number, then read the text in landscape - the Sony lets you see the full, page in 2 halves, and the reading is quite acceptable.

Best regards,

Thanks a lot for your advice. Cropping white margins is really necessary thing to do. I found two solutions, one is ABBYY Finreader (I use it to scan articles) allows to crop pages manually, but quite quickly. There is also ImageConverter Plus, which can automatically crop white margins of images, however, if there are any black specks, even as small as one pixel, it will stop at it, instead of cutting of the entire white block (it was not very clear, was it?). Of course, Acrobat Pro also cuts off white margins, but, unfortunately for me, it does not do it with scanned images (and that is what I need the most). If you have any alternative methods, I will really appreciate if you share.

[alrumich]

Originally Posted by Silverexpress

Curious OP,
(I just realized what a Q1 was. Why do you want a PRS700 when you've got that thing? With this in mind, would you please elaborate?)

Q1 Ultra is a very nice device, but I would like a longer battery life and I really like e-paper displays. I think I will be using both - Q1 seems better for annotating... I can't think of anything else right now, so if you have any specific questions, let me know.

[alrumich]

Originally Posted by Pangolyn

If you use a Mac then the preview program built-in to the OS does a great job of trimming the whitespace. It is important to do on larger PDFs. I also read them in landscape for the same reason. I also convert some to B&W because PDFs with colored backgrounds (game guides) are very difficult to read with 8 shades of gray.

We have plenty of Macs on campus, so I can use them when necessary. But, does it crop white margins of scanned PDFs? Can you crop margins of a PDF which I have attached to the post?

UPDATE: I tried it out - no luck; it does not crop white margins automatically, only with set parameters, i.e. if margins of scanned pages are different you may very likely cut off some text.

[Pangolyn]

Originally Posted by alrumich

UPDATE: I tried it out - no luck; it does not crop white margins automatically, only with set parameters, i.e. if margins of scanned pages are different you may very likely cut off some text.

Yeah, it's not automatic, but it makes a significant difference on some PDFs, especially ones that have printing marks on them--those sometimes have 1/2 of their total area as white space.

Have you tried putting the SD card in the 505 readers at local Targets?