k2pdfopt: optimizes PDFs for viewing on e-readers

[brainvision]

thanks mate!!

I still haven't try the options you suggested me, but I want to thank you anyway! Even if these options will not output a perfect result, I have to say that you are very kind!
I like that, I appreciate that!

Have a nice day, now let's try it..
see you!

[rgn]

I have a similar issue with the -n parameter where the Kindle becomes horribly slow with occasional crashes when reading a document. The reason I'm experimenting with -n is because I want to be able to highlight documents. The source PDF is text and not bitmap so OCR should not be necessary, right?

I also noticed that with -n the font on Kindle is much smoother which I'd prefer, but right now it's impossible to read the documents because of the slowness.

Regardless of the shortcomings k2pdfopt is a huge improvement over PDF to mobi conversion or reading PDFs as is on Kindle. Cheers.

[dgvirtual]

Hi, is there a way for k2pdfocr to ignore the dark vertical strip in the middle of the page that you usually get when you scan a book?

Here is an example page, the strip gets attached to one of the pages... testpage.pdf

[willus]

Originally Posted by dgvirtual

Hi, is there a way for k2pdfocr to ignore the dark vertical strip in the middle of the page that you usually get when you scan a book?

Here is an example page, the strip gets attached to one of the pages... Attachment 102909

Yes, there's a way. You use the -grid option to create a temporary PDF file which has one page per page, and then do a second pass on that file. See post #324.

[willus]

Originally Posted by rgn

I have a similar issue with the -n parameter where the Kindle becomes horribly slow with occasional crashes when reading a document. The reason I'm experimenting with -n is because I want to be able to highlight documents. The source PDF is text and not bitmap so OCR should not be necessary, right?

I also noticed that with -n the font on Kindle is much smoother which I'd prefer, but right now it's impossible to read the documents because of the slowness.

Regardless of the shortcomings k2pdfopt is a huge improvement over PDF to mobi conversion or reading PDFs as is on Kindle. Cheers.

Try using the -mode fw option instead of just -n. See my native PDF help page.

[rgn]

Originally Posted by willus

Try using the -mode fw option instead of just -n. See my native PDF help page.

I got the other PDF output nicely. Thanks.

What do you think is the problem with this one?

http://imgur.com/a/0sW2e

[willus]

Originally Posted by rgn

I got the other PDF output nicely. Thanks.

What do you think is the problem with this one?

http://imgur.com/a/0sW2e

Set the crop margins to zero (use -m 0). They default to 0.25 inches in case the source PDF is from a scanned or photocopied book and has some black around the edges, but in your case, it's causing your source text to get clipped. I'll probably change that default to zero in the next release. It confuses too many people.

[dgvirtual]

Originally Posted by willus

Yes, there's a way. You use the -grid option to create a temporary PDF file which has one page per page, and then do a second pass on that file. See post #324.

Thanks man! Seems to work, just need to play a little with settings.

Hopefully, the final question: is there a way to run k2pdfopt in a completely non-interactive mode? I see there is -x prameter, but it cuts out just the second necessary step... I want to use k2pdf in a KDE Dolphin as a servicemenu, so I either need to get it to run in a non-interactive mode completely, or for it to launch a shell...

[willus]

Originally Posted by dgvirtual

Thanks man! Seems to work, just need to play a little with settings.

Hopefully, the final question: is there a way to run k2pdfopt in a completely non-interactive mode? I see there is -x prameter, but it cuts out just the second necessary step... I want to use k2pdf in a KDE Dolphin as a servicemenu, so I either need to get it to run in a non-interactive mode completely, or for it to launch a shell...

I think the option you want is -ui- (turn off user menu).

[rgn]

Getting segfaults with a specific PDF and with certain parameters the segfaults happen much earlier in the processing. Let me know what I can do if you want to look into this.

SOURCE PAGE 433 of 439 (6.0 x 9.0 in) ... [1]    67429 segmentation fault  ./k2pdfopt -f2p -bp -dev k2 -x -ui-  -o miwftm.pdf

SOURCE PAGE 3 (3 of 20) (6.0 x 9.0 in) ... [1]    67850 segmentation fault  ./k2pdfopt -p 1-20 -dev k2 -x -ui-  -o miwftm.pdf

SOURCE PAGE 3 of 439 (6.0 x 9.0 in) ... [1]    67843 segmentation fault  ./k2pdfopt -mt 1.0 -mb 1.0 -dev k2 -x -ui-  -o miwftm.pdf

k2pdfopt v1.64a (w/MuPDF,DjVuLibre,OCR) (c) 2013, GPLv3, http://willus.com
    Compiled Jan  5 2013 with Gnu C v4.2.1 for OS/X on i386.

[willus]

Originally Posted by rgn

Getting segfaults with a specific PDF and with certain parameters the segfaults happen much earlier in the processing. Let me know what I can do if you want to look into this.

SOURCE PAGE 433 of 439 (6.0 x 9.0 in) ... [1]    67429 segmentation fault  ./k2pdfopt -f2p -bp -dev k2 -x -ui-  -o miwftm.pdf

SOURCE PAGE 3 (3 of 20) (6.0 x 9.0 in) ... [1]    67850 segmentation fault  ./k2pdfopt -p 1-20 -dev k2 -x -ui-  -o miwftm.pdf

SOURCE PAGE 3 of 439 (6.0 x 9.0 in) ... [1]    67843 segmentation fault  ./k2pdfopt -mt 1.0 -mb 1.0 -dev k2 -x -ui-  -o miwftm.pdf

k2pdfopt v1.64a (w/MuPDF,DjVuLibre,OCR) (c) 2013, GPLv3, http://willus.com
    Compiled Jan  5 2013 with Gnu C v4.2.1 for OS/X on i386.

[Hmmm...I thought I had posted a reply to this, but now it's not there.] On the source file pages where k2pdfopt is crashing, do any of them have largely blank regions? If so, that's a known issue and has been fixed for the next release. If you can post the source files causing the seg faults, I'll see if I can replicate them.

[rgn]

Yeah, it seems that the pages being blank has something to do with the crashes. But weirdly just adding -p 1-20 can make it crash while it would run fine without the parameter (until crashing later at page 433 which was blank).

[lumocolor]

Hey Willus, thanks for making this very useful program.

Right now, I am trying to make a book readable on my kindle 4. I've played around with the settings quite a bit, but am unable to do it. If someone wants to take a look and try to help me, here is the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lamafvwn13...%20example.pdf

[willus]

Originally Posted by lumocolor

Right now, I am trying to make a book readable on my kindle 4. I've played around with the settings quite a bit, but am unable to do it. If someone wants to take a look and try to help me, here is the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lamafvwn13...%20example.pdf

Your PDF example looks pretty clean / straightforward. What are the issues with the conversion? Do you want the text re-flowed? What options have you tried?

Update: Since your book goes right to the edges, you'll need to specify -m 0 so that k2pdfopt doesn't crop away some of the text. If you want re-flow, that should work reasonably well. If you want OCR along with re-flow, add -ocr t (you'll want to set up tesseract). If you can read the book without re-flowing it, you may prefer using -mode fw (see my native PDF help page).

[monkey1d]

Hey, firstly let me thank you for this amazing program.I use - ws 0.01 -dpi 300 -gtc 0 -gtc 0 -gtw 0 to convert test.pdf.The result is test_k2opt.pdf.But i feel the word spacing and line spacing is too large on my kindle4,thus a waste of space.In order to make smaller word spacing and line spacing,what command should i use?What do you think is the perfect command for test.pdf on kindle4 ?thanks.