Reading PhD theses with formulae, figures and tables

[=X=]

@MrPopNFresh
Yes things can get confusing. Let me see if I can explain it.

Most PDF -> LRF tools found here create LRF by first turning all the pages in a PDF into an image then enhance the image(crop the margins, bolden the fonts) and optimize the image size for the SONY 500/505/700 device.
The font increase (what you call zoom) still works but because the whole page, including fonts, are now images there is no visible change. Again that is because the fonts are now images.

There is one tool pdf2lrf in calibre that keeps the text ASCII but it loses the format. For single column text only PDF the result is not bad. For slightly complicated PDF the results are awful. One note the output here looks very similar to how the sony reflow.


soPDF. This tool just removes the margins from the PDF, so the final product is still a PDF. So font increase/zoom still works.

=X=

[MrPopNFresh]

Originally Posted by =X=

@MrPopNFresh
Yes things can get confusing. Let me see if I can explain it.

Most PDF -> LRF tools found here create LRF by first turning all the pages in a PDF into an image then enhance the image(crop the margins, bolden the fonts) and optimize the image size for the SONY 500/505/700 device.
The font increase (what you call zoom) still works but because the whole page, including fonts, are now images there is no visible change. Again that is because the fonts are now images.

There is one tool pdf2lrf in calibre that keeps the text ASCII but it loses the format. For single column text only PDF the result is not bad. For slightly complicated PDF the results are awful. One note the output here looks very similar to how the sony reflow.


soPDF. This tool just removes the margins from the PDF, so the final product is still a PDF. So font increase/zoom still works.

=X=

Thank you, things are starting to seem a little clearer now... so the 505 *can* increase the font of proper digitally-created PDF (ie one where pdftotext would return the text stream), it just reflows it around unzoomed figures/images and loses formating?

Edit:So if that's the case, most people prefer the conversion programs here because it doesn't destroy formatting but makes the PDF more legible than just viewing a 8.5x11 page on a 3.5x4.5 screen?

[theguru]

Thank you, things are starting to seem a little clearer now... so the 505 *can* increase the font of proper digitally-created PDF (ie one where pdftotext would return the text stream), it just reflows it around unzoomed figures/images and loses formating?

the reflow feature of sony reader is not good. Also while reflowing it ignores the page rotation.

[theguru]

Originally Posted by soilwork

As theguru pointed out, image-based LRF does not support zoom any more.
However, I prefer image-base LRF over PDF, since
1) LRF is faster than PDF, and
2) I rarely need zoom feature.
So, I think it is up to your preference.

I could not try soPDF since I don't have enough hard drive space to install required software (visual studio) but it sounds like a good idea. You can try both conversion methods and copy the results on a SD card and test them in Sony store.

soPdf does not require visual studio to run. It is required only if you want to compile the sources.

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by theguru

soPdf does not require visual studio to run. It is required only if you want to compile the sources.

Thanks for the clarification, but I got messages like
'The application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect.' even after VC runtime is installed. So I assumed that I may need VC to run it. Hmm... maybe there is something else wrong with my computer...

[theguru]

Originally Posted by soilwork

Thanks for the clarification, but I got messages like
'The application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect.' even after VC runtime is installed. So I assumed that I may need VC to run it. Hmm... maybe there is something else wrong with my computer...

Are you sure that you installed the runtime for VC 2008?

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by theguru

Are you sure that you installed the runtime for VC 2008?

Ah, that solved the problem. Previously, I installed an older version of VC runtime since it was the first item Google found for 'Visual studio runtime'.

Thanks for the help.