Firmware 2.7 is out!!!!!!!!!

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by pdam

... a reason for fitting that square peg in a round hole, for the likes of me, is this ... I have about 150 PDF articles outstanding that I have to read, (and about 400 filed). It is a bit of a pain having to extract the text to RTF then reprint them back to PDF in a different size, but I'm lucky enough to have Acrobat Pro, so have been able to automate this task (which makes it worth doing).

My point is that why are we trying to make PDF work instead of letting content makers know that PDF is not what we want?

[NatCh]

But if the PDF can be made to work without getting fancy with it, then doesn't it meet the criteria of what we want (something cross-platform portable that works without a lot of finagling)?

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by NatCh

But if the PDF can be made to work without getting fancy with it, then doesn't it meet the criteria of what we want (something cross-platform portable that works without a lot of finagling)?

But it can't be made to work 100% of the time without getting fancy with it.

Again, PDF is page layout format - not an eBook format. It was designed to make the document look the same no matter where it's displayed. The moment that you want to put the same PDF on many different-sized devices, you will have to do "something fancy" with it to get it to display nicely on all those devices.

A PDF formatted for an 8x11" page will not be readable on a current eInk device (unless they make the font size huge). To make it display nicely will require alot of finagling.

The only real way to correct the problem is to go back to the "source" used to create the PDF and make a PDF that will display nicely - until you get a different-sized device, in which case that PDF may not display correctly.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Again, PDF is page layout format - not an eBook format. It was designed to make the document look the same no matter where it's displayed.

Perhaps more correctly, PDF originated as a page layout format. As it has become more of a cross-platform standard, and reflow features have been added, it may evolve into something quite suitable for eBooks.

I personally think something like HTML is much better for supporting a wide variety of reading devices, though it too has its limitations. Something in XML would be ideal. But since we have so many documents already in PDF (I too have a stack of journal articles in PDF to read), we need to find good ways to support PDF, if only as legacy content.

[scotty1024]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

A PDF formatted for an 8x11" page will not be readable on a current eInk device (unless they make the font size huge). To make it display nicely will require alot of finagling.

You can argue all you want about 100% and "display nicely".

I'll simply point out that Landscape with margin's removed, rotated, cropped into two pages per? Is a whole lot more readable than Portrait.

Under the theory of "Make the most of what you've got": I'll take it.

[scotty1024]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Perhaps more correctly, PDF originated as a page layout format. As it has become more of a cross-platform standard, and reflow features have been added, it may evolve into something quite suitable for eBooks.

I personally think something like HTML is much better for supporting a wide variety of reading devices, though it too has its limitations. Something in XML would be ideal. But since we have so many documents already in PDF (I too have a stack of journal articles in PDF to read), we need to find good ways to support PDF, if only as legacy content.

For portable reader devices page layout is a good thing. A simple low power device can easily navigate the document, unambiguously grab the page to display, easily raster it onto the display and get back to sleep.

Portable devices that support annotations can easily attach those annotations and can easily insert blank pages as needed.

Marked up documents (HTML/XML) are nothing but an un-ending series of compromises to be made. After all, if the markups were unambiguous it would be a page layout language. What does <strong> mean? How far up the x-box do you move for a super script? Uh, what exactly does page forward mean, how forward is a "page"?

The adjustable font issue of course is where PDF is struggling.

Gemstar understood this. Their pioneering eReader document format was a page layout, but contained two ebooks inside each document. One was laid out using a small font, and the other copy was laid out using a larger font. Both could be read with no compromises forced on either by the other.

[tribble]

It totally disagree and aggree with rlauzon.

He is sooo wrong about PDF not beeing what we want. I really want PDF to work nice and easy. I want to read A4 documents in landscape mode, where i just have to use the flipbar to go through the pages. I want to be able to zoom in on figures and pan around to see more detail.

On the other hand he is sooooo right, because PDF is not at all suited for an ebook format per se at the moment. An ebook format should reflow nicely and have a special pagination format, so that everyone who is reading, has the same sentence on the same page number. It should allow you to choose your font face and font size on the fly. It should allow for images to be embedded and give you a way to see them in detail. Thats all stuff that doesnt work really with Acrobat, but i think they are working on it.

So to sum it up. I want both.
And to say it with iRex' words: iRex Technologies brings you the best of both worlds.
Maybe not now, but hopefully soon. (especially since there is no really good ebook standard anyway)

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Perhaps more correctly, PDF originated as a page layout format. As it has become more of a cross-platform standard, and reflow features have been added, it may evolve into something quite suitable for eBooks.

It may. But it isn't there yet and from the PDFs I've pulled apart, won't be there unless there is a significant change to it.

Speaking about reflowability, I tried a tagged PDF in the reader last night. No reflowing. Other than creating a significantly larger PDF than normal, the tagged PDF did nothing different from a non-tagged PDF.

Addition: I just opened the tagged PDF in Acrobat Reader and *gasp* no reflowing when zooming. Wondering: just what does a tagged PDF do then?

[emkay]

Some pretty good developments in this release from iRex. Well done! Hope you can keep up the pace with future upgrades!

[tribble]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Addition: I just opened the tagged PDF in Acrobat Reader and *gasp* no reflowing when zooming. Wondering: just what does a tagged PDF do then?

When you have a tagged PDF, you have to go to "View -> Reflow" or press Crtl-4

Then you get a reflow.

But i dont know, how to increase the font size.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by tribble

When you have a tagged PDF, you have to go to "View -> Reflow" or press Crtl-4

There is no "View -> Reflow" and Ctrl-4 does nothing. I'm using Adobe Reader 7.0.

Or is reflow only available in the paid version of Acrobat?

[tribble]

I have version 7.0.5 in german and it shows the reflow and does it. Its called "umfließen" in german. And Strg = Ctrl

[kusmi]

Yes, it's even there in the free version for Mac, in English it's called "View -> Reflow".

And changing the font-size is pretty easy (though not 100% obvious :-) ): Select "Reflow" and then just use the zoom buttons in Adobe Reader to increase/decrease the font-size.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by kusmi

Yes, it's even there in the free version for Mac, in English it's called "View -> Reflow".

All I can say is that it's not there in the Linux version. I don't use Microsoft products at home and at work we are still on version 6.0.

But reflowability seems to be a very new feature then.

[jæd]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

All I can say is that it's not there in the Linux version. I don't use Microsoft products at home and at work we are still on version 6.0.

Adobe is part of Microsoft...?