What do you say when asked what page you're on?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

Jeanie

I guess you're just more willing to compromise than I am. Zooming is ok depending on how it's implemented but I find it useless on the Kindle without reflow and most text in PDFs reflow quite poorly.

Mike...

Compromise beats doing without. Eventually, someone will come out with something that will meet my needs without driving me bankrupt.

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

...PS You should update your personal settings to show what ereader(s) you have...

Done. I've been both too lazy and I'm still really evaluating the two.

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

...I had to assume when you first replied that you read the PDFs on a PC screen

Actually, I do that too. I have my 32" TV patched into the HDI output on my computer (video, no audio; I get my audio from a separate sound system patched into the multi channel audio output on my computer). I can read regular e-books using calibre's built in reader or read my scanned books from Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard (I already had it) while laying on my bed. I can also do so while comfortably kicked back in my chair by viewing on my 22" monitor. I set the pages to be continuous without the space to avoid a jump to the next page if I should scroll too far down the page. This way the scrolls are smooth and continuous. I use the scroll wheel on a wireless mouse I keep on my night stand by my bed. My computer can also can play music for me while I'm reading. Reading PDFs from the computer is a breeze.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

Can I ask why? How does your paper book tell you how long it will take to finish? These days I know I'll never finish a book if it has more than 350 pages so I just don't start them.

Because I do not like to stop reading the final part of a book so I want to know that I can finish the book before I have to sleep. If i cannot finish it I will read something else or do something else than reading.

I guess with a paper book it's easy to see if you're half way through etc but my Kindle also tells me when I'm 50% through (or 25%, 75% ...). I don't see any difference. What other method would you propose?

But you also need the total length like you have in a paper book.

As I have said repeatedly. Total length plus current position (might be given in percentage but a position is better).

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

Perhaps it depends on the PDF concerned and how well you prepare it. I found the text is too small and too grey in portrait mode and I just couldn't adjust personally to reading in landscape mode. I suppose more accurately I could read the text but I didn't want to. Obviously I can read PDFs perfectly on the larger screen of my PC but that wasn't what I was saying.

I make PDFs that are formatted for my ereader's screen and they are extremely readable and formatted exactly as intended. In a reverse of the above, they would not be as readable on any other type of screen.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by tompe

Because I do not like to stop reading the final part of a book so I want to know that I can finish the book before I have to sleep. If i cannot finish it I will read something else or do something else than reading.

But you also need the total length like you have in a paper book.

As I have said repeatedly. Total length plus current position (might be given in percentage but a position is better).

And, with both ebooks & pbooks I've been confounded in estimating this due to a significant amount of 'advertising' at the end. (Sometimes it's appendices, but sometimes I want to read those. What's fooled me, most often, are the 20-page 'intros' to another book. I've often (well, maybe not *often* but more frequently than occasionally) put a book down because I estimated I had another hour's worth of reading to finish it-and discovered when I picked it up that I finished the actual book in 5 minutes.

So, whatever method is used it should relate, IMO, to the 'story' rather than the entire book. (I tend to think percentage is best as it covers, in a single statistic, both where you are & how much is left. But it fails to give you an idea of how long a book is before you start it-and the mention that it doesn't correlate well to time is also apropos, except for those who keep track of their time & therefore realize that it took them, for example, 2 hours to reach the 40% mark so they should have another 3 hours to go to finish the book.)

[emonti8384]

That's easy-no one ever asks me! I don't know anyone else that reads so everyone else could care less lol