k2pdfopt: optimizes PDFs for viewing on e-readers

[willus]

Originally Posted by mike2003

where is all profile store?
why this so simple app dont use "portable concept"???
i loose all my profile after reinstalling win7

I'm not sure what you mean by "portable concept." The k2pdfopt settings are all stored in K2PDFOPT... environment variables since environment variables are cross-platform, relatively reliable and non-intrusive ways to store settings. So you need only correctly transfer environment variables from your old installation of Windows 7 to your new one.

[willus]

Originally Posted by Smith-Corona

...
So basically I want all the pages cropped as much as they can be with reference to the maximum text width found in the document (with column set to 1). Then to make all the pages that size, and have the font the same size throughout...

@Smith-Corona -- Welcome to MR! Thank you for the post. At this stage, k2pdfopt will not automatically do what you want (I think), i.e. scan the whole document and determine a single set of crop margins that will best encompass every page so that each page remains at the same scale. You can kind of do this manually using the -cbox command-line option, though--you just have to figure out the right values to use with -cbox. e.g.

k2pdfopt -cbox 0.1s,0.1s,0.8s,0.8s -mode fitpage myfile.pdf

... will remove 10% margins around each source page and turn that into the output page, but it will always take the same crop box on each page--it won't determine the optimum position of the crop box on each page to best surround the text, which I think is what you want. I'll add your idea to my wish list, but I can't promise anything right away. It would involve a significant amount of new logic.

Perhaps Briss would be a better option for you since it lets you choose graphically?

[mike2003]

I'm not sure what you mean by "portable concept."

settings store in app folder, not in reg or other places on system disk

[willus]

Originally Posted by Smith-Corona

... I am having trouble understanding how margin settings work.

First of all, I am not sure what "Crop margins" means. To me that suggests, how much would you like to crop the margins by, ie how much would you like to chop off. But the default setting of 0.00 removes the margin altogether, so I guess "Crop margins" refers to the actual margin width? ...

Imagine all pixels in the crop margins being painted white, and you essentially have exactly the effect--that's all k2pdfopt does internally with the crop margin information--it internally paints that area of the source page white. The value used by crop margins thus tells k2pdfopt to ignore that margin area (treat it as white/blank). This doesn't mean that k2pdfopt will automatically remove it from the output--it just means any text or black ink in those margins will be ignored when determining source page regions to put on the output page. Other settings combine with this setting to determine what part of each region actually gets turned into each output page, e.g. what mode is being used. With "-mode fitpage", for example, k2pdfopt automatically trims any blank margins away from the output regions, but with "-mode copy", k2pdfopt preserves the source page size exactly (no trimming).

[willus]

Originally Posted by mike2003

settings store in app folder, not in reg or other places on system disk

There is no chosen "app folder" for k2pdfopt. In fact, I want users to be able to run it directly from their desktop, and I don't wish to clutter the desktop with a .ini file. Besides, this has its drawbacks--it doesn't create unique settings for individual users. The app is also not necessarily guaranteed to have write access to the folder it is running from. For these reasons and various others, I store settings in environment variables. I do not intend to change this in the near future. In any case, there are many, many applications (the majority, I would venture) for which re-installing Windows 7 loses all settings.

PS. I could consider a "save settings" and "import settings" menu selection for the MS Windows GUI. That wouldn't be hard...

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by willus

There is no chosen "app folder" for k2pdfopt. In fact, I want users to be able to run it directly from their desktop, and I don't wish to clutter the desktop with a .ini file. Besides, this has its drawbacks--it doesn't create unique settings for individual users. The app is also not necessarily guaranteed to have write access to the folder it is running from. For these reasons and various others, I store settings in environment variables. I do not intend to change this in the near future. In any case, there are many, many applications (the majority, I would venture) for which re-installing Windows 7 loses all settings.

I would agree but having said that this app folder approach is generally the approach used or for Unix they are usually stored in a file in the users home directory. This is one of the very few apps I have heard of that stores all of it settings in variables. It is not generally expected so I will add this to the wiki page to help users expect this behavior. It could be used to aid portability. How to you get these variables into the users environment in the first place?

Dale

[willus]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

...This is one of the very few apps I have heard of that stores all of it settings in variables. It is not generally expected so I will add this to the wiki page to help users expect this behavior...

Sounds good. Thanks for helping with the wiki page, Dale.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

...How to you get these variables into the users environment in the first place?

Only the MS Windows GUI does this, actually. I use Windows-specific calls (see k2gui_get_settings() and k2gui_save_settings() in k2gui.c, which call environment variable functions in wsys.c). The other platforms expect you to set the K2PDFOPT environment variable per your desired defaults.

I never really thought people would consider it important to save k2pdfopt settings--to me, there aren't that many of them--I can easily enough re-create them from scratch--but I guess if people spend a fair amount of time fine-tuning the settings, this becomes an issue.

[mike2003]

It is bad practice to store data in the registry or in the system drive (for Windows). Many users use the "portable" version of the programs because they do not want to lose all settings because of problems with the OS.

So simple app like k2pdf would be better if given a choice!

[Smith-Corona]

Originally Posted by willus

Perhaps Briss would be a better option for you since it lets you choose graphically?

Yes, I was thinking about using Briss. I liked the idea of k2pdfopt as a kind of one-stop shop and being able to carry out a number of transformations at the one time, including cropping. I'll give Briss a go. When I've tried it before I didn't find it very easy to see what I was doing. I actually found the graphical approach a bit less clear-cut (so to speak) than k2pdfopt.

Smith-Corona

[Smith-Corona]

Originally Posted by willus

Imagine all pixels in the crop margins being painted white, and you essentially have exactly the effect--that's all k2pdfopt does internally with the crop margin information--it internally paints that area of the source page white. The value used by crop margins thus tells k2pdfopt to ignore that margin area (treat it as white/blank). This doesn't mean that k2pdfopt will automatically remove it from the output--it just means any text or black ink in those margins will be ignored when determining source page regions to put on the output page. Other settings combine with this setting to determine what part of each region actually gets turned into each output page, e.g. what mode is being used. With "-mode fitpage", for example, k2pdfopt automatically trims any blank margins away from the output regions, but with "-mode copy", k2pdfopt preserves the source page size exactly (no trimming).

Thanks, this makes it clearer. Looking forward to trying out the different options.

It may be that for pure cropping something like Briss is the way to go, but the great advantge of k2pdfopt I think is the fact that it understands the output device, and that you can tailor the pdf to fit different screen sizes, control font size with DPI etc.

Smith-Corona

[markom]

Originally Posted by Smith-Corona

Thanks, this makes it clearer. Looking forward to trying out the different options.

It may be that for pure cropping something like Briss is the way to go, but the great advantge of k2pdfopt I think is the fact that it understands the output device, and that you can tailor the pdf to fit different screen sizes, control font size with DPI etc.

Smith-Corona

You can use Briss or Pdfscissors to visually quickly crop pdf margins just roughly (left and right pages separately if necessary), simultaneously making the cropping boxes (i.e. cropped pages) the same size so that text(font) size shall later also stay approx. the same, and then simply employ k2pdfopt for more precised cropping and everything else.

[willus]

Originally Posted by mike2003

It is bad practice to store data in the registry or in the system drive (for Windows). ...

That is your opinion. I have explained my rationale for the way k2pdfopt stores its settings.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by willus

Sounds good. Thanks for helping with the wiki page, Dale.


Only the MS Windows GUI does this, actually. I use Windows-specific calls (see k2gui_get_settings() and k2gui_save_settings() in k2gui.c, which call environment variable functions in wsys.c). The other platforms expect you to set the K2PDFOPT environment variable per your desired defaults.

I never really thought people would consider it important to save k2pdfopt settings--to me, there aren't that many of them--I can easily enough re-create them from scratch--but I guess if people spend a fair amount of time fine-tuning the settings, this becomes an issue.

Thanks for the info. Perhaps it would be good to have a way to write them out in a file. It might be useful for those who tweak the settings to be able to revert back or even have different sets. In addition this would make things truly portable.

Dale
Dale

[mike2003]

the way k2pdfopt stores its settings.

better use of commonly accepted principles than to invent new ones. matter of time. sooner or later you will have to do it right)

[willus]

Originally Posted by mike2003

better use of commonly accepted principles than to invent new ones. matter of time. sooner or later you will have to do it right)

Storing settings in environment variables is not something I invented, nor is it new.