KPV: a PDF reader for Kindle, based on muPDF, GPLv3

[NuPogodi]

Thanks for a tip, dave2008. I've successfully changed default font by editing crereader.lua.

One more request: kindlepdfviewer may become appreciably better by implementing the crengine hyphenation databases.

[dpavlin]

Originally Posted by NuPogodi

BTW, crengine supports mobi as well.

Thanks for pointing this out! This will make reader real replacement for Amazon's one.

We forgot to add .mobi extension as supported format, but it will be in next version: https://github.com/hwhw/kindlepdfvie...7eaa2faea47803

Alternative is to just copy new version of those three files on existing reader implementation in /mnt/us/kindlepdfviewer

[Tanga]

When's the next version due out? I'm looking forward to checking this app out, but I'm not sure whether to get it now or wait? The next version looks like it's going to be awesome!

[hawhill]

I suggest to check it out now. The next version probably won't come all that soon. I would not speak against a 2012.04.2, but it's more likely that the next version will be a 2012.05....

The installation overhead (jailbreak, installing launchpad) will likely stay the same. But updating the application is a piece of cake, actually. So you won't lose much when you start now.

It's quite usable as it is and people use it as secondary or even primary reader on a regular base.

[NuPogodi]

I guess I've found small, but rather annoying bug. It concerns to the font selection in kindlepdfviewer's crengine, namely, the text of chapter titles: no matter which font i select via fonts menu, the title font (in fb2: everything inside of <title>...</title>) is not changed. It should actually be not a large problem unless the default font does not include cyrillic glyphs (and east european as well) and, hence, displayed as a set of ????????? (please, look at the top of the following screenshot)
http://smotr.im/4Cma

Till now I've found out the only solution: after deleting all cff-fonts, crengine starts to select another font for titles (probably, DroidSans.ttf) which properly display cyrillic and east european characters. Yet, it still remains independent of the font_face selection (just note that the main text is serif, the title is sans serif on the following screenshot).
http://smotr.im/4Cm9

I've tested several epubs & fb2s, cyrillic glyphs and east european ones (polish, czekh). The result remains the same.

1. Could you, please, look at the crengine codes and fix this bug?
2. May somebody answer what the cff-fonts are used for?

PS. To be sure, I inspected the same source files in CoolReader3 for Kindle. So, i may definitely say that the bug is not related to crengine itself (see screenshot)
http://smotr.im/4Cmb

[hawhill]

The .cff fonts are compressed postscript standard fonts. They are used for PDFs without embedded fonts (which is legal for a lot of the PDF versions). So they are relevant for the muPDF engine, too.

Most probably, we can overcome this by creating proper CSS data and feeding that to CREngine.

My suggestion for now is to take the approach to change the CSS files. I'll have a look and try to come up with more sensible default, probably using the DroidFallback/DroidSans font.

[dave2008]

Originally Posted by NuPogodi

I guess I've found small, but rather annoying bug. It concerns to the font selection in kindlepdfviewer's crengine, namely, the text of chapter titles: no matter which font i select via fonts menu, the title font (in fb2: everything inside of <title>...</title>) is not changed. It should actually be not a large problem unless the default font does not include cyrillic glyphs (and east european as well) and, hence, displayed as a set of ????????? (please, look at the top of the following screenshot)
http://smotr.im/4Cma

Till now I've found out the only solution: after deleting all cff-fonts, crengine starts to select another font for titles (probably, DroidSans.ttf) which properly display cyrillic and east european characters. Yet, it still remains independent of the font_face selection (just note that the main text is serif, the title is sans serif on the following screenshot).
http://smotr.im/4Cm9

I've tested several epubs & fb2s, cyrillic glyphs and east european ones (polish, czekh). The result remains the same.

1. Could you, please, look at the crengine codes and fix this bug?
2. May somebody answer what the cff-fonts are used for?

PS. To be sure, I inspected the same source files in CoolReader3 for Kindle. So, i may definitely say that the bug is not related to crengine itself (see screenshot)
http://smotr.im/4Cmb

Thanks for the report. I think this bug is related to the Chinese support bug in epub previously reported. All of them show "?" because the child node's fontface is not changed when users selects a different font from the font menu. Often, these nodes come up with a invalid default type face, so crengine will try to find a replacement that matches best. So if you delete some fonts, crengine will have less choices and more likely to choose the one that you want.

And yes, upstream cool reader does not have this bug, so it is a bug in kindlepdfviewer's code. But I haven't found the perfect solution yet. Probably, kindlepdfviewer is not calling the right methods in font changing or page rendering. We are only calling public methods now, but I see that CoolReader3 also calls protected methods. I am a terrible CPP programmer, so maybe someone else can find out the right solution.

So far, I only come up with a one line dirty hack as a fix.

[dave2008]

Originally Posted by reprep

wow, congratulations to all those who contributed.

Another feature request from me: (please do not misunderstand, it is already great as it is)

If you can extract words from pdfs now, can you make "pdf reflow" like duokan? That is the only feature missing in the pdf viewer in my opinion.

Thanks again.

The first time I tried Duokan with pdf reflow in one of my programming book, it is not readable at all. Well, it was long time ago, maybe they are doing much better now. But what I want to say is reflow is not a trivial task, because to make a good typesetting, kindlepdfviewer needs to understand the text in the pdf files. So this feature needs time and efforts.

[reprep]

Originally Posted by dave2008

The first time I tried Duokan with pdf reflow in one of my programming book, it is not readable at all. Well, it was long time ago, maybe they are doing much better now. But what I want to say is reflow is not a trivial task, because to make a good typesetting, kindlepdfviewer needs to understand the text in the pdf files. So this feature needs time and efforts.

I see your point. I plan to use "pdf reflow" only in novels or books without tables,pictures etc. I want to be able to choose font and increase or decrease the size of font. I am perfectly aware that this feature will not make a previously unreadable pdf, readable.

I thought it would be easy as you have already succeeded in word separation, but it looks this is not the case.

[AZImmortal]

Since the releases now follow a date naming scheme for the versions, might I suggest using the full release date (including the day) rather than just year and month? It would be easier to recognize whether or not I have the latest version if I can see 2012.04.24 since I can instantly see that the update is in late April as opposed to 2012.04.2 where I can't easily tell when in April it was released. Just a very small suggestion. Thanks for all of your hard work.

[Tanga]

Just downloaded it now. Can't wait to give it a proper test run. If you need someone to type up docs give me a yell. I might not be able to code to save my life, but my English Lit. major has to be good for something.

[dave2008]

Originally Posted by Tanga

Just downloaded it now. Can't wait to give it a proper test run. If you need someone to type up docs give me a yell. I might not be able to code to save my life, but my English Lit. major has to be good for something.

Hi Tanga,

Glad that you want to help out Currently, we use WIKI as the document:
https://github.com/hwhw/kindlepdfviewer/wiki

It is open to everyone, but you have to register a github account before editing. Feel free to help us improve the WIKI

[hawhill]

OK, here we go: This is Release 2012.04.2, as of today (where I live, 2012-04-28 just started).

Changelog:

• Add mobi, zip, doc format support
• Fix bugs in left page backward key handling
• Fix bugs in highlight feature
• Show current page in goto page inputbox
• Fix bug in creader's font setting menu
• Fix bug in creader's help page
• Fix bug in select menu (sometimes cannot select with five way key in DXG)
• Fix font setting bug for some documents supported by CREngine.
• Fix wrong page number in DjVu's TOC.
• New shortcut 'x' to show bounding box of document or manually cropped area in current page.
• Key repetition in file chooser and in document view

Updating is just reinstalling, no deinstallation needed. If using launchpad method: put archive in customupdates, press shift-shift-I and you're done.

Download the archive on the Download page in the project's Wiki: https://github.com/hwhw/kindlepdfviewer/wiki/Download

[medwatt]

Thanks all for the chm support. The CHM support has been working with some books but its crashing with this. The document is attached.

[citron]

thanks for update.
I have some tips for improvement:
1) carousel type file browser - when you have many folders named (01 - 16) and you want to go for the last you have to go all way down. If it possible to move joystick up at the first position - 1 and skip to the last folder 16 and same way to skip from 16 to 1 by moving cursor down.

2) 5% manual zoom or custom margins by cursor like Duokan style - sometimes is more convenient to setup small level of zooming to fit the page exactly what you want or crop the page manually

A4 landscape handling - There is great function for reading papers in portrait mode using F shortcut when the page is divided into 4 parts which are zoomed manually and it is easy to navigate.
I have one book scanned in landscape mode - two pages in one A4 paper and in this case the Landscape mode doesn't work in the Kindle original software - no mode fit to screen (just fit to width) and in the PDF reader with the F shortcut only the first page from two is zoomed so you can see page 1,3,5,7...

Thanks