DX or Voyage?

[markom]

Originally Posted by jj2me

I can second that. And thank you for providing the links in some other thread that introduced me to these options. I didn't realize it also affected rendering speed, so thanks once more.

So far, I have just used the PC version of k2pdfopt, dragging my PDF onto k2pdfopt.exe and it runs. I've usually been outputting to landscape. Margins, headers, and footers are reduced or eliminated, resulting in larger output than if I just put the raw PDF onto my PW2 and switched to landscape viewing. This often makes just enough of a difference to turn an eyestrain PDF into a pleasantly readable PDF. Also, if the input was two-column, it can be converted to single column by k2pdfopt.

I prefer how landscape page turns work when the PDF was made landscape by k2pdfopt. It's more like how you scroll PDFs on a tablet.

I can read A5 sized pdf or A4 two-column on Sony PRS-T1 (or on any newer 6" e-ink reader for that matter) using its different reading modes but regrettably there are always various annoying shortcomings involved.

e.g.

If I use Sony's pdf reflow mode (by choosing bigger letter size), for vector pdf or for scanned pdf with ocr layer in the background, it takes 4-5 seconds to turn the next page, layout is lost as well as pictures or tables and it reflows ocr layer only, so it's useless for many scientific pdfs that allow for no ocr errors.

If I use Sony's landscape mode (with or without margin crop), pdf page will usually not be completely spread across the whole screen, so letters will not be as big as possible, and even if it is spread almost completely it is impossible to use handwriting without leaving for the normal view and then getting back(tedious and time consuming for a lot of scribbling).
Also it usually takes 3-4 seconds for next page to show up (scrolling within current page is quick, less than a second for another screen).

Using Sony's 2-column mode for A4 two column pdf (scanned or vector) is good enough but it usually takes 4-5 seconds(A4 scans) to turn(zoom) the next page or 2-3 seconds(vector pdf), although it is very quick to show the next quarter of zoomed page(about half a second for any quarter of the page in portraite).

If I simply use pinching and zooming (in portraite or landscape), it is convenient for reading maybe ten-fifteen pages but for a greater number of pages that constant flickery and slow scrolling (if compared to lcd tablets) gets really annoying and tedious, it takes 3-4 seconds for the next page and for scribbling it is again necessary to leave the zoom beforehand.

Using k2pdfopt eliminates all those problems.

Page turning is quick and I can scribble without changing the view.

If original pdf uses complex compression we should use k2pdfopt's bitmap mode to turn pdf to bitmaped pdf (resulting in a lot bigger pdf size than original but easily and quickly readable on e-ink), otherwise we can use k2pdfopt's native mode so that pdf remains about the same original size.

Last but not the least, k2pdfopt can reflow pdf scanned image itself(not just ocr layer behind the image), so, if we really want we can read scientific A4 pdf on 6" reader with 100% accuracy and pictures retained.