Aura HD Help! No way to "lock" crop/zoom for PDF?!?

Filmbrain · 07-05-2013, 06:24 PM

Hi all --

Tried reading my first PDF book on the Aura, and I'm really stuck/angry/frustrated.

The default page view is too smal, so I use the crop/zoom feature to get the page just as I want it to look.

But then -- once in zoom mode, there's no way to turn the page! Every tap of the screen just brings up the zoom options again -- is this normal?

To turn the page I have to drag the page all the way over to the right, which, unless my hands are super steady, always manges to move the page vertically as well, forcing me to re-position again on the next page.

Why is there no way to lock the zoom setting, so that every page shows up the same way? (My PRS-T1 did this...)

Am I missing something? I have SO many books in PDF format -- I'd hate to not be able to read them on my Aura!

Thanks!

Chi Cygni · 07-05-2013, 06:45 PM

I don't have Aura but I saw both on youtube and live in a shop you need to tap right edge until a vertical margin with small arrow appears. Tap on it to go to next page. Your settings should be preserved.

lkstrummer · 07-05-2013, 06:48 PM

As of the latest firmware, there is no way to lock a pdf at a particular zoom level with user-defined margins. You can, however, lock the zoom level itself without your defined margins. This means that the next page you scroll to will be at that same zoom level but the specific margins you like to read under won't be respected as this next page will favor the top left of the document. It's a huge failure on the part of the kobo developers. You end up needlessly expending battery life to scroll the page. A simple zoom AND margin lock button would have gone a loooong way here.

As a related issue, I highly dislike the zoom increments that are available. The Aura goes up and down in increments of 25%, which is way too much. I typically need ~ 115% to compensate for the typically generous margins you find in PDFs. Although any and every discrete zoom level between 100 and 400% is available by clicking on a point on the slider, it's incredibly difficult to use their touch IR sensors for this purpose. Often, I end up increasing the zoom level when I meant to decrease it and vice-versa. Developers, please give us usable zoom increments or a numerical zoom input!

Uschiekid · 07-05-2013, 08:24 PM

Instead of the zoom in increments setting (which does NOT work well, as others have described), try the "fit to page" setting, left to right...this should make the page only show the writing and when you turn the page, it should pop back to the top and be centred properly.

One caveat....you may need to pre-crop your pdf margins by computer. if the pdf has reasonable margins, it might work without, but most of my pdfs needed a crop to make this work reasonably. They do however have insanely large margins, so you might not need to. I'm an ubuntu-er, so I use PDF-Shuffler as an easy margin cropping tool for pdfs...works like a charm. Got pointed to that tool off someone here at MR, though I can't remember who. But thanks to them anyhow!

May be a pain if you have to crop your margins, but it makes for a hell of a lot easier way to read pdfs.

lkstrummer · 07-05-2013, 11:08 PM

The "fit to page" for a document's width will not always display all of the text in the page. This happens whenever the aspect ratio of the page exceeds the aspect ratio of the Aura. The document isn't centered using this option, either; on page turns, it will still be aligned to the top of the document. Furthermore, fit to width will still recognize the extremes of the PDF margins on the left and right and give you needlessly shrunken text as a result. It does, however, fix the battery drain issue involved with scrolling a page to the "next" and "previous" page turn buttons.

I appreciate your input regarding software to manage margins, Uschiekid. However, I dislike a device that forces the user to off-device solutions when on-device solutions aren't beyond the pale. As the original poster noted, the Sony readers do and excellent job of addressing PDF zoom and lock. By comparison, Kobo looks very amateurish.

Filmbrain · 07-06-2013, 06:42 AM

Thanks for the replies.

I agree with lkstrummer -- it's a shame that this otherwise amazing device does such a poor job with PDFs. Yes, I know Kobo is primarily in the epub (or kepub) business, but to neglect simple features that nearly every other reader supports -- I just don't get it.

I have just installed Bris, which seems to work quite well, but I haven't yet tested the result on the Aura.

Really hoping that Kobo corrects this in a (near) future release.

sos_sifou · 07-06-2013, 06:19 PM

There is an issue about reading pdfs on my kobo glo, which should be almost the same as the aura. When I slide to read a pdf file when it's zoomed in (a book with two columns) the small rectangular Window who show you how to navigate on the page, it leave a shadowed rectangular when the zoom options fadeout, it's like the whole page has less contrast (faded text), and only the area which contained the Window keep using a good contrast! I have tried turning the reader into sleep mode, when i turn it back on, it refresh the entire screen and it looks much better!
I think there is a problem with the screen refresh when reading pdf files, the developers should really focus on this part of the reader, it's really frustrating reading pdfs on the kobo glo. I hate lcd, it hurts my eyes and most tablets are cumbersome and heavy for reading outside, add to that, you won't be able to see anything under a bright sunlight.

PeterT · 07-06-2013, 06:28 PM

@sos_sifou: What f/w level do you have please? There have been fixes for the ghosting in current versions (2.6.1)/

sos_sifou · 07-06-2013, 06:54 PM

It is the latest one, 2.6.1
When I bought the reader and while setting it up, it updated itself to this version, so i don't really know how things were before.

I can get a screen shot if you like?

PeterT · 07-06-2013, 07:13 PM

No need.. I was just sure that what you described hjad been resolved.

louden · 07-17-2013, 05:44 PM

Here's my solution...

I use a mac for a desktop - so I use a tool called "skim" to crop my pdfs...

I use this to crop the excess white border around a PDF. I specifically crop them to have an aspect ratio of 3 x 4 (same aspect ratio as the aura hd). This is important so that I can always zoom into a pdf using the zoom button, then set the zoom to the width of the document. The PDF will zoom in to show the entire screen, even lopping off the "Page xxx of xxx" on the bottom of the screen. You wind up with zoomed in, full screen PDF content (usually 108%).

It works great on all those 9x7 pdf technical books....

Filmbrain · 07-19-2013, 06:14 AM

Hmm...I just tried skim. I cropped every page of the PDF right down to the text, even cutting off the page numbers at the bottom. As this is a good scan, all pages are uniform. It looks great in a PDF viewer.

Yet on the Aura, it the pages appear with an extremely wide margin on the right side of the page, and the page overall appears somewhat small. Where is that padding on the right coming from? Have I done something wrong?

Thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by louden

Here's my solution...

I use a mac for a desktop - so I use a tool called "skim" to crop my pdfs...

I use this to crop the excess white border around a PDF. I specifically crop them to have an aspect ratio of 3 x 4 (same aspect ratio as the aura hd). This is important so that I can always zoom into a pdf using the zoom button, then set the zoom to the width of the document. The PDF will zoom in to show the entire screen, even lopping off the "Page xxx of xxx" on the bottom of the screen. You wind up with zoomed in, full screen PDF content (usually 108%).

It works great on all those 9x7 pdf technical books....

mb2u · 07-19-2013, 11:47 AM

The answer is to select your text from a PDF using Foxit (or another PDF program that is not horrible like Adobe allowing almost no options) and copy/paste it to a blank TXT document. TXT files are wonderfully fast on ereaders and allow full text control. Make sure you set Word Wrap to off of course otherwise you'll have truncated, space wasting, blank spots on some lines. The Kindle DX is probably the best choice if you have to view graphics because you can orientate it to Landscape mode so this, along with the larger 9.7" screen, makes it workable sometimes. PDF's are just a nightmare to view on ereaders. They are basically a photo snapshot of a page so one needs to convert the characters to a text based system so the viewing of the words can be controlled.

Practice this PDF conversion and you will find it very fruitful.

sos_sifou · 07-20-2013, 03:49 PM

You can try cut2col
Here is a video about it capabilites.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErO-My169H0

Ki1P · 07-24-2013, 05:17 PM

I use Briss to crop whole pdfs of their margins. Usually the pages then center correctly when turning pages and don't require re-positioning every time.

07-05-2013, 06:24 PM	#1
Filmbrain Connoisseur Posts: 62 Karma: 9796 Join Date: Apr 2013 Device: Kobo Aura HD	Help! No way to "lock" crop/zoom for PDF?!? Hi all -- Tried reading my first PDF book on the Aura, and I'm really stuck/angry/frustrated. The default page view is too smal, so I use the crop/zoom feature to get the page just as I want it to look. But then -- once in zoom mode, there's no way to turn the page! Every tap of the screen just brings up the zoom options again -- is this normal? To turn the page I have to drag the page all the way over to the right, which, unless my hands are super steady, always manges to move the page vertically as well, forcing me to re-position again on the next page. Why is there no way to lock the zoom setting, so that every page shows up the same way? (My PRS-T1 did this...) Am I missing something? I have SO many books in PDF format -- I'd hate to not be able to read them on my Aura! Thanks!

07-06-2013, 06:19 PM	#7
sos_sifou Member Posts: 20 Karma: 7938 Join Date: Jun 2013 Device: Kobo Glo	There is an issue about reading pdfs on my kobo glo, which should be almost the same as the aura. When I slide to read a pdf file when it's zoomed in (a book with two columns) the small rectangular Window who show you how to navigate on the page, it leave a shadowed rectangular when the zoom options fadeout, it's like the whole page has less contrast (faded text), and only the area which contained the Window keep using a good contrast! I have tried turning the reader into sleep mode, when i turn it back on, it refresh the entire screen and it looks much better! I think there is a problem with the screen refresh when reading pdf files, the developers should really focus on this part of the reader, it's really frustrating reading pdfs on the kobo glo. I hate lcd, it hurts my eyes and most tablets are cumbersome and heavy for reading outside, add to that, you won't be able to see anything under a bright sunlight. Last edited by sos_sifou; 07-06-2013 at 06:27 PM.

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07-05-2013, 06:45 PM	#2
Chi Cygni 秋子 permanently lurking Posts: 839 Karma: 6587575 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Europe Device: Oasis 3, Pocketbook Era	I don't have Aura but I saw both on youtube and live in a shop you need to tap right edge until a vertical margin with small arrow appears. Tap on it to go to next page. Your settings should be preserved.

07-05-2013, 06:48 PM	#3
lkstrummer Enthusiast Posts: 30 Karma: 8892 Join Date: Feb 2011 Device: Sony Daily Edition PRS-950SC	As of the latest firmware, there is no way to lock a pdf at a particular zoom level with user-defined margins. You can, however, lock the zoom level itself without your defined margins. This means that the next page you scroll to will be at that same zoom level but the specific margins you like to read under won't be respected as this next page will favor the top left of the document. It's a huge failure on the part of the kobo developers. You end up needlessly expending battery life to scroll the page. A simple zoom AND margin lock button would have gone a loooong way here. As a related issue, I highly dislike the zoom increments that are available. The Aura goes up and down in increments of 25%, which is way too much. I typically need ~ 115% to compensate for the typically generous margins you find in PDFs. Although any and every discrete zoom level between 100 and 400% is available by clicking on a point on the slider, it's incredibly difficult to use their touch IR sensors for this purpose. Often, I end up increasing the zoom level when I meant to decrease it and vice-versa. Developers, please give us usable zoom increments or a numerical zoom input!

07-05-2013, 08:24 PM	#4
Uschiekid Tenrec Posts: 724 Karma: 1076988 Join Date: Oct 2012 Device: Kobo Aura One, Kobo Glo	Instead of the zoom in increments setting (which does NOT work well, as others have described), try the "fit to page" setting, left to right...this should make the page only show the writing and when you turn the page, it should pop back to the top and be centred properly. One caveat....you may need to pre-crop your pdf margins by computer. if the pdf has reasonable margins, it might work without, but most of my pdfs needed a crop to make this work reasonably. They do however have insanely large margins, so you might not need to. I'm an ubuntu-er, so I use PDF-Shuffler as an easy margin cropping tool for pdfs...works like a charm. Got pointed to that tool off someone here at MR, though I can't remember who. But thanks to them anyhow! May be a pain if you have to crop your margins, but it makes for a hell of a lot easier way to read pdfs.

07-05-2013, 11:08 PM	#5
lkstrummer Enthusiast Posts: 30 Karma: 8892 Join Date: Feb 2011 Device: Sony Daily Edition PRS-950SC	The "fit to page" for a document's width will not always display all of the text in the page. This happens whenever the aspect ratio of the page exceeds the aspect ratio of the Aura. The document isn't centered using this option, either; on page turns, it will still be aligned to the top of the document. Furthermore, fit to width will still recognize the extremes of the PDF margins on the left and right and give you needlessly shrunken text as a result. It does, however, fix the battery drain issue involved with scrolling a page to the "next" and "previous" page turn buttons. I appreciate your input regarding software to manage margins, Uschiekid. However, I dislike a device that forces the user to off-device solutions when on-device solutions aren't beyond the pale. As the original poster noted, the Sony readers do and excellent job of addressing PDF zoom and lock. By comparison, Kobo looks very amateurish.

07-06-2013, 06:42 AM	#6
Filmbrain Connoisseur Posts: 62 Karma: 9796 Join Date: Apr 2013 Device: Kobo Aura HD	Thanks for the replies. I agree with lkstrummer -- it's a shame that this otherwise amazing device does such a poor job with PDFs. Yes, I know Kobo is primarily in the epub (or kepub) business, but to neglect simple features that nearly every other reader supports -- I just don't get it. I have just installed Bris, which seems to work quite well, but I haven't yet tested the result on the Aura. Really hoping that Kobo corrects this in a (near) future release.

07-06-2013, 06:28 PM	#8
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 12,166 Karma: 73448616 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Nexus 7, Clara, Touch, Tolino EPOS	@sos_sifou: What f/w level do you have please? There have been fixes for the ghosting in current versions (2.6.1)/

07-06-2013, 06:54 PM	#9
sos_sifou Member Posts: 20 Karma: 7938 Join Date: Jun 2013 Device: Kobo Glo	It is the latest one, 2.6.1 When I bought the reader and while setting it up, it updated itself to this version, so i don't really know how things were before. I can get a screen shot if you like?

07-06-2013, 07:13 PM	#10
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 12,166 Karma: 73448616 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Nexus 7, Clara, Touch, Tolino EPOS	No need.. I was just sure that what you described hjad been resolved.

07-17-2013, 05:44 PM	#11
louden Member Posts: 24 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2013 Device: Nook ST/Kobo Aura HD	Here's my solution... I use a mac for a desktop - so I use a tool called "skim" to crop my pdfs... I use this to crop the excess white border around a PDF. I specifically crop them to have an aspect ratio of 3 x 4 (same aspect ratio as the aura hd). This is important so that I can always zoom into a pdf using the zoom button, then set the zoom to the width of the document. The PDF will zoom in to show the entire screen, even lopping off the "Page xxx of xxx" on the bottom of the screen. You wind up with zoomed in, full screen PDF content (usually 108%). It works great on all those 9x7 pdf technical books....

07-19-2013, 11:47 AM	#13
mb2u Enthusiast Posts: 25 Karma: 6052 Join Date: Jul 2013 Device: Kobo Touch and Mini	The answer is to select your text from a PDF using Foxit (or another PDF program that is not horrible like Adobe allowing almost no options) and copy/paste it to a blank TXT document. TXT files are wonderfully fast on ereaders and allow full text control. Make sure you set Word Wrap to off of course otherwise you'll have truncated, space wasting, blank spots on some lines. The Kindle DX is probably the best choice if you have to view graphics because you can orientate it to Landscape mode so this, along with the larger 9.7" screen, makes it workable sometimes. PDF's are just a nightmare to view on ereaders. They are basically a photo snapshot of a page so one needs to convert the characters to a text based system so the viewing of the words can be controlled. Practice this PDF conversion and you will find it very fruitful.

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07-20-2013, 03:49 PM	#14
sos_sifou Member Posts: 20 Karma: 7938 Join Date: Jun 2013 Device: Kobo Glo	You can try cut2col Here is a video about it capabilites. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErO-My169H0

07-24-2013, 05:17 PM	#15
Ki1P Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 11612 Join Date: Nov 2012 Device: Kobo Glo	I use Briss to crop whole pdfs of their margins. Usually the pages then center correctly when turning pages and don't require re-positioning every time.