Boox PDF Export HUGE

[blmjr]

Hi, I just got a Note Air 2 and really love the device! I'm happily taking notes with the built in templates and some custom ones too. The PDF I'm using as a template is A5 in size, but when I export the document is HUGE. Instead of 5 inches by 8 inches, it's 20 inches by 30 inches. As an experiment, I open the exported PDF in Photoshop and can resize it but that is obviously not a solution as it would slow down my work flow. I noticed the same problem happening with other folks on the Boox Community forum, but there are only 13 members and no solutions coming from that source.

So 1) Has anyone else run into the problem? Or do your pdf exports work just fine?

2) Have you found / heard of a fix?

I have a shiny new toy, but can't really start working with it until I get this issue resolved.

Thank you for reading!

[Renate]

Maybe post the template and a simple example export?

[yokos]

Before firmware v3.2 users complained that scribble output pdf is a crappy useless low resolution rasterized file. WTF only Dropbox files are vector pdfs.
Now with firmware v3.2 real vector pdfs are the new standard and users are complaining that pdf files are huge. All strokes are editable.
It is a no-win situation for Onyx.

You can try to create a "flattened copy" in Xodo app. So the pdf annotations are not editable anymore and should be merged and this should result in a smaller file size.

[blmjr]

Hi Yokos, I should have been more specific. It's not the file size that is the problem, I'm happy with the rasterized file. It's the physical size. When I add a note's pdf export to an existing pdf document the new page (from Note2) is five times as big. My existing pages are 8" x 10" and the new page coming in is 20" x 30".

I'm wondering about other Boox user's workflow and how they accomplish this? I might have a setting wrong?

[blmjr]

Hi Renate,

Here are some example of the original pdf, the export pdf and their properties.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Have you run into this? How is your work flow?

[blmjr]

Here are the property sheets with the sizes outlined to highlight the size difference.

[Renate]

Hmm, this is deep. I learned a bunch of things. Some even useful.

Ok, PDF has the "MediaBox". That tells you the number scale that everything is working on. If you say MediaBox[0 0 100 100] then PolyLine/Vertices[25 25 75 75] you'll get a diagonal line 1/2 the diagonal length of the "paper".

Ok, but what are the units? They are "points", 1/72 of an inch. Your paper is A5 (in the template). It should be (and is) MediaBox[0 0 419 596]. Your Air2 is issuing MediaBox[0 0 1404 1872]. 1404/72 = 19.5", 1872/72=26". 1404x1872 is the pixel count and Onyx is using that as paper size (in points).

So, just change the MediaBox, right? Erm, no. See attachment (which is A5 size). It's best viewed at 25% scale.

One solution: You can just use it as is, print to A5 paper using autoscaling.

You could write a utility to scale everything. Undoubtedly you can do this with Adobe "Manipulator" or whatever it's called.

The thing is, Your Air2 took your template and scaled it already. This could be fixed there in the code but it would take lots of fixing.

Best solution? Bitch to Onyx that they shouldn't be such knuckleheads as to put pixels in the MediaBox where points belong. Don't scale templates, use the MediaBox you find there.

Edit: You could fix it with "UserUnit" which changes that 1/72" to something else. If your template had a MediaBox[0 0 1404 1872] and a non-standard UserUnit to make it A5 size then this might work. Your template is PDF1.4, which doesn't support UserUnit.

Try some other template or reprocess the current template with Adobe "Manipulator" (or whatever) to see if you can put in a UserUnit.

OTOH, I just checked 94 random PDFs on my PC and none of them use UserUnit.

More edit: Well, I don't use the NeoReader and I couldn't even figure out how to annotate or export. For reference (mostly mine): TLDR: Neo always inserts screen size pages, there is no option.

com.onyx.android.sdk.neopdf.PdfUtils
   public static boolean pdfPageInsert()
      public static RectF getEmbeddedPdfPageRect()
         com.onyx.android.sdk.utils.ResManager;->getScreenWidth()
         com.onyx.android.sdk.utils.ResManager;->getScreenHeight()

If you hacked this to your 419, 596 I can almost guarantee that PDF properties would be A5. Except that I don't think anything would scale correctly without more hacking. I dunno. First I'd have to figure out how to scribble.

[blmjr]

Holy Moly! Your reply was amazing!

I have no idea what you were talking about, but I did recognize several English words in there. (Can you tell I'm not too technical w this stuff?)

You are right that the pdf does scale to A5 when I print and set the page to "Fit to Print." The trouble there is, I won't ever print these pdf's, they stay pdf as part of the patient record. I tried to scale it by using the above printer settings then printing to the pdf print driver (don't laugh, I'm desperate) but then I got that weird background to scribble offset you demonstrated.

I can export the notes as png and just import the graphic into the pdf, (that worked really well) but I would have to do that one page at a time (dozens of pages) and that would be way more time consuming than my current method: writing on a piece of paper and scanning that to the existing patient record.

This purchase was meant to streamline my record keeping not make it 5 times more complicated.

Rats!

The last guess I can make is to side load a 3rd party note app and see if I can get that one to work. At least I would have customer support that would email me back.

If that doesn't work, I'm going to have a very, very, very expensive Kindle e-book reader and give up on the note taking idea altogether. It does seem like 100's of people have made it work for them, but maybe they don't have my specific application.

Pen and paper have once again beaten electronic capture, for now at least.

Thank you for your kind help!

[Renate]

Well, everything that I said about the template and export are true. but I'm still not sure how you are generating them. Is this a feature of the regular "NeoReader"? I was using what was on my Poke3, /system/app/kreader2-release/kreader2-release.apk (size 105,581,292).

Even if you were using a different app it could well use the same code that I quoted at the end. If you are using a different app or a different version of the kreader, can you adb pull a copy and post it somewhere?

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Renate

Well, everything that I said about the template and export are true. but I'm still not sure how you are generating them. Is this a feature of the regular "NeoReader"? I was using what was on my Poke3, /system/app/kreader2-release/kreader2-release.apk (size 105,581,292).

Even if you were using a different app it could well use the same code that I quoted at the end. If you are using a different app or a different version of the kreader, can you adb pull a copy and post it somewhere?

The Oynx devices with pen taking capabilities have another app called knote. It can use PDF templates and export PDFs. Their might be an APK floating around somewhere.

[yokos]

He is using knote. Printing the exported pdf to an A5 pdf file on Boox device is an option.
Using a pdf template in knote has got some drawbacks. Standard is a png template.

[Renate]

Ok, so that's using "PDFTron" to reprocess the original.

Well, if anyone has a knote on their device it's easy to adb pull it...

[blmjr]

Renate, thank you for your kind reply.

I am generating the template by creating a new A5 document in Good Docs, importing my logo and typing my info into the header and footer, then just using the underline key to create the lines. Then I export that Google doc as a pdf to my desktop. From there, I loaded it onto a usb drive then copied it directly to the notes templates folder of the Boox.

All of this works like a charm and the notes I create this way on the Boox look great. I use the share button to upload to my Google Drive then import that note into my patient pdf file via Nitro Pro, a pdf editor for Windows. The only fly in the ointment: my template is A5, the size of a half page of copy paper and the notes I generate are poster size. I did try to flatten the pdf, but that only flattened the background, not the scribbles.

It is a good implementation by Onyx in that there are no jagged lines. If I were a student and I didn't need to match these notes to anything else I would just zoom far out and go about my merry way.

Yes, printing to paper with "Print to Fit" works great, but then I would need to print them out, then scan them back into my patient document.

Rube Goldberg would be proud.

Much easier to take notes on a piece of paper and scan that directly to my patient document, my current method of updating medical records.

I'm not using NeoReader for anything in this process. I've never opened it on this device, I just use Kindle reader to read books.

I don't know what "(size 105,581,292)" means nor how I would enter that in or what software I would enter that into. I don't have the training or background to tinker with the inner working of these aps, although I have deep respect to those of you who can.

Yokos - are you saying I could use a png files as the background template? I'll try that and see what happens. Is "knote" the built in note taking app on the Boox? In that case, yes that's the one I'm using.

I am a Boox newbie in case this isn't already very evident.

I see in Google Play there are many note taking apps to try. Does anyone have a favorite of those?

[pazos]

Originally Posted by blmjr

I see in Google Play there are many note taking apps to try. Does anyone have a favorite of those?

Unfortunately none of these apps work fine on any onyx device. That's because they are not optimized for eink screens.

Onyx Boox has an SDK that 3rd party apps can use to reduce the stylus lag and make the app usable. AFAIK none of the big apps (onenote, nebo, noteshelf, evernote...) are using the sdk.

No much development of home aficionados either. Just this one in github: https://github.com/karino2/PngNote

[Renate]

Originally Posted by blmjr

I don't know what "(size 105,581,292)" means..

That's the file size of the kreader-release.pk on my Poke3 (so you could see if yours is the same). But we're not talking about the Neo Reader now.

I've got a Wacom tablet that I can use with my Poke3 and I can run knote on that and see what modifications I can make if somebody can provide me with the apk. It's easy.

C:\>adb pull system/app/knote-release/knote-release.apk

Ok, maybe it's not named exactly that, but it's similar.