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Old 06-04-2011, 10:29 PM   #1
WaltC
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Largest Font Size for Macular Mom

My mom loves to read but she has macular degeneration & has reached the point where the largest font on the Kindle 2 is barely large enough. We checked out the Kindle DX at a local store & while it's hard to tell (because we couldn't get it out of Demo-only mode), it looks like its largest font size isn't very much larger than the K2. The larger screen size on the DX was a nice plus, but she's hoping for something with some extra "head-room" in the font size to accommodate future vision decline.

I realize that text-to-speech is a good option as well, but she really enjoys reading it herself as long as that's still a possibility.

Does anyone know of other E-readers that work well/better for impaired vision?
Something with larger font sizes than the Kindle?

For reference:
Cap "M" on the Kindle 2 is 11mm wide x 9.5mm high.
Cap "M" on the Color Nook is 7mm wide x 5.5mm high.

Thanks in advance,
Walt C.

Last edited by WaltC; 06-06-2011 at 02:24 PM.
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Old 06-04-2011, 10:49 PM   #2
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You'll find that font sizes do vary from book to book as well, it all depends on how they were formatted. You could try stripping the DRM and reformatting files to force a larger font size.

TTS is passable.... Have you considered getting her some audiobooks from the library or Audible.com? It's a much better "reading" experience. I can see fine, but I love my audiobooks.
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Old 06-05-2011, 08:43 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WaltC View Post
...
For reference:
Cap "M" on the Kindle is 11mm wide x 9.5mm high.
...
I presume you were measuring your K2, so I checked my K3 and it has the same 9.5mm max.

Reformatting the documents to specify a larger text size will not likely be of any help as the maximum letter size is the maximum, period, at least with MOBI format. It would only help with incorrectly formatted ebooks where there is a font size specified for the basic body text and the size is inappropriately small. Specifying a font size for the body text is a very big no-no within the "Zen of MOBI/Amazon".
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Old 06-05-2011, 06:40 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WaltC;1568344.

Does anyone know of other E-readers that work well/better for impaired vision?
Something with larger font sizes than the Kindle?[.
Are you looking solely at eink readers?
Do you have a preference/commitment to a specific commercial ebookstore?
Are you familiar with deDRM?

If lcd-based devices are an option you might want to look at android tablets.
If you're not afraid of DRM removal, you could then look at several reader apps that allow fine-grained font size control two which (fbreaderj and coolreader 3 ) allow extremely large font sizes in both portrait and landscape. (On a 7in 800x600 screen in landscape, you get five lines of text about a half inch high, depending on font face, on a 10in screen maybe an inch high.)

If you prefer eink readers, the Pocketbook line allows optional installs of fbreader and coolreader with, effectively, no upper limit on font size; on my 5in Pocketbook 360 I have specified text as big as an inch. Realistically, if that size is necessary, you probably want to look at the 902/903.

Other options exist; I believe there is a font hack for Kindles that enables larger font sizes and other second tier reader vendors also allow large font sizes. I expect you'll hear about some models here.

Hopefully you'll find a satisfactory solution soon.
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Old 06-06-2011, 02:23 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pidgeon92 View Post
You'll find that font sizes do vary from book to book as well, it all depends on how they were formatted. You could try stripping the DRM and reformatting files to force a larger font size.

TTS is passable.... Have you considered getting her some audiobooks from the library or Audible.com? It's a much better "reading" experience. I can see fine, but I love my audiobooks.
Audio books & Audible.com are a possibility, though Mom's hearing isn't that good either. Thanks for the pointer.
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Old 06-06-2011, 02:26 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dwig View Post
I presume you were measuring your K2, so I checked my K3 and it has the same 9.5mm max.

Reformatting the documents to specify a larger text size will not likely be of any help as the maximum letter size is the maximum, period, at least with MOBI format. It would only help with incorrectly formatted ebooks where there is a font size specified for the basic body text and the size is inappropriately small. Specifying a font size for the body text is a very big no-no within the "Zen of MOBI/Amazon".
Yes my measurement was on the K2, I edited it to fix that.
Thanks for the K3 number & the font formatting info-- I wondered about that.
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Old 06-06-2011, 02:38 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres View Post
Are you looking solely at eink readers?
Do you have a preference/commitment to a specific commercial ebookstore?
Are you familiar with deDRM?

If lcd-based devices are an option you might want to look at android tablets.
If you're not afraid of DRM removal, you could then look at several reader apps that allow fine-grained font size control two which (fbreaderj and coolreader 3 ) allow extremely large font sizes in both portrait and landscape. (On a 7in 800x600 screen in landscape, you get five lines of text about a half inch high, depending on font face, on a 10in screen maybe an inch high.)

If you prefer eink readers, the Pocketbook line allows optional installs of fbreader and coolreader with, effectively, no upper limit on font size; on my 5in Pocketbook 360 I have specified text as big as an inch. Realistically, if that size is necessary, you probably want to look at the 902/903.

Other options exist; I believe there is a font hack for Kindles that enables larger font sizes and other second tier reader vendors also allow large font sizes. I expect you'll hear about some models here.

Hopefully you'll find a satisfactory solution soon.
E-ink probably works best with her vision challenges and her preference for light weight. All things being equal, the Amazon store is better because she's comfortable using that. On the other hand, another reader & store is certainly worth considering if they had better support for the vision impaired.

I'll look into the other readers, though I'm having a hard time getting information on largest font size for almost any of the readers.

I like your font hack suggestion-- thanks for that-- I had forgotten about those & presumably they'd work on both her K2 and on the K-DX, if she were to decide to go that way. I'll check into how large the font hack sizes can go.

Thanks!
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Old 06-06-2011, 05:20 PM   #8
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I just checked on my Sony PRS-350 and in the XXL (max) font size, the capital M is smaller than what you measured on the K2. I am unsure if it would be the same with the larger PRS-x50 models. Hope that helps (at least to rule it out).
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Old 06-06-2011, 05:40 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Keslynn View Post
I just checked on my Sony PRS-350 and in the XXL (max) font size, the capital M is smaller than what you measured on the K2. I am unsure if it would be the same with the larger PRS-x50 models. Hope that helps (at least to rule it out).
Keslynn,
Thanks for doing that! I had some hopes out there for the Sony line, but I guess not the PRS-350 at least.
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Old 06-06-2011, 06:34 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WaltC View Post
My mom loves to read but she has macular degeneration & has reached the point where the largest font on the Kindle 2 is barely large enough.
Walt C.
Walt,

You may want to check out the Kindle Lovers board on Delphi Forums.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/kindlelovers/messages

I believe the Owner/Moderater over there has Macular Degeneration. Maybe she can help you out.

Carol
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Old 06-06-2011, 10:19 PM   #11
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Walt,

You may want to check out the Kindle Lovers board on Delphi Forums.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/kindlelovers/messages

I believe the Owner/Moderater over there has Macular Degeneration. Maybe she can help you out.

Carol
Carol,
Interesting site; I hadn't been to that one before. I'll ask around there too.
Thanks!
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Old 06-06-2011, 10:21 PM   #12
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Since your Mom has a K2, get her a KDXG. The Pearl screen along with the larger screen will help her out.
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Old 06-06-2011, 10:32 PM   #13
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Thanks everyone for the great suggestions.
Reporting back in on one of fjtorres' suggestions-- font hack-- I get:

Cap "M" on the Kindle 2 with the font "Museo Slab BIG 125%"
- is 14.5mm wide x 11.5mm high.
Cap "M" on the Kindle 2 with the font "Museo Slab BIG 150%"
- is 17mm wide x 14mm high.

The Museo Slab Big font seems to have a nice contrast, which should also help Mom. The Largest, 150%, font size should be larger than she needs right now, but it gives her options down the road (including moving to the DX).

One other nice thing for her is that the home page and menu fonts are also larger.

I'll keep it set up for her on my Kindle and see how she likes it.
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Old 06-06-2011, 10:34 PM   #14
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Since your Mom has a K2, get her a KDXG. The Pearl screen along with the larger screen will help her out.
KDXG-- that's a Kindle DX global? (I should probably know that.)
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Old 06-06-2011, 10:43 PM   #15
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KDXG-- that's a Kindle DX global? (I should probably know that.)
Kindle DX Graphite with Pearl screen

There is one other option, get a Pocketbook 902 for her and in ePub, you can set whatever font size you want.

But give the DXG a go first. It would be the easiest solution if it works for her.
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