Is Sony just simply ignoring the Reader? - Page 3

Balph · 03-11-2007, 05:33 PM

I would just like the ability to organize books on memory cards into Collections. Library science is all about organization and data management, and a portable library ought not be exempt.

stxopher · 03-12-2007, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Such as what, for example? Other than a few tools for creating books, I haven't seen anything that "massively increases the usability of the Reader"!

Quantity wise, I would say your point is made and I will stand corrected on that. There haven't been dozens of programs made yet for the reader by 3rd parties. But the programs themselves being made and developed DO make a large difference to those that use them.

There are the several conversion programs being continually worked on for changing already existing content into ereader compatible files. There are a couple of very good PDF conversion and cleanup programs out and still being developed for making already existing documents more usable and easier to read. There is a mountable file system and alternative to the Connect software (which is all Sony has supplied and has had only one update as far as I know since commercial release). I will stand by my statement that these programs have increased usability "massively".

I will also admit that as a single guy perhaps I toss the word "massive" about a bit to much but as long as no one has a camera or a sober memory, there's no proof of mis-advertising.

HarryT · 03-12-2007, 08:37 AM

Thanks for the clarification, stxopher. Please don't think that I was denigrating the efforts of those who have given us the conversion tools - they are very useful indeed. I misunderstood your post and thought that you were talking about software that runs on the Reader, and was worried that I might have missed something

.

Being a simple guy myself, I just stick with plain RTF files and so haven't had a need for the fancy LRF and PDF tools which I know are out there.

Dave Berk · 03-12-2007, 09:04 AM

Speaking for myself, I never expected anything more than the hardware itself from sony. I think they are still studying the market, and till amazon or some other company gets in they won't move. Right now the demand isn't great and they pretty much filling the niche anyway.

Also, eInk is continuously being improved and they have no reason to go out with something special that will end outdated anyway in a year or so.

The way I see it. Sony first came out with the libre to check the ebook market at all. They did it only in japan. Based on that, they improved - and released the reader - only in the US. Now they are studing us, maybe even reading this forums, and others, and wait for amazon\apple move. Once that happen sony will come out with a greatly improved reader that will be able to compete with what amazon\apple will put out, and they will sell it internationally. Also, based on their former experience with the market they will probably have the edge in terms of usability.

Another thing. If the amazon/apple reader will be DRM based, then everything will go on as before, but if just one large company will market a nonDRM device, then I believe other companies, and sony, will follow suit.

yvanleterrible · 03-12-2007, 09:10 AM

About an A4 reader.

I forgot to mention all the disappearing magazines, they could come back with such a device you know!

And all the newspapers preparing to make a switch, it surely is a sign of that coming!

Zeek · 03-13-2007, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NatCh

Wellcome to MobileRead, Zeek!

In theory, yes, but Acrobat has to deliberately produce reflowable files -- it has to be built in at generation time. That's something that nobody actually does with their PDFs, and something we around here (a fairly sharp bunch of folks, after all) haven't had much success figuring out how to do, even when we were trying to do so. I don't know if we ever came up with a PDF file that we were sure was reflowable to see if the Reader's viewer would reflow it, so for all we know it might very well support reflowable PDFs.

It also occurs to me to wonder why adobe brought out Digital Editions (a totally separate, reflow-friendly format) if they could have just defaulted reflow to be active in standard PDF files ....

My understanding is that Acrobat can take existing PDF files and make them "re-flowable" by using the "make accessible" function. Have you tried this? I would think it would work pretty well for text documents.

stxopher · 03-13-2007, 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

I misunderstood your post and thought that you were talking about software that runs on the Reader, and was worried that I might have missed something

.

Being a simple guy myself, I just stick with plain RTF files and so haven't had a need for the fancy LRF and PDF tools which I know are out there.

I can understand that. Bad tendency on this end to look at all things available and treat them as a total tool set so sometimes I'm less than understandable. Well, that and a habit of treating a product like a tool and everything else as accessories to its final purpose.

As for RTFs, same here. I like having something I know can be read and edited easily. Now if LRF were to be incorporated in Open Office that might be a different story....

NatCh · 03-13-2007, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeek

My understanding is that Acrobat can take existing PDF files and make them "re-flowable" by using the "make accessible" function. Have you tried this? I would think it would work pretty well for text documents.

That's news to me, Zeek. I'll have a look when I get into the office this morning (if no one else has already done so before then

). I have Acrobat 7 there, if it requires 8, then I couldn't check it.

Have you tried this nifty trick? If so what's your experience with it been like?

Zeek · 03-13-2007, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NatCh

That's news to me, Zeek. I'll have a look when I get into the office this morning (if no one else has already done so before then

). I have Acrobat 7 there, if it requires 8, then I couldn't check it.

Have you tried this nifty trick? If so what's your experience with it been like?

Not in a while. I tried it a long time ago when I used Acrobat Reader on Windows CE. It seemed to work fine.

RWood · 03-13-2007, 10:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

... Being a simple guy myself, I just stick with plain RTF files and so haven't had a need for the fancy LRF and PDF tools which I know are out there.

Harry, I was with you 100% on RTF, for a while. Then I tried a few of the conversion tools. I fact I gathered all I could (and that led to the updating of the Wiki so some good came from the effort.) I still use a lot of the ABC Amber products to extract text from multiple sources as I did in the RTF days. I used Stingo's Word macro for formatting the files in RTF.

Now RTF in the Reader does not support graphics. OK, minor point as I can load the graphics if I need them as jpg or gif files. One book I downloaded was Steve Jordan's Lambs Hide, Tigers Seek (great book by the way.) The file was 5.6 Meg on hard disk and on the Reader. I ran the file through Book Designer at default settings and the resultant lrf file was 416 k and that included adding back in the cover art for the book.

NatCh · 03-13-2007, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeek

Not in a while. I tried it a long time ago when I used Acrobat Reader on Windows CE. It seemed to work fine.

D'oh! I clean forgot to look for this today. (ashamed)

You're not talking about the Save as Text thing are you? That's all I can find on the version of Acrobat Reader I have at home, and I already know that it doesn't do what we're after.

RWood · 03-14-2007, 12:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeek

My understanding is that Acrobat can take existing PDF files and make them "re-flowable" by using the "make accessible" function. Have you tried this? I would think it would work pretty well for text documents.

This seems to be a property of the reading device as well as the original formation of the document using "tags." The following is from the Help system on Acrobat 7:

Quote:

The tagged Adobe PDF document reflows one page at a time in the document window. You can't save or print documents when they're in a reflowed state.

Note: Downloading a PDF file to a handheld device requires Adobe Reader for Palm OS. Adobe Reader for Palm OS has two components: the desktop program you install on your computer, and the reader application that installs on your handheld device the next time you synchronize it with your computer.

I created a short (5 page) document based on a letter sized page with tagging and saved it to disk. I could reflow the document on the PC. When I moved it to the Sony Reader it stayed too small to read. I repeated this with a page size scalled to the Sony. The resultant PDF was very easy to read. As always the Size button did little. I could not find any change in the actions of tagged and non-tagged documents on the Sony with the current firmware.

Thus all we can do is to create "tags" as to the sequence of paragraphs in the PDF and hope that Sony gets revised code from Adobe to implement reflowing in a future upgrade.

Zeek · 03-14-2007, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NatCh

D'oh! I clean forgot to look for this today. (ashamed)

You're not talking about the Save as Text thing are you? That's all I can find on the version of Acrobat Reader I have at home, and I already know that it doesn't do what we're after.

No. You need Adobe "Acrobat" not Acrobat "Reader".

Zeek · 03-14-2007, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RWood

This seems to be a property of the reading device as well as the original formation of the document using "tags." The following is from the Help system on Acrobat 7:

I created a short (5 page) document based on a letter sized page with tagging and saved it to disk. I could reflow the document on the PC. When I moved it to the Sony Reader it stayed too small to read. I repeated this with a page size scalled to the Sony. The resultant PDF was very easy to read. As always the Size button did little. I could not find any change in the actions of tagged and non-tagged documents on the Sony with the current firmware.

Thus all we can do is to create "tags" as to the sequence of paragraphs in the PDF and hope that Sony gets revised code from Adobe to implement reflowing in a future upgrade.

Correct. As I said, Sony needs to make the Reader support tagged PDFs.

NatCh · 03-14-2007, 12:15 PM

Okay, yeah, now I think I see what you're saying, Zeek, sorry to be so dense.

In Acrobat 7, under the Advanced menu item, is an Accessibility item, which has an option to add tags. (if that's not what you mean, please point me in the right direction

) I didn't know that an existing PDF could be tagged like that, thanks for pointing it out.

In any case, I agree (already did, in fact) that if the PDF viewer that Sony put on the Reader could handle PDF files that were tagged for reflow, it'd be a huge improvement, even bigger than I previously thought, since existing PDFs can be tagged.

As RWood has confirmed (and as you were saying in the first place) the Reader doesn't seem to care, or indeed notice, that the doc is tagged for reflow.

I know that the Adobe Reader I have on my Pilot handles all that automagically, it'd be nice if the one on the Sony would do so too.

Perhaps they could have the M size setting go to the reflowed display, and leave the S and M doing what they do now, so that folks could still see the layout if they needed that for reference.

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03-11-2007, 05:33 PM	#31
Balph Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2007	I would just like the ability to organize books on memory cards into Collections. Library science is all about organization and data management, and a portable library ought not be exempt.

03-12-2007, 08:37 AM	#33
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Thanks for the clarification, stxopher. Please don't think that I was denigrating the efforts of those who have given us the conversion tools - they are very useful indeed. I misunderstood your post and thought that you were talking about software that runs on the Reader, and was worried that I might have missed something . Being a simple guy myself, I just stick with plain RTF files and so haven't had a need for the fancy LRF and PDF tools which I know are out there.

03-12-2007, 09:04 AM	#34
Dave Berk Fanatic Posts: 574 Karma: 138556 Join Date: May 2006 Device: PRS505	Speaking for myself, I never expected anything more than the hardware itself from sony. I think they are still studying the market, and till amazon or some other company gets in they won't move. Right now the demand isn't great and they pretty much filling the niche anyway. Also, eInk is continuously being improved and they have no reason to go out with something special that will end outdated anyway in a year or so. The way I see it. Sony first came out with the libre to check the ebook market at all. They did it only in japan. Based on that, they improved - and released the reader - only in the US. Now they are studing us, maybe even reading this forums, and others, and wait for amazon\apple move. Once that happen sony will come out with a greatly improved reader that will be able to compete with what amazon\apple will put out, and they will sell it internationally. Also, based on their former experience with the market they will probably have the edge in terms of usability. Another thing. If the amazon/apple reader will be DRM based, then everything will go on as before, but if just one large company will market a nonDRM device, then I believe other companies, and sony, will follow suit.

03-12-2007, 09:10 AM	#35
yvanleterrible Reborn Paper User Posts: 8,616 Karma: 15446734 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Que Nada Device: iPhone8, iPad Air	About an A4 reader. I forgot to mention all the disappearing magazines, they could come back with such a device you know! And all the newspapers preparing to make a switch, it surely is a sign of that coming!

03-14-2007, 12:15 PM	#45
NatCh Gizmologist Posts: 11,615 Karma: 929550 Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Republic of Texas Embassy at Jackson, TN Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3	Okay, yeah, now I think I see what you're saying, Zeek, sorry to be so dense. In Acrobat 7, under the Advanced menu item, is an Accessibility item, which has an option to add tags. (if that's not what you mean, please point me in the right direction ) I didn't know that an existing PDF could be tagged like that, thanks for pointing it out. In any case, I agree (already did, in fact) that if the PDF viewer that Sony put on the Reader could handle PDF files that were tagged for reflow, it'd be a huge improvement, even bigger than I previously thought, since existing PDFs can be tagged. As RWood has confirmed (and as you were saying in the first place) the Reader doesn't seem to care, or indeed notice, that the doc is tagged for reflow. I know that the Adobe Reader I have on my Pilot handles all that automagically, it'd be nice if the one on the Sony would do so too. Perhaps they could have the M size setting go to the reflowed display, and leave the S and M doing what they do now, so that folks could still see the layout if they needed that for reference.

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