PRS505 Firmware update: epub, DE, and reflow -- oh my!

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by ibby

I have a few unprotected PDFs which seem to flow very poorly (text out of order, odd line breaks, etc.).

Is there anything I can do to change the text flow of a PDF - in Acrobat maybe?

The usual tool for fixing text, the "Touch Up Text" tool only works within existing text flows. While the "Touch Up Reading Order Tool" would seem to be just the thing, this adds tagging to the document, which we ignore.

What comes to mind for me is editing the PDF inside of Illustrator, which is a much better raw editor of PDFs than Acrobat. The easiest way to do this is select the "Touch Up Object" Tool and right click on a empty spot on a page and select "Edit Page...". However this is pretty close to the effort of just reauthoring the document.

An easier way to get the content in reflowable form on the Sony Reader, might be to export it as RTF from Acrobat.

[dasoulseeker]

To Jim,
Why is it that with Acrobat Professional, one cannot save a reflowed pdf? I would think that if one can see it, it should not be too difficult to save it? This would be such a useful option, and helpful for us PRS-500 users.

And in addition, I request help in finding any piece of software which can reflow AND save pdfs.

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by thorswitch

...well paraphrase instead of quote...
Having problems with it not reflowing across pages

Unfortunately this is the way it works, our engine will not reflow PDFs across pages. We treat PDF pages essentially the same as ePub chapter, and the rendering engine is shared between PDF and ePub (as far as Sony is concerned). Reflowing across pages was hard, and we programmer types are lazy and conservative when dealing with deadline pressures

Originally Posted by thorswitch

...well paraphrase instead of quote...
Having problems with metadata in books (this time with books from Tor)

So I noticed this in the TOR books as well (BTW, thanks for the books TOR, I do enjoy them). ADE and the code out of ADE that we gave to Sony looks for metadata in the pdfs in the well documented predefined locations for metadata (info dictionary). The TOR books (and a multitude of others) do not have this correctly filled out - go into Acrobat or Reader, Select File->Properties and in the Description tab look at Title/Author. Also unfortunately TOR password protected the document with the permissions set such that you cannot fix this oversight in Acrobat.

That being said, ADE uses the information in the PDF to seed it's own metadata store about files - manifest.xml in the Digital Editions folder. If you override the information about the book in the manifest, this will fix it in ADE. I forget off the top of my head if the code in the Sony Reader is picking information up from the manifest, or from the book itself, and unfortunately I don't have a Reader to play with right now (short supply at work, and my wife's Reader is HER - keepyourgrubbyfingersoffgetyourowndamn - Reader).

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by dasoulseeker

To Jim,
Why is it that with Acrobat Professional, one cannot save a reflowed pdf? I would think that if one can see it, it should not be too difficult to save it? This would be such a useful option, and helpful for us PRS-500 users.

And in addition, I request help in finding any piece of software which can reflow AND save pdfs.

The design goals for Acrobat (as far as editing goes) is much more about making final tweaks to the document than about totally restructuring the document. So there's no good way to restructure the document altogether inside Acrobat. Actually your best bet if you want to fix the internal structure of a PDF to make it reflow better, is to export it into HTML, fix it, and then convert it back to PDF (use File->Create PDF->From Web Page).

In ADE we don't pay attention to the other Acrobat facility for reflow - tagging the document, because the design goals for ADE center mostly around displaying purchased PDFs and ePub. Most publishers of PDFs have not tagged their documents appropriately if at all (and there is a rather large existing inventory that we need to deal with). Also for protected PDFs there is no way for users to fix the tagging. So for ADE (and Sony) we couldn't rely on tagging for reflow (and actually using tagging made things worse in a lot of cases), so we had to make our best guesses based upon the structure of the document.

[jennaclaire]

Oh sweet sweet beautiful day.
i just too my first ebook out of the New York Public Library.
This was what I had been hoping for the day I bought my 505. I must have died and gone to heaven.

[Leaping Gnome]

Hey Jim, just wanted to say thanks for taking to the time to reply to some of the questions here.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by methlp

I was wondering if any of you guys would be able to snap a few pics of the PDF reflow working on some 8 1/2 x 11 or A4 sized PDFs, and the difference from start to magnified. And possibly some pics in landscape mode.

The latest eBook Library Software for your PC appears to be a close emulation of the PRS-505, see Sony's Windows ebook Reader. So you can try out the PDF's yourself under Windows. I did not find a landscape mode though.

[astra]

Originally Posted by HarryT

How very strange . We use it all the time in "everyday life".

Thanks for the explanation!

Really? I have not noticed it. Moreover, I had to force myself to adapt to 4 pm etc instead of 16.00. I think it is very unpopular in the UK to use 24-hour time.

[djet]

Jim, I have a plenty of books converted from CHM by Document2PDF Pilot. The problem with all of them is the same: Reader suddenly reboots when I turn on Reflow. This doesn't always happen immediately, but listing a dozen of pages is usually enough.

Unfortunately this is the way it works, our engine will not reflow PDFs across pages.

If this isn't possible, could the Reader at least choose the scale smart enough to avoid these "hanging" pages (empty pages filled only by page numbers or chapter titles)?

[BobVA]

Originally Posted by jennaclaire

Oh sweet sweet beautiful day.
i just too my first ebook out of the New York Public Library.
This was what I had been hoping for the day I bought my 505. I must have died and gone to heaven.

I'm curious what format folks are seeing these in - was it ePub? My local library seems to be using Adobe PDF.

Originally Posted by NatCh

...While we’re on the topic of things it won’t do, you may have noticed the lack of mention of the PRS500. Sadly, this particular update does not work on the 500. We did specifically ask about future support of epub, DE, PDF reflow on the 500 and the answer was that they were still looking into it. Reading between the lines, we came away with the impression that it isn’t likely to happen.

NatCh - any idea when/if this will change to a "no" or "yes"?
I'm taking Sony at their word that they are looking into it, since if it was an engineering impossibility (or business non-starter) I'm assuming they'd just say so.

The only fool-proof plan I've got is to resolve the ambiguity go buy a '505. The new 500 firmware would then be released within seconds of the return period expiring

Regards,
Bob

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by djet

Jim, I have a plenty of books converted from CHM by Document2PDF Pilot. The problem with all of them is the same: Reader suddenly reboots when I turn on Reflow. This doesn't always happen immediately, but listing a dozen of pages is usually enough.

While Sony or us would be interested in PDFs for bug reports. You'll have better luck in the short term in displaying that content in a good reflowable form on your Sony Reader by either round tripping it to HTML and back to PDF or asking kovidgoyal for an update to Calibre to support chm->lrf.

[fbon]

no problem between Mac & PRS-R05

and the firmware update ok with "Parallels Desktop"

http://www.tierslivre.net/spip/spip.php?article1338
(in french, sorry)

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BobVA

I'm curious what format folks are seeing these in - was it ePub? My local library seems to be using Adobe PDF.

The last I looked, the NY Public Library was using PDF and Mobipocket.
______
Dennis

[Bossman]

Is there a way to turn of those small page numbers on the right side with epubs? its kind of redundant since you got the page number at the bottom of the reader screen too.

[djet]

Originally Posted by Jim Lester

While Sony or us would be interested in PDFs for bug reports. You'll have better luck in the short term in displaying that content in a good reflowable form on your Sony Reader by either round tripping it to HTML and back to PDF or asking kovidgoyal for an update to Calibre to support chm->lrf.

Thanks, I know most of the workarounds. How should I file a bug report?