Mobile reader being able to display A4 pdfs

[Mononofu]

I really would like to replace all the books I have with just one small device, however, there is one problem: I can't find a reader that is able to display A4 pdfs and at the same time offers more than 10 hours battery life.

There is the Digital Reader from iRex, but currently it only lasts for mere 6 hours, which is a bit short.

And all the other readers I've seen are not really large enough to display A4 pdfs (you can only read so much on a 6" screen).

I read in the BeBook thread that you could display half of a pdf on it, when you choose landscape mode. Does that work? It looks like the screen still is too small.

Do you know any alternatives? Or will I have to decide between one of these two possiblities?

[ferridder]

Originally Posted by Mononofu

I can't find a reader that is able to display A4 pdfs and at the same time offers more than 10 hours battery life.

If it is not really urgent, I would wait half a year or so since A4 screens are just now starting to come out on the market,

Personally, my main concern is whether glass-based screens are sturdy enough, and I won't know that until a large number of people have bought and used A4 devices. In the meantime, I'm happily using a Sony 505 for LRF e-books - not PDFs.

[Mononofu]

Well, I don't really need it now, I just wanted to know if something like that exists. Apparently, it doesn't.

But since I can also read eBooks on my iPhone, I guess I'll wait half a year or so and see if something changed then - hopefully larger screens for less money ^^

[=X=]

Originally Posted by Mononofu

Well, I don't really need it now, I just wanted to know if something like that exists. Apparently, it doesn't.

But since I can also read eBooks on my iPhone, I guess I'll wait half a year or so and see if something changed then - hopefully larger screens for less money ^^

The SONY 505 and SONY 700 support PDF as well as secure PDF.

Both handle text reflow. This feature works fine so long as the PDF is mainly single column text w/o graphics. There are tools here that do manipulate the PDF so they can be viewed on a 6" screen

Last the 700 has a ZOOM feature that really makes PDF readable w/o having to mess with the original PDF.

With the 700 you can use the reflow to read the text and the ZOOM to view graphics.

=X=

[Mononofu]

Well, viewing PDFs consisting mainly of single-column text is no problem - I can simply convert it to .mobi.

However, viewing multi-colum PDFs with images is the thing I want to do - reference books, etc. So I figure if there is no big-screen reader yet (with sensible battery life, that is), I'll have to wait.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by Mononofu

Well, viewing PDFs consisting mainly of single-column text is no problem - I can simply convert it to .mobi.

Well it's not quite that easy. There is no PDF conversion tool that exists without having to manually modify the final product. Mobicreate is good but not good enough.

Originally Posted by Mononofu

However, viewing multi-colum PDFs with images is the thing I want to do - reference books, etc. So I figure if there is no big-screen reader yet (with sensible battery life, that is), I'll have to wait.

There are tools that do convert multi column documents into single column quite easily PDFLRF and PDFread do this. There is a tool called PDFCrop that has smarts to convert the text. The last tool does great job at creating single column eBooks.


Also I would recommend that you visit a sonystyle or Target and try viewing a PDF on the PRS-505/700 and see if you like the result. (this would require that you place a PDF on a SD/Memory Stick prior to visiting the store)

=X=

[Mononofu]

Originally Posted by =X=

Well it's not quite that easy. There is no PDF conversion tool that exists without having to manually modify the final product. Mobicreate is good but not good enough.

Well, I referred to converting a single-column PDF - that usually works quite well.

My problem is that my multi-colum PDFs also have boxes between the columns, thus further complicating the layout, and additionally quite many tables.
Do you think PDFCrop or another of the tools you mentioned could convert this?

Originally Posted by =X=

Also I would recommend that you visit a sonystyle or Target and try viewing a PDF on the PRS-505/700 and see if you like the result. (this would require that you place a PDF on a SD/Memory Stick prior to visiting the store)
=X=

Hm, that sounds like a good idea, I might go looking around in some shops if I find any of these readers, but I fear not. (one of the reasons I dislike Austria is that it isn't always on top of the trends )

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Mononofu

My problem is that my multi-colum PDFs also have boxes between the columns, thus further complicating the layout, and additionally quite many tables.

See Multi-column PDF files on 6 inch display, but this produces images. For how to convert the images to LRF, see pdf to lrf with 2 column and 1 column pages in same file.

EDIT: PaperCrop now has a PDF output option.

[orwell2k]

Originally Posted by Mononofu

I really would like to replace all the books I have with just one small device, however, there is one problem: I can't find a reader that is able to display A4 pdfs and at the same time offers more than 10 hours battery life.

There is the Digital Reader from iRex, but currently it only lasts for mere 6 hours, which is a bit short.

And all the other readers I've seen are not really large enough to display A4 pdfs (you can only read so much on a 6" screen).

I read in the BeBook thread that you could display half of a pdf on it, when you choose landscape mode. Does that work? It looks like the screen still is too small.

Do you know any alternatives? Or will I have to decide between one of these two possiblities?

I posted some images of my BeBook displaying A4 PDF pages - I was asked to provide some pics but then never heard back from the person who started the thread. So, have a look and see what you think. The photos do show the display slightly darker than in reality, and there is the occaisional glare spot if light, but you get the idea... check the pics at the bottom of this post:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...31110&p=278574

If you click the pic once it will view in a pop-up front window - if you click that pic it will display in your browser and you can zoom, download, etc.

I find viewing A4 PDFs in the max zoom mode (i.e. half-page per screen landscape layout) workd very well. Assuming of course that the source is not using a silly small font - I tend to have work docs with Times New Roman 12 or Arial 10, which are both a reasonable size for clear viewing in A4 PDFs on the BeBook.

The shots I provided also have some diagrams and notes, so you can get a feel for how things are displayed. Naturally, column data creates a different set of problems - luckily I tend not to have many docs with this - tables are my biggest problems, but as they tend to span the page they work OK.

Hope this helps.

[Mononofu]

Thank you very much for these images - it seems like there won't be problems in reading those PDFs, as long as I can put up with having to scroll up and down a few times per page if there are multiple columns.

The BeBook actually looks quite cool, and it's significantly cheaper than the bigger iRex reader, and has much better battery life, so maybe I won't wait till next year to buy one.

[Petrous]

I am also interested in reading multicolumn pdfs (medical journals). I (briefly) had a bebook before it broke and found that while the high zoom worked fine for single column pdf even on the highest setting double column pdfs were not really legible. I did try papercrop and ended up with a usable pdf from quite a complex pdf (with lots of tables and figures etc) but it did take a long time - too long to really be more than a curiosity for me. I don't think there is a really usable pdf reader in a 6 inch device yet - ??maybe the foxit eslick when it comes out.