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Daric posted:Is someone really going to ask about PDF support every other post? Also, why HAVE they been so slow to implement PDF support? It seems like the most natural thing in the world. Is Adobe developing their own portable PDF reader and trying to keep the others from beating them to the punch or something?
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Dec 1, 2010 19:03
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fishmech posted:Well if you get the previous text dark enough to make the other text illegible again, call Amazon., Having faint text that doesn't interfere with reading from the last page is common though. I don't see any faint text on mine at all. I would imagine that would be pretty distracting. I'd say give support a call if its even remotely dark enough to make out actual letters. Also mine (Kindle 3) seems to do a full refresh every time I turn the page. Samurai Sanders posted:In my defense I was asking about something that I hadn't seen mentioned yet, how highlighting worked for PDFs. PDF is an open standard, Adobe isn't keeping anyone from implementing better support. Personally I think it's more just a matter of ereaders having a fairly slow processor and screen, and it makes PDF viewing (image heavy, especially) not so great. For something like the Nook Color with a faster processor and LCD screen there's not much excuse though. subx fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Dec 1, 2010 |
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Dec 1, 2010 19:11
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Samurai Sanders posted:In my defense I was asking about something that I hadn't seen mentioned yet, how highlighting worked for PDFs. I think it's because PDF was really designed for printing, so you can make PDFs in a huge amount of ways. Like specifying exact placement of graphics/text...etc. When the reader's try to do the reflow thing they can get pretty hosed up. The Sony Daily is pretty good at it, but some of the text in PDFs look like poo poo for some reason. It really turns into zoom, read, zoom, scroll, scroll, zoom out, read, scroll, scroll, read...give up and use a computer.
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Dec 1, 2010 19:12
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Samurai Sanders posted:Also, why HAVE they been so slow to implement PDF support? It seems like the most natural thing in the world. Is Adobe developing their own portable PDF reader and trying to keep the others from beating them to the punch or something? I haven't heard any complaints about PDFs on a Kindle DX. Just that people don't want to pay for it.
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Dec 1, 2010 19:13
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Samurai Sanders posted:Also, why HAVE they been so slow to implement PDF support? It seems like the most natural thing in the world. Is Adobe developing their own portable PDF reader and trying to keep the others from beating them to the punch or something? Because PDF is a horrible ereading format. It's designed to replicate a formatted printed page portably and accurately (which it does fairly well), whereas ereading is less about format and more about content. If your screen isn't at least the same size as the page the PDF is designed for, you end up with some serious compromises. The ereader has to guess from the formatting what's a column vs a text box, where to stick figures and drawings, etc. The PDF format was modified to provide metadata about the reading order for sections of text and such using what are called "tags," but I rarely see them used in PDFs I've checked in the wild. Now readers that have roughly page-sized screens, like the Kindle DX or the iPad, handle PDF fairly well. But trying to reformat/reflow a PDF tends to be a crapshoot, especially with the CPUs you see in your typical ereaders.
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Dec 1, 2010 19:19
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Anyone know if you hack/root the kindle, can you use calibre to keep the series order/collections in order on the reader? Just wondering, friend asked me and I have no idea. I see stuff about the screen savers and fonts but nothing about the series.
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Dec 1, 2010 23:46
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Anyone know if you hack/root the kindle, can you use calibre to keep the series order/collections in order on the reader? No. Any changes you make through calibre to collections will only persist until the next time it syncs with amazon's server.
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Dec 2, 2010 00:18
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But would that affect books that he adds himself? He has a pretty big ebook collection (not quite as big as mine), but he is thinking of getting a new ereader since his broke. The kindle is looking like a good candidate for him since he is a cheap bastard, but he really wants the sony style collections where you can choose what book is #1 in a series, what book is #2, etc. I know if he did this with amazon purchased books it might cause an issue when it connects to the server, but if it was just something he broke the drm on, or loaded up himself.. would it also affect the reading order? He has a few weeks to think about it, I think he is gunning for one around christmas. Just thought I would help him out by asking here 
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Dec 2, 2010 00:50
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How easy is it on a Kindle to jump to middle sections of the book? Do books have tables of contents that either allow you to go directly to that chapter/section, or at least have a location number you can input? Like, if I have a large book of essays or stories or something, do I have to flip through it or can I choose where to jump to somehow?
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Dec 2, 2010 02:58
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They do have tables of contents with direct links. I believe Amazon actually requires it. Also you can use the arrow keys to skip to the next chapter.
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Dec 2, 2010 03:06
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:But would that affect books that he adds himself? You can put the volume # out of the series in the metadata but the kindle won't sort by it. If he wants the Sony style sorting he should get a Sony, Kindle's sorting abilities are probably it's weakest point.
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Dec 2, 2010 03:21
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pienipple posted:Kindle's sorting abilities are probably it's weakest point. This is so true. It kind of annoys me how badly it does it.
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Dec 2, 2010 03:44
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What kind of success have people had converting completely text pdfs to mobipocket with Calibre? I ordered a Kindle today, will get a chance to play with it this weekend. I know that in general PDFs won't work great / at all, but I would really like to be able to read lots of the free ebooks on the internet that the authors / publishers have put up in pdf only. Something like this: http://brainoverbrawn.com/get-the-book/
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Dec 2, 2010 03:44
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vkeios posted:They do have tables of contents with direct links. I believe Amazon actually requires it. Oh, that's awesome and exactly what I was hoping for. Thanks.
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Dec 2, 2010 03:46
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Weinertron posted:What kind of success have people had converting completely text pdfs to mobipocket with Calibre? I ordered a Kindle today, will get a chance to play with it this weekend. I know that in general PDFs won't work great / at all, but I would really like to be able to read lots of the free ebooks on the internet that the authors / publishers have put up in pdf only. Something like this: http://brainoverbrawn.com/get-the-book/ PDFs that are just text (OCR'ed, not scanned) work fine. It's the images that confuse all readers.
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Dec 2, 2010 03:53
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Woah, weird, 9 minute lapse double post. Dunno how that happened.
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Dec 2, 2010 03:55
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Easiest way to check pdfs is to open in acrobat, ctrl+a to select all, they copy and paste into notepad. That is pretty much what it will look like when converted to an ebook.
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Dec 2, 2010 03:59
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A little late, but I just got mine today. Some screensavers I made.          If you like the idea of ye olde EX LIBRIS bookplates on yer newfangled electronic book device, I have ~4,500 for your perusal (formatting up to you): http://picasaweb.google.com/JeremiahBritt (Don't hate me for the papyrus font, it was the closest I could find on my computer to the original.)
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Dec 2, 2010 04:16
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Those are very classy looking, thanks! For my Nook (E-ink) so far I've just been going to wallbase.net, I've had some luck searching for "high contrast black and white", but you have to filter through the truckloads of anime and dumb memes.
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Dec 2, 2010 04:44
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Hows the Kindle for reading b&w comics/manga?
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Dec 2, 2010 05:41
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We just got ours but it's pretty drat good. For black and white comics it's perfect, for color stuff it's definitely passable and pleasant to read on. I would put it at like 8/10 for comics, with the ipad being a 9/10. Black and whites the kindle is more like 9.5.
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Dec 2, 2010 05:43
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teraflame posted:Hows the Kindle for reading b&w comics/manga? pretty good. anything with strong linework looks great. artists who use a lot of ~whispy pencils~ and typesetters that make the asides too small to read are an annoyance. k2 and k3 will read cbzs tossed in the pictures folder, but doesn't always refresh the screen properly. i find it the most convenient to use a program called canti you can find on the mobile read forums. it uses image magic to batch process folders or archives and optimize them for your device. ive been using the pdf output to dodge the partial refresh problem of reading straight from the archives and the pages randomly out of order problem mangle viewer gives me.
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Dec 2, 2010 06:15
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pienipple posted:pretty good. anything with strong linework looks great. artists who use a lot of ~whispy pencils~ and typesetters that make the asides too small to read are an annoyance. I just tried Canti and it's a lot worse for me than Mangle is. Since there's a progress bar at the bottom of the PDF, everything is scrunched up and the image quality is noticeably worse.
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Dec 2, 2010 11:52
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I had a Sony PRS-600, and the touch-screen lost its capacitativeness or something. It turns on, refreshes, and all that. but it doesn't read any contact with it. If I get a Nook or something similar this year, will I have to worry about the same problem, or should I just grab a Kindle?
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Dec 2, 2010 13:29
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Grawl posted:PDFs that are just text (OCR'ed, not scanned) work fine. It's the images that confuse all readers. That's the kind of information I was looking for when I asked about PDFs. The OP just said what ones supported the file type, but not all PDFs are the same. Some of mine are just images so that seemed iffy, but others are just text which seemed like it should be perfectly fine. The FAQ now is kind of helpful but I'm still curious about the definition of "sucks". What actually happens? Do they not load at all or do they look terrible- and how terrible? If the formatting is just messed up, or images don't load but the text is fine, I don't care. Is the text small? That's fine too, I'm the only person in my family with good eyesight- for exams I always print notes 8 or 16 pages per sheet and can read everything just fine. I have low standards. I guess what my question should have been is, is there anywhere I can actually see pictures of PDFs loaded on different ereaders. Someone mentioned using Calibre to convert to the Kindle's format to see what it'd look like- does that process work for the other readers? I tried just now for one and the formatting is a bit off but it's still perfectly fine for my purposes.
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Dec 2, 2010 14:00
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My wife's trying to get me a Kindle for Christmas. We're in Japan right now so she apparently has to order the version labeled International on the website. It claims it won't ship for 7-9 weeks. Does anyone know if that's accurate? Seems pretty ridiculous since it's just the same as the regular Kindle, isn't it?
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Dec 2, 2010 14:18
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ABFA00 posted:That's the kind of information I was looking for when I asked about PDFs. The OP just said what ones supported the file type, but not all PDFs are the same. Some of mine are just images so that seemed iffy, but others are just text which seemed like it should be perfectly fine. The FAQ now is kind of helpful but I'm still curious about the definition of "sucks". What actually happens? Do they not load at all or do they look terrible- and how terrible? If the formatting is just messed up, or images don't load but the text is fine, I don't care. Is the text small? That's fine too, I'm the only person in my family with good eyesight- for exams I always print notes 8 or 16 pages per sheet and can read everything just fine. Images probably won't be there. The main thing that you lose when converting from pdf is the page layout. If the pdf has fancy columns, sidebars, tables, or anything like that then it will probably get mangled in the conversion. Conversion tools all pretty much work the same, you could test by installing Calibre and converting some pdfs to an ebook format that you can see on your computer. withak fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Dec 2, 2010 |
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Dec 2, 2010 15:12
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ABFA00 posted:That's the kind of information I was looking for when I asked about PDFs. The OP just said what ones supported the file type, but not all PDFs are the same. Some of mine are just images so that seemed iffy, but others are just text which seemed like it should be perfectly fine. The FAQ now is kind of helpful but I'm still curious about the definition of "sucks". What actually happens? Do they not load at all or do they look terrible- and how terrible? If the formatting is just messed up, or images don't load but the text is fine, I don't care. Is the text small? That's fine too, I'm the only person in my family with good eyesight- for exams I always print notes 8 or 16 pages per sheet and can read everything just fine. If you load the PDF directly on the Kindle, it will display it fit-to-screen by default. Its displaying an entire printed page in an area significantly less than 1/4 its original size (for a 8.5x11 original). Most text ends up being very small if it is anything less than ~18pt font size originally (comparable to like <5pt. on the Kindle screen). It is usually legible in my experience, but definitely not pleasant to actually read. It ends up at about 1/4-1/3 the size of the regular ebook text that I have set, depending on the PDF. If you try to convert a PDF with images, depending on the amount it can balloon in size (I had one go from ~14 MB to ~250 MB in MOBI format), and generally looks like crap. You'll usually lose all semblance of formatting from the original, images will end up on their own pages or not be there at all, etc. You can turn the view sideways on the Kindle which helps somewhat, so you end up reading half of each page at a time. I've found this to be an ok compromise. Doesn't require zoom and the page turn buttons move to the bottom of the page you're on before going to the next page. sirbeefalot fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Dec 2, 2010 |
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Dec 2, 2010 15:14
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z0331 posted:My wife's trying to get me a Kindle for Christmas. We're in Japan right now so she apparently has to order the version labeled International on the website. It claims it won't ship for 7-9 weeks. Does anyone know if that's accurate? Seems pretty ridiculous since it's just the same as the regular Kindle, isn't it? I was thinking about buying one but screw waiting until February for it to get here.
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Dec 2, 2010 16:11
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Mudlark posted:I had a Sony PRS-600, and the touch-screen lost its capacitativeness or something. It turns on, refreshes, and all that. but it doesn't read any contact with it. If I get a Nook or something similar this year, will I have to worry about the same problem, or should I just grab a Kindle? Nah, the sony is the only one that has a touch screen so far (besides the nook color). I would drop them an email and ask what's up. They are usually pretty good about fixing up the ereaders. Silly question, but have you tried the little stencil that comes with it? (assuming the pages still turn with the buttons on the bottom)
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Dec 2, 2010 16:54
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The Aphasian posted:Screen savers These are loving awesome, especially the beer one. Please more people post their screen savers, i suck at photoshop myself.
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Dec 2, 2010 17:11
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Duckman2008 posted:These are loving awesome, especially the beer one. Please more people post their screen savers, i suck at photoshop myself. Don't have to be good at photoshop; as a proof of concept I went to Wordle, pasted the complete text of The Yellow Wallpaper (it's in the public domain) and-- after resizing it slightly in XnView Portable--got this:  Or you could just search for typographic art.
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Dec 2, 2010 17:45
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I'm looking for opinions: I want an e-reader/tablet primarily for books (and maybe wikipedia if possible). I'm weighing and playing with Kindles and Nooks, but my dad just bought some cheap knock-off "e-pad" for $200.00 that runs Android 2.2. He can get the Kindle app on it, and any other apps he wants. Does anyone have an opinion on whether a dedicated e-reader is better for e-books or if any tablet is basically fine for it?
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Dec 2, 2010 17:56
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Anal Surgery posted:I'm looking for opinions: I want an e-reader/tablet primarily for books (and maybe wikipedia if possible). I'm weighing and playing with Kindles and Nooks, but my dad just bought some cheap knock-off "e-pad" for $200.00 that runs Android 2.2. He can get the Kindle app on it, and any other apps he wants. Does anyone have an opinion on whether a dedicated e-reader is better for e-books or if any tablet is basically fine for it? It mainly comes down to what functions you want and whether you want E-Ink or LCD, so it is a bit personal preference. My opinion was that I wanted this for reading books, and I hate reading books on LCD, so I got the Kindle 3. I use it for reading, and while I dick around on the web browser, in reality that is what you are getting, a device that is optimized for reading extremely well. Based on you saying that's what you want, Either the Kindle or Nook would be a good bet, see if you can find either on sale somewhere (Overstock.com may have the Nook on sale still). Some people don't care about LCD screens, and if so a tablet would be ok too. I've tried reading books on my Evo and it just isn't enjoyable for me.
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Dec 2, 2010 18:08
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z0331 posted:My wife's trying to get me a Kindle for Christmas. We're in Japan right now so she apparently has to order the version labeled International on the website. It claims it won't ship for 7-9 weeks. Does anyone know if that's accurate? Seems pretty ridiculous since it's just the same as the regular Kindle, isn't it? There's no special International version now. There was an International Kindle 2 which was the later model of the Kindle 2 though. You should try having someone in the US order to a US address, since there is no delay here, and then have it shipped to you.
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Dec 2, 2010 18:48
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fishmech posted:There's no special International version now. There was an International Kindle 2 which was the later model of the Kindle 2 though. You should try having someone in the US order to a US address, since there is no delay here, and then have it shipped to you. Are you absolutely sure about this? Do you have a source? I really want a Kindle and getting it during 2010 would be ideal. EDIT: Apparently US/Canada and European/International Kindles have different serial numbers depending of what SIM they use. lunar detritus fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Dec 2, 2010 |
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Dec 2, 2010 18:58
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Duckman2008 posted:Some people don't care about LCD screens, and if so a tablet would be ok too. I've tried reading books on my Evo and it just isn't enjoyable for me. eBooks are great on an AMOLED screen with white text on black background. Plus it uses very little battery life. I still dislike reading on such a small screen, even with the text size jacked up.
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Dec 2, 2010 19:29
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For screensavers (it's not really saving the screen from anything...?), I've found that a lot of sites post some nice pictures with really bad contrast. This is usually a result of taking a full color image and converting it to grayscale with no tweaking for the target device. There are two main reasons for this. First, on e-ink screens, there are only 16 or so shades of gray. Second, an image that doesn't use both full black and full white will look washed out. Here is an image I grabbed from a kindle screensaver blog  Click here for the full 600x800 image. Notice that it's very gray. Here are the levels:  The flat sections at the left and (especially) the right indicate that the image doesn't make very good use of the available color space. Because we're not dealing with any color information, this means everything within any 1/16th sliver of the colorspace will look identical. If the image was in color, this wouldn't necessarily be as important because there would still be some definition. And, as I mentioned, the lack of a full black and full white will just make the thing looked washed out. Levels fixed by pulling in the range from both sides until it looks better. Some detail may be lost if you pull the range in too far, but again, the lack of grayscale levels is going to lose detail anyway. Fixed:  You can see that I went a little past the first hint of white and black. The result:  Click here for the full 600x800 image. The second image looks *much* better on my Kindle.
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Dec 2, 2010 19:32
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gmq posted:Are you absolutely sure about this? Do you have a source? They all work exactly the same though. With the Kindle 2 there was a US only version that used a CDMA 3G radio and an International version with a GSM 3G radio. You can use any Kindle 3 anywhere in the world.
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Dec 2, 2010 20:12
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The Aphasian posted:Don't have to be good at photoshop; as a proof of concept I went to Wordle, pasted the complete text of The Yellow Wallpaper (it's in the public domain) and-- after resizing it slightly in XnView Portable--got this: Cool idea, I'm going to give that a try with some of my favorite passages. Thanks!
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Dec 2, 2010 20:13
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