Ebook reader thingies
- Thread starter Proinsias
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I'm thinking of getting an ebook reader but I'm not sure if they do what I need. I have mainly PDF text books and magazines that contain images and diagrams and would like to be able to read them when travelling without having to take my laptop with me. Does a kindle or similar device convert a PDF into text and still display images or are they limited to displaying novels that are text only? I realise an ipad type tablet would do the job but I don't want to spend out that sort of money and find I only need it for reading books if a kindle type device would do the job just as well. Do these ebook readers display PDFs intact with images?
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mark68 said:
yes
look for a program called calibre
drag and drop the files into it and it will convert it to the format of your choosing. i use .mobi and then put them on kindle
you can look at pictures on kindle but i belive there black and white
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Need to qualify shanky's reply rather. PDF conversion is frankly appalling and pretty much unusable* for any serious work such as complex textbooks (and really not much better for anything else). If reading pdfs is important, you need to be doing it natively.
Kindle does this acceptably for light use but not well, really. For anything serious you're going to want a tablet, IMO. However, for relatively light holiday and travel use you're probably fine. (I have a fair bit of technical stuff on mine, in fact.)
* this is petty much a paraphrase of what the Calibre manual had to say on the subject last I looked, in fact. It's great for other conversion work. PDF is not designed to be converted to flowable formats, really.
Kindle does this acceptably for light use but not well, really. For anything serious you're going to want a tablet, IMO. However, for relatively light holiday and travel use you're probably fine. (I have a fair bit of technical stuff on mine, in fact.)
* this is petty much a paraphrase of what the Calibre manual had to say on the subject last I looked, in fact. It's great for other conversion work. PDF is not designed to be converted to flowable formats, really.
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I'd agree with the pdf conversion, calibre is an excellent piece of software but all pdfs I've converted, and that includes the amazon service have been crap, and pretty much unreadable.
I tried it with a magazine once and it was truly awful! In the kindle defence it was never designed for that, tablets are much better, but then not as good in direct light and are power hungry fiends.
So you have to decide what you want to do with them before buying.
I tried it with a magazine once and it was truly awful! In the kindle defence it was never designed for that, tablets are much better, but then not as good in direct light and are power hungry fiends.
So you have to decide what you want to do with them before buying.
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sjedwardz said:
i should have mentioned that really
you cant zoom in on a kindle
so one pdf page becomes one kindle page
if you only have pdf's your better off with a tablet or if you have only short ones a smartphone works as well
didn't realize it was all e readers that messed up pdf's though, i thought it was just the kindle
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mark68 said:
Just to echo other comments - I'm a consultant and spend a lot of time out on site. I bought a Sony ebook reader years ago to carry textbooks around with me. The truth is that they are rubbish for this type of activity - the thing with textbooks is that you usually need to skip around in them, often jumping between related sections. Ebook readers aren't much good for that, everything is too laboured.
However, my Sony reader is still used every day - for novels, etc. that you read sequentially, I don't think it can be beaten. Also, being able to pack a bunch of books to take with me when I'm out and about so I've always got something to read is great.
The icing on the cake for me is that my local library (Surrey libraries in general, in fact) actually lend ebooks. As long as you can read it in the 2 weeks allocated you get free access to thousands of books.
I now have an iPad - and that works really well with text books. But I still use the Sony for serious reading - e-ink is just much easier on the eyes.
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shanky887614 said:
You're a font of misinformation. You can zoom in on a Kindle to read pdfs.
As others have said, both Amazon's pdf conversion and Calibre's is pretty poor if figures are included. However, you can view native pdfs either full screen or zoom in and scroll around. It's not ideal and I wouldn't recommend a Kindle for heavy pdf usage, but in a pinch it does work.
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Yellow Jim said:
how? never figured out how to
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shanky887614 said:
click on the Aa button (where you can choose your text size/portrait-landscape mode)
then choose the % you want to zoom into
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pedro083 said:
didnt work for me. at least not on pdf files
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shanky887614 said:
What do you mean "at least not on pdf files"? PDFs are the only files that the zoom option is available for. The option isn't there for the Kindle's own format (it's not required), so it can't have worked for you on any other file type.
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Yellow Jim said:
pressing the aAA butten for me only let me change the size of the text. i guess ive just never found that option