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List:       jaxlug-list
Subject:    Re: eReader bargain revisited - PDFs
From:       Tim Holloway <timh () mousetech ! com>
Date:       2011-11-02 0:39:55
Message-ID: 1320194395.2883.87.camel () a64
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Looks like I missed most of the action on this thread. last month got
hectic. Now there are rumors that a new Color Nook may be coming out.

I think I mentioned that rooting the Color Nook is so dead easy that you
don't even have to open it up.

Anyway, one of the topics of discussion on eReaders, and the Nook in
particular had to do with readability of PDFs.

PDFs are normally designed to faithfully present the document layout
precisely as defined. The majority of PDF's are in US Letter or metric
A4 page sizes. They're almost equivalent. That means that smaller
screens have 3 options.

1. Scroll the page (ugh)
2. Shrink the page (argh)
3. Butcher the page (censored).

There is a concept known as a reflowable PDF that can survive transfer
to portable reading devices better than a straight PDF can. Like ePubs,
it will trade display fidelity for readability.

I *THINK* that OpenOffice 3 can produce reflowable PDFs, although the
exact options to set aren't clear. Likewise for Linux' generous set of
PDF manipulation tools.

Reflowable or not, of course, there are limits, especially when tables
and illustrations are involved. I've got the ePub edition of the
O'Reilly jQuery cookbook on my phone, but a 320x240 pixel screen wreaks
havoc with the sample code.

   Tim


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