PDF - Books/Magazines Readability Issues

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Hi,

Downloaded a few books and magazines in PDF format, and find that these are not what I call "user friendly".

Firstly the don't fit/flow to the screen being used, and thus difficult to read, changing zoom level does not fix problem.

Secondly they contain coloured side bars, advertisements that are impossible to read - over saturated colour, and low resolution?

Is there a simple way of fixing this, converting to HTML or some other format, so I can easily read the content of these documents.

Thanks

 

[oldhat]

What PDF software are you using? Does it have options like 'Fit Width' or 'Fit Content' ?

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Using Adobe Reader X, both options are available but then text is way too small to read

Suspect they scanned the original document/magazine and just put the resulting graphics in to the correct order, applied some level of compression, and then made a PDF.

I find the end result to not be readable or usable in the current format - HTML flows to fit browser window size and I can increase the text size usin CTRL+ or CRTL- ...

This tendency is also seen in a number of other instance that publish PDF documents for distribution, public or otherwise.

Not sure if there is a solution, other than getting the hardcopy version ... , which I'd rather not do, i.e. it costs more, is heavy and cumbersome, takes up extra phisical space, and is a waste of paper after I have finished reading most of them.

 

[froot]

Hi,

Downloaded a few books and magazines in PDF format, and find that these are not what I call "user friendly".

Firstly the don't fit/flow to the screen being used, and thus difficult to read, changing zoom level does not fix problem.

Secondly they contain coloured side bars, advertisements that are impossible to read - over saturated colour, and low resolution?

Is there a simple way of fixing this, converting to HTML or some other format, so I can easily read the content of these documents.

Thanks

That's entirely the point - PDFs have a fixed typeset and content flow.
Converting PDF to another format is mostly a fail, with a few exceptions.

If you're referring to books as in novels, get the epub/mobi books. Magazines and textbooks are more common in PDF.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Talking about magazines specifically.

 

[Mudshark]

Have you tried t convert to another file type by using Calibre? I convert pdf to mobi with Calibre and it is ok. I read it with a Kindle.

 

[Terencek]

As Mudshark says, the freebie Calibre is a solution most e-book reader owners use, though it's not always successful with fancy things like magazines. But it costs nothing to give it a try. It's also useful to have anyway if you ever want to convert a Word document, for instance, into a quick and easy e-book for use on someone's e-reader -- or indeed any number of other format conversions.

Another possible solution is also a freebie, the Mobipocket Reader. Although officially a reader for .mobi format e-books, you can drag .pdf files into its window and convert them to .mobi -- and then use Calibre to convert the .mobi to .rtf for Word. Bit cumbersome, but very occasionally the Mobipocket Reader does a better job than Calibre on its own. Good luck!

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Thanks, will try these solutions and see what results are achievable.

 

[web_dude]

You may have downloaded a scanned pdf's. Yup, somebody got the magazine and scan it. Sometimes they are PDF converted from another format like swf which are treated like images.
How to know? If you can select any text, you have a true PDF. If you cannot select and if you zoom to any part of the text and it start pixelating,then you have images converted to PDF.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Ouch, seems I got one of the scanned pdf's. Probably need OCR to fix it. Not worth the effort me'thinks. Strange that a publisher puts out their product in such a format. Makes it very difficult for myself to read.

 

[Terencek]

Generally if a magazine is a scanned copy rather than a true PDF it probably means it's pirated. The actual publishers have access to the original files used to create the publication, which convert easily into PDF and produce a 'true PDF' version at the click of a mouse -- why would they bother to go through all the hassle of scanning the hard-copy version?

 

[web_dude]

Publishers are not issuing PDF's due to copyright, unless is a FREE Magazine, in which case 'TRUE PDF' are easily available on the internet. But you also can find a lot of "unofficial" PDF's, made from High Quality Scans (some of them are quite impressive, but over 100-200MB).

For example, Check www.techsmart.co.za for a free TRUE PDF Magazine. All advertising pages are images, but the articles are Text.

 

[BigAl-sa]

Generally if a magazine is a scanned copy rather than a true PDF it probably means it's pirated. The actual publishers have access to the original files used to create the publication, which convert easily into PDF and produce a 'true PDF' version at the click of a mouse -- why would they bother to go through all the hassle of scanning the hard-copy version?

Many of the scientific journals have scanned their older editions as images to PDF. Not having to do an OCR conversion must be a huge money saver, especially in maths, physics and chemistry.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

From a few years ago, OCR was a real schlep, with, columns, never mind sidebars, and advertisements ... , so I don't know. Have no experience with current OCR abilities.