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2nd April 2013, 08:14 AM | #1 |
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ebook reader for technical documents
Hi.
Could someone suggest a ebook reader suitable for technical documentation (programming). I have read that the Kindle is not very good at this (here http://techcrunch.com/2009/02/25/10-...easons-not-to/). I mostly read technical and scientific articles (.pdf). Which reader is best ? Thank you nimzov |
10th April 2013, 06:53 AM | #2 |
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Join Date: Jul 2007
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I have got a Kobo Touch that suits my needs. It is able to display various file formats and got good reviews when it came out. Comparison of e-book formats from wikipedia.
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4th May 2013, 12:43 PM | #3 |
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4th May 2013, 07:31 PM | #4 |
Persnickety Insect
Join Date: Dec 2002
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You can't resize the fonts with PDF documents generally; it's a page layout format rather than a document format.
I'd suggest one of the high-resolution tablets for reading technical PDFs - either a Nexus 10 (2560x1600) or a full-size retina iPad (2048x1536). Smaller screens and lower resolutions don't cut it, in my experience. (I have a Nexus 10 and an iPad 3, and they're both excellent; the choice comes down to personal preference.) |
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4th May 2013, 11:24 PM | #5 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 32,124
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I've got a Kobo Glo and, although I've read that Kobos are the best ereaders for .pdfs, I'd say that the results with .pdf aren't worth the hassle. You can, indeed, only zoom, and there are sometimes glitches with the zoom (such as all the content of the page being invisible), depending on the type of .pdf.
You can convert a .pdf to an .epub, but you'll lose anything that isn't text, and the results are a little quirky as far as formatting goes. You can convert it and then edit all the formatting errors, but it's a lot of work and by the time you've done that you might as well have just read the original a few times over. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic device other than this, but I very quickly gave up reading .pdf files on it, and a browse of the Kobo forums shows that that's the general consensus there, too. |
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12th May 2013, 02:42 AM | #6 |
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As above. You can put the document into landscape and use zoom to make the reading easier. If you can copy and paste the text you can make a text file and use the Kobo to read this.
I use Calibre to convert formats. |
12th May 2013, 04:01 AM | #7 |
Nitpicking dilettante
Administrator Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Berkshire, mostly
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I'd go for a 10" tablet. I tried using my Kindle 3 for PDFs, but the text was too small to read comfortably, unless you rotated the image 90 degrees, and read half a page at time, which was a pain.
I have an HP Touchpad, and I find that works well for reading PDFs, a page at a time. If your eyes are younger than mine, you might manage with a smaller screen. The other thing to watch out for is the screen ratio; a lot of the Android tablets are widescreen, so a bit narrow for reading page images in portrait orientation. |
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