anyone use a Ebook reader for IT PDFs

I have quite large collection of IT books which I have the PDFs for as well - it would be handy to have them on a Ebook reader but I am unsure of how they would look - has anyone ever done this before and did the pages fit well enough to read etc?

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RobertKaucher

I have not. My wife has been hinting that she wants a Kindle, though. So I may well end up getting one. I have a massive number of IT related books in PDF format so I would also be interested in hearing if any one uses a reader.

dales

I'm really interested in getting one too, although I've heard their rendering of tech diagrams can be poor. Even so I've nearly convinced myself to get one on numerous occasions (normally when hulking a few books into work to read at lunch time).

Edit: thought actually it would be useful for keeping all those vendor site pdfs collected together as well.

msteinhilber

I have a Kindle DX that I think does a very fine job. I use it for studying on the go as well as a reference. I have not purchased any of the books from the Kindle store, but I have looked at some of the samples and they are formatted with a larger font than your PDF book would format with but I find that the PDF books that many books include are perfectly readable. I typically only use the Kindle on the go be it at work or at a coffee shop. Fits nicely in my small case I carry my 13" MacBook Pro in so I have a full study lab anywhere I go. If I'm reading at home I'll typically use the physical book since it just feels more natural to me and so I can make notes or highlight important points in the book.

Images, charts, etc typically don't format that bad on the Kindle DX thanks to the larger screen. The DX also has an accelerometer so you can pivot it sideways and the book will switch to landscape mode and generally give you a more viewable image if you find it's not formatting well in portrait mode.

Here's an example from the Cisco Press CCNP BSCI 3rd Edition, first the actual page in the book - then the same page in the PDF format of the book on the Kindle DX.

Physical Book:

Kindle DX:

Here's an example from the MS Press Server 2008 Terminal Services Resource Kit.

Physical Book:

Kindle DX:

dales

Thanks for the pic's very enlightening, although the kindle as far as I know is not available natively in blightly amazon will ship you one but you'll get stung for postage customs and import taxes, which will more than likely make the device very expensive.

The major one here seems to be the sony ereader with other smaller manufacturers bringing ones out.

msteinhilber

dales wrote: »

Thanks for the pic's very enlightening, although the kindle as far as I know is not available natively in blightly amazon will ship you one but you'll get stung for postage customs and import taxes, which will more than likely make the device very expensive.

The major one here seems to be the sony ereader with other smaller manufacturers bringing ones out.

Yea, the Kindle is pricey (a lot of ebook readers are IMO) and outside of the US the whispernet service it has is not available so that's no added value.

Other options exist, but the majority of those are smaller screens which would certainly not be very good for reading any technical ebook. I heard that Sony is going to be releasing something to compete against the Kindle DX. iRex has a reader with a screen slightly bigger than the Kindle DX but they are incredibly expensive ($859 US).

RobertKaucher

I am now totaly sold on the Kindle. Well, looks like I will have to get a second job to fuel my new addiction...

leefdaddy

Yeah, I'm thinking about getting one now too, I've been thinking about it, but that looks nice!

Nobylspoon

I have put some MS Press books on my Sony 505, the key is to crop out the margins or the text will be way too small to read on the 6" screen.

Check out the PlasticLogic reader that is coming out in a couple months, it is an A4 reader that supports a lot of formats, price is yet to be announced.

iRex has an A4 reader but the price is about $800, for that money you can get the 12" touchscreen (multitouch) HP laptop.

mikej412

My Kindle DX is working great for reading PDFs. The only hassle is still the lack of folders to organize the PDFs -- which makes it difficult to find a specific book if you have a large number of PDFs loaded.

I'll read through a chapter on the Kindle and when I get to any end of chapter questions, then I crack open the real book if I need to page through the chapter to find the answer.

bwcarty

I'm waiting to see the Barnes & Noble Nook (Nook Help and FAQs, eBook Reader, eBook Device - Barnes & Noble) in action. If they had a large screen version like the Kindle DX, I would have preordered it right away.

EmpoweredBizTech

Be sure to get a Kindle DX as opposed to the regular one. I have the regular I bought just before the DX came out. It travels great but the images are nowhere near as easy to follow as the screen shots above. I still use it for tech manuals\books but I wish I had the bigger one. I am sure I will get and have to pass with one down to my fiance or something.

Silentsoul

bwcarty wrote: »

I'm waiting to see the Barnes & Noble Nook (Nook Help and FAQs, eBook Reader, eBook Device - Barnes*&*Noble) in action. If they had a large screen version like the Kindle DX, I would have preordered it right away.

That Nook looks very nice. I havent really thought about getting an ebook reader because of the cost, but that is nice for 250 dollars. Plus being android based I can see it getting a lot of cool 'hack' features in the future.

RobertKaucher

Silentsoul wrote: »

That Nook looks very nice. I havent really thought about getting an ebook reader because of the cost, but that is nice for 250 dollars. Plus being android based I can see it getting a lot of cool 'hack' features in the future.

MMmm. I'm not sure. I don't want a giant PDA. I LIKE the fact that the Kindle is not color and looks so much like paper. I think I am stuck on the DX. Has any one seen any good pics with the Nook's display? Or are they not even that far on yet?

Silentsoul

RobertKaucher wrote: »

MMmm. I'm not sure. I don't want a giant PDA. I LIKE the fact that the Kindle is not color and looks so much like paper. I think I am stuck on the DX. Has any one seen any good pics with the Nook's display? Or are they not even that far on yet?

When you look at the tech specs its says the nook uses E ink which is the same thing that the Kindle uses. I have also seen programs that allow you to use your net-book as a e book reader allowing you to hold it like a book and read that way.

Plantwiz

RobertKaucher wrote: »

MMmm. I'm not sure. I don't want a giant PDA. I LIKE the fact that the Kindle is not color and looks so much like paper. I think I am stuck on the DX. Has any one seen any good pics with the Nook's display? Or are they not even that far on yet?

The only 'color' on the Nook is the lower portion, library area, of the screen. The text is supposed to be eINK

B&N should have demo units in the store on the 11th of December.

bwcarty

There are two displays on the Nook, as others have mentioned. The primary 6" electronic paper display is the same b&w E-Ink as the 6" Kindle. The color portion is a separate 3.5" TFT LCD touchscreen.

The built in micro SD slot and WiFi are the biggest advantages I see, but since it hasn't even been released, yet, I'm going to wait for some side by side comparisons. I'm really hoping to see this one in a Kindle DX size.

UnixGeek

It would be nice to have something like the Kindle DX that has both Wifi and a web browser that works with Safari Books Online.

Claymoore

Thanks to a software update, the Kindle 2 now natively supports PDFs and manual rotation of the screen view from portrait to landscape. It's probably still easier to read PDFs on my DX instead of my wife's Kindle 2, but the Kindle 2 is cheaper.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Dear Kindle Customers,[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A new Kindle software update is now available and will be automatically delivered to your Kindle. We are constantly working on improving the Kindle user experience and have included the following features in this update:[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Built-in PDF Reader: Your Kindle can now display PDF documents natively. Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Adjustable Screen Rotation: The Kindle screen can now manually rotate between portrait and landscape views. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Click here to learn more about these new features[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]You can also learn more by going to Archived Items on your Kindle and downloading the Kindle User's Guide, 4th Ed. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]There is nothing you need to do to receive this update. Kindle automatically checks for and downloads updates when one is available, and your device will automatically self-update in the next few weeks. If you do not have wireless connectivity or if you want to enjoy the new features sooner, you can download the software update to your computer. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Simply follow the instructions from this page[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]and transfer the file to your Kindle via the USB connection. The update process will take approximately 10 minutes. Sincerely, The Kindle Team[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Amazon.com: Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6" Display, Global Wireless, Latest Generation): Kindle Store[/FONT]

RobertKaucher

EmpoweredBizTech wrote: »

Be sure to get a Kindle DX as opposed to the regular one. I have the regular I bought just before the DX came out. It travels great but the images are nowhere near as easy to follow as the screen shots above. I still use it for tech manuals\books but I wish I had the bigger one. I am sure I will get and have to pass with one down to my fiance or something.

I just wanted to update this thread with my own experience. I just got my wife a Kindle. She reads mostly chic lit so the smaller Kindle with the 6" screen is fine for her.

The 6" Kindle does not have a native PDF reader, so you have to convert the PDF to a Kindle friendly format. This was easy enough but like EmpoweredBizTech the diagrams do not look nearly as good as the ones in the pics above. In fact the captions cannot be read at all and there are some formatting issues, principally witht he practice exams. Text to Speech works pretty well, though.

So I am getting the Kindle DX sometime soon. Very excited about that!

bwcarty

RobertKaucher wrote: »

The 6" Kindle does not have a native PDF reader, so you have to convert the PDF to a Kindle friendly format.

Isn't there a software update that adds native PDF support? Amazon started advertising it a couple weeks ago for both versions of the Kindle.

My wife's Kindle is still in hiding until Christmas, so I can't mess around with it to verify.

120nm4n

bwcarty wrote: »

Isn't there a software update that adds native PDF support? Amazon started advertising it a couple weeks ago for both versions of the Kindle.

My wife's Kindle is still in hiding until Christmas, so I can't mess around with it to verify.

From Amazon's website:

Built-In PDF Reader: Your Kindle can now display PDF documents natively. Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go.

Looks like it was added pretty recently.

CSCOnoob

Forsaken and I were just talking about this in another thread.

I was already getting ready to pay for my Kindle DX that was on my cart the other day and suddenly I received a message from someone I know and suggested to wait for Plastic Logic's Que Reader. I'll wait for that one since Kindle DX support for PDF is kind of a joke! But, if Que Reader is priced over Kindle DX then I'll just have to deal with the cons of Kindle DX.

RobertKaucher

120nm4n wrote: »

From Amazon's website:

Built-In PDF Reader: Your Kindle can now display PDF documents natively. Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go.

Looks like it was added pretty recently.

You are correct. She will be getting said update tonight!

RobertKaucher

With PDF support it does look a little better, but the images are still way too hard to read and as far as I can tell you cannot zoom.

Claymoore

You cannot zoom in on PDFs on the DX either. You can increase the size by rotating the screen to landscape mode, which is a new feature on the Kindle 2s that was enabled along with PDF support. Some PDFs just look better than others, though. The PDFs from my MS Press books look much better than the PDFs from my Cisco books. However, what is almost illegible in portrait mode looks pretty decent in landscape mode.

RobertKaucher

It's no easier to read that way and most of the pics have the bottom 1/4 cut off to the next page. I'd rather have the larger screen.

EmpoweredBizTech

The new native support of PDF are a welcome edition to the Kindle however on the small kindle 2 it is not as great as I had hoped as It can't zoom in (or I haven't found out how yet). so the pdf can be very small so you are still better of getting it converted or converting yourself. As soon I can pass along my small kindle 2 I plan on getting a DX

CSCOnoob

That's the reason why I said Kindle DX support for PDF is kind of a joke. You guys should wait for the Plastic Logic Que Reader. It has better support for PDFs, at least from the video that I saw (WSJ).

Claymoore

So I step outside my hotel room this morning and there is a USA Today waiting for me with an article on e-book readers.

Tension grows as publishers target Amazon Kindle pricing - USATODAY.com

I tried my wife's Kindle 2 before I bought my DX so I have experience with both. If you read paperbacks (like my wife) the 2 is better. It's lighter, you can use it with either hand and I think it's a more comfortable reading experience. If you read technical manuals or PDFs you need the DX. PDF display really depends on the PDF, but tech books in the Kindle format look great. You will still want the larger screen for diagrams regardless of the format.

The couple of Cisco press PDFs I have look worse than the MS Press PDFs that come with the books. However, Cisco Press is now publishing books in the native Kindle format. I would really like Sybex to start supporting the Kindle format since I like their books and they don't come with a CD with an electronic version. Native support from MS Press would be nice too.

Amazon.com: cisco press: Kindle Store

msteinhilber

I've been going through some of the Cisco Press books (Odom's CCNA Library) on my Kindle DX and while it's fairly readable the text is a bit small for my eyes to read for extended periods. Even though I bought the hardcover, I thought the Kindle edition might be worthwhile so I snagged the sample. I noticed one thing that really annoys me with the Cisco Press books in the Kindle edition from the few I looked at samples of.

First, they do not introduce a line break between paragraphs nor indent. As a result, unless you see an obviously long gap at the end of the last line in a paragraph - you won't know you are beginning a new paragraph. Makes the reading not flow very well and something that should not have gone past any quality checks/testing IMO.

I guess the other slight annoyance I have with the actual Kindle edition vs the hardcover is page numbering is off.

I did work around the issue a bit. There is a free program, PDFill PDF Tools, that allows you to crop margins off PDF's so the text size ends up being a bit larger. I took a bit off all sides of the PDF included with the hardcover and while I lost the header and footer, the rest of the text is much more readable.

PDFill PDF Editor with FREE PDF Writer and FREE PDF Tools - www.PDFill.com