E-Book Reader For PDF's ?

Hi everyone,
recently had a few great early 20th century philatelic publications
sent to me in PDF format.
This together with my Scott Catalogue etc, I figure would be nice
to have on the desk near my stamp work area, or in the tent when I go camping etc, stamp bourses......

I hear E Book readers have problems with PDF format esp when zoomed

Anyone have experience and could pass on tips, suggestions etc?
regarding models, worthwhile pursuing? etc....
Thanks.

Hi, Rod. There are some free pdf to epub converters that you can download - just do a search on pdf epub converter.

Cheers NCB,
It is said "tablets" are better than ebooks for PDF's
but this is the limit of my tech savvy,
I don't even know what a "tablet" is at this stage.

It seems like getting an ebook reader (such as Kindle) or a tablet is the hippy hot trend. I looked at the price for them and decided it was cheaper to download a free ebook reader to my laptop and just run everything on what I already got. I'm always 30 years behind the trends anyway - which reminds me, I have to go get my leisure suits from the cleaners.

Perhaps a "tablet" is what I need after trying to decipher
modern technology ;)

Some comments borrowed...

PDF reflow on the Sony is as good as you could ever expect. Reflow is the ability of the text to realign itself within the confines of the screen when the text size is reduced or enlarged. Open a PDF file on most eReaders and increase the size and the entire image size increases as a fixed ratio and portions are pushed off of the screen. Try the same file on a Sony PRS-T1 (or the older ones for that matter) and the text simply reflows in the same manner as an ePub file, or a word processor.

If you wish to read scientific text such as work PDF files on the ride to and from work then ensure PDF reflow is enabled on any device that you choose. Even better, verify this yourself and once you see the way PDF files represent on most eReaders you will see how critical this can be.

Seems an iPad2 is the choice of many,
Laptop is OK too, but defeats the purpose of required small and mobile reader.

The Kindle DX e reader
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2sBFiwBNnc

Note: Table of contents drop down index...NOT supported
so no good for the Scott Catalogue or others.
Page turn seems rather cumbersome as well.

Other borrowed comments

I have been looking at the Kindle Touch, Kobo Readers, Sony E-Readers and they each have the pros and cons.

All good machines, all total crap for PDF. Buy one for reading books, use Calibre for format changes etc. But for PDF look elsewhere. I agree with all of the above posts, those people, like me, have ebook readers and know.

Well, to look at Scott Catalog PDFs without going nuts, you'd probably want a Kindle DX. For just a little more, you can get an iPad or an Android based tablet and get more functionality.

Most Android based tablets are going to be cheaper than an iPad, but the iPad has official Scott and Stanley Gibbons apps, so you can buy the latest catalogs.

I scanned many of my philatelic references to PDF, and I carry them with me everywhere on my iPad. There's an excellent app (Goodreader) that allows me to zoom in closely and make notes on the PDFs. I also have the Scott catalog app on my iPad for those rare occasions when I need to look something up in Scott.

Rod.. just a suggestion. If you're going to be using this device mostly for reading and browsing the internet at home, I suggest the brand new Google Nexus 7. It is a 7" tablet, great specs and $199 (same as Amazon Kindle Fire).

You can pre-order the device on the website http://play.google.com.

Thanks
Ram

I'd also vote for the iPad. The iPad 2 is adequate so you may be able to find a 2nd hand bargain.
The screen on the ipad3 is outrageously good though.

Thanks Guys for all the assistance,
looks like iPad then.

Ram: that's exactly what I do not want,
my computer serves that.
I am looking for something to read a stamp catalogue "alongside"
my computer at home, and something I can take away to the City
in my Van, when I have to visit the congestion.

But thanks for the input, it all helps.

Other sources are confirming the iPad and "Goodreader"
The iPad 32Gb has 28 Gb left after the OS
however I thought I read that the PDF's were not editable
as suggested by Postmaster (or did I misunderstand?)

Not that I would want to edit, mostly just reference that I can forsee.


Hypothetical: With my Scott CD, how would one load it onto the iPad?


Anthony: There is an iPad3 for sale in Perth brand new for $480
but 16 GB, I am not sure how this effects my usage
not sure how large the stamp catalogues are, I'll have to load and check.

Rod if your going with a ipad Apple has a app for the scott catalog, I belive with a app you don use up and space on the device its kind of in cyber space, a few of the guys have the app for there iphone and ipads.
I sure they will pipe in.

Rod,

Here's an example from my iPad. The PDF I'm annotating is OCRed. I'm not sure how well the annotations work with a flat PDF file.



I definitely recommend the iPad 3 over previous versions. The faster processor handles larger PDFs a lot better, and the higher screen resolution allows much better examination of text and photos. See revenuecollector's example here.

Regarding the Scott CD, does it contain PDFs of the catalog, and can they be opened without a proprietary front end? If so, they should work with Goodreader. They can be transferred to the iPad over wifi or USB.

Great stuff guys!
No I prefer not to go the app route,
My Scott can be opened freely in PDF format, no propietry front end.
Same with my Forbin Revenues.
That may not be the case with my MICHEL catalogues, my Netherlands catalogue
and my Cinderella CD Rom.

I do not understand OC Red, but I'll google that, I feel my Scott is just flat PDF.

Revenue Collector was informing, but I have no need for capture from the iPad,
I can easily do that through my desktop and Fastone Capture (free)

I am getting excited, this is a powerful resource, that frees one from the desktop when travelling, and it will be nice to have the Scott on my desk, to search for issues I cannot find readily in Gibbons simplified.

Thanks for all your contributions.

OCR is Optical Character Recognition. If a PDF has been OCRed, the text is recognized as text, and can therefore be keyword searched and annotated with effects such as highlighting and markthroughs. If not OCRed, the PDF is basically just a photograph of text.

I am holding out for the Microsoft Surface that is scheduled for release later this year. Microsoft has closer collaboration with Adobe (developers of PDF and other Apps) than Apple does. In fact, Apple does not support Flash, another Adobe product.