Through the miracle of xmas, I acquired a Kindle. A sleek e-reader, but also a shameless vehicle for Amazon's digital book store. But with the latest firmware installed, they do make for great PDF readers... in theory.
The good news is that the e-ink display on the Kindle is indeed pretty sweet. It works so well that the screen looks positively fake when it's not changing, as if it was just a display item in a shop somewhere. But the bad news is that the software needs a lot of love.
The included PDF reader for example has no zoom option. All you can do is toggle between portrait and landscape. Either way, normal sized text ends up tiny and barely readable.
Thankfully, we can still do it ourselves. Armed with PyPDF I wrote a simple script that takes a regular A4/Letter PDF and chops each page into four parts. You can pan through the document just by hitting next. Most of the stuff I read these days is academic, in the classic two column paper format, so this orders the sub-pages to match that.
The script is available for download. It requires Python and pyPdf. Usage:
python rekindle.py file.pdfIt will produce file.kindle.pdf. The code doesn't actually look at the contents, it just cuts blindy, so it might need adjustment for certain docs.
Thanks!
I am thinking of getting an e-book reader myself. Most of the content I will read will be self-scanned pdfs (2 book pages in a A4 landscape page). Good to see your review so I know I can discard the Kindle.
Great pdf rendering and zooming is a must for me.
Thanks,
C.
Neat!
But if you could do that so quickly, why couldn't the folks at Amazon write something similar and make it part of the basic Kindle software?
@Karen: Why indeed.
Heh, I have many gripes about the Kindle software. It feels like a 0.5 rather than a 2.0, that's for sure.
To solve this problem generally, they'd need to include some smart layout analysis. Not impossible, but I imagine it's not high up on their list. Instead, they've focused e.g. on making sure every single menu contains a "Shop in Kindle Store" link.
Even after all this time,
Even after all this time, you never cease to amaze me with your ability to quickly solve technical problems others simply put up with....
reply
@Steven-- you've got that right! I love my Kindle in the same way I love a family member who drinks too much-- i.e., in spite of its flaws and with a hope for better behavior in the future.
How to run script?
Thanks for this script. Being new to Python, how do I Install pyPDF? And when I run the command "python rekindle.py file.pdf", is it run from a Windows command line, or within the Python shell? Thanks.
How to modify for page size?
Great tool, something much needed. I've been using PDFRead to halve the pdf pages but that still doesn't cut it for many documents. Your rekindler script does. What I need to do is modify it for wider pages, like magazine pages. I figured out how to modify the script to read in rows rather than columns but the magazine pages are trimmed on both left and right edges. I'm guessing this ties back to your comment that the script is for A4/Letter size pages. I would like to modify this to allow for the wider page but I'm not a python programmer and I don't see what needs to be modified. Can you assist? Again, great job.
kindle to appropriate pdf viewer
i solved my problem by 'manually' cropping pages on preview [mac], this can also be done batched.
If the pdf is a scanned book after cropping all left pages and all right pages i used pdf lab to 'interleave' the two documents and spit it out as a single pdf.. . . . .solved
how to run script
Thanks for sharing the script!
However, I don't know how to use it. I downloaded pypdf and python and have them installed on my Windows XP PC, but not sure if the .pdf files have to be in a certain directory, and if I am supposed to run the command using MSDOS command prompt or within Python. Can someone post or email step-by-step instructions for dummies?
No zooming for PDF.
Zooming (not reflowing of texts) feature is very easy to implement. The reason that Amazon doesn't support this is that Amazon wants you to buy books from them, not to read your PDF documents.
Awesome idea -- now I will probably buy a kindle
I, too, read a lot of academic papers, and the lack of zoom was worrisome. I think your trick will solve the problem for me, so I may just go and buy a kindle!
how to needed..
first of all, thanks for the solution.
as some here, i also have some doubts on how to use it. (sorry in advance, im far from a computer savvy, im just a guy who bought kindle and is now slightly pissed with the lack of pdf functionallity)
i went to;
1- pythong.org downloaded and installed it
2- went to the pypdf downloaded and installed it
3- downloaded your rekindle.txt.py , renamed it to rekindle.py
so i tried both command line and python command line
python rekindle.py file.pdf
but i keep getting the SYNTAX ERROR:INVALID SYNTAX message
could you please help me on what i am doing wrong
thanks
jayme
To those having difficulty
To those having difficulty above:
1) Copy the text script file and your .pdf file into the C:\Python26 directory.
2) Rename the text script file to rekindle.py using your Command Prompt (not the Python shell). Make sure you've typed C: (hit enter) and then cd\Python26 before attempting this.
3) Again, using Command Prompt, run the script. I had changed my book to an easy filename beforehand, say "lighthouse.pdf" and ran the following:
python rekindle.py lighthouse.pdf
I hope this works for you - you'll have a filename "lighthouse.kindle" or similar in the C:\Python26 directory.
Thanks for the script - I'll need to do my own tinkering with it for certain books, but it's going to be very useful.
Thanks
Thanks for sharing this! I was about to write one myself to solve the same problem - reading academic PDFs on my Kindle. It worked flawlessly!
Mac
Hi all,
I got a Kindle recently and was very sad about the inability to read PDFs. I was super excited to find this page, however I have a Mac, and I'm not sure how the commands will differ.
I'm curious as to how to do this no my Mac. I downloaded Python but am not sure where to go from here.
Thanks!
Wow
I know you are really smart guys, but we are not...
You must explain to us by step by step video or screen shot. (both mac and windows users)
What the hell is that ? Really !
@Tommy: Learn
I "must" explain in a step-by-step in video?
Really, I have better things to do than make videos for self-entitled internet users afraid to use their brain. Besides, you've already indicated you're not likely to contribute anything useful back: what motivation would I have to help you?
Get out your adventure hat and figure it out yourself. You'll learn something in the process, just like I did.
It's Right There!
Cheers, Steven.
Can anyone imagine what I must be doing wrong for there to be "no such file or directory" ? The pdf is clearly sitting in the Python26 directory.
Never mind.
Alright, never mind.
I just saved the pdf directly into Python26. Works a charm.
so easy
that little application is so easy to use
i am strapped for time right now and was a little worried about spending hours figuring out something when i have many other balls in the air.
so i thought i would try see where i could get in 30 mins
and hey presto, up and running.....
thank you for awesome app
now when i get a moment in say 8 months time i can figure out the finer points
Perfect!
Thanks so much for posting this - its just what I was hoping to find. It took no more than 15min to get up & running. Now I have no excuse not to read all those papers...
A New Hope lies in the Horizon
Hello people, there's been an ongoing rumour that a Kindle software update called 2.5 might be delivered at any instant right now (by way of electromagnetic waves) to your Kindle no matter where you are in the world! Some say it will enable viewing *.pdf files just like on acrobat reader and all so we can zoom highlight and all let's wait and see it might happen at any moment for me, hold tight fellas.
Lucas
Thanks
Exactly what I need! Thanks a bunch for this.
Changing subpages
Thanks! I've been looking at the source code, though, and I'm having a hard time figuring out how to modify this so that it creates two subpages (basically, chops each page in half horizontally) rather than four. Any idea how this could be done?
Thanks!
Thanks for this sir, you are awesome!
This will be great for a lot of academic papers.
I've been fooling around with a pdf split into three columns, any chance of creating a script for 3 columns?
@Jay: Make your own
As always, code is only provided as-is, and it's up to you to change it to suit your needs.
half-cut version
Hi guys,
I updated the script to cut PDF pages in half (useful for some books). It has an option to rotate cutted parts.
download from:
http://jonyii.lmcity.sk/pdf-halfcut.py
syntax:
python pdf-halfcut.py filename.pdf [rotation_degress_clockwise]rotation_degrees_clockwise must be an increment of 90 deg
example:
python pdf-halfcut.py mybook.pdf 90Post new comment