OpenOffice Template for K3 PDF

[Format C:]

Do you know where I can find a good template to make Kindle PDF out of OpenOffice documents like the one in the iLiad forum?

If I can get the exact page size to use for optimum Kindle3 rendering, I can make it in OOO or Scribus...

IOW: which are the page size settings for a PDF to be viewed full size in the kindle with no resize occurring? Obviously it's not the screen size, due to the bottom bar...

[wscott]

You might try this:
http://extensions.services.openoffic.../epubGenerator

(just found with google, so I don't know)

It gives you an epub that can be converted to mobi.

If you are generating a text document then this might be better than a PDF.

The actual screen size of a 6" K3 screen without bottom bar is 3.5" x 4.5". Be sure to use a very small margin, as in 0.1" or you will get a huge amount of whitespace.

Why in the world would you want to create PDFs though? PDF is the worst format available for ebook readers. Create a MOBI or even an HTML and you will get reflowable text and a faster page turn experience.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by jswinden

The actual screen size of a 6" K3 screen without bottom bar is 3.5" x 4.5". Be sure to use a very small margin, as in 0.1" or you will get a huge amount of whitespace.

Why in the world would you want to create PDFs though? PDF is the worst format available for ebook readers. Create a MOBI or even an HTML and you will get reflowable text and a faster page turn experience.

Actually the area where the PDF is able to display is smaller than 600x800 (Kindle imposes some margins that you can't eliminate), and the aspect ratio is not exactly the same (because of the margins). So if the goal is to make best use of the available area, and avoid scaling that makes the margins larger than they'd otherwise need to be, the aspect ratio of the source page should match the aspect ratio of the display area of Kindle as exactly as possible. That's what you need to know create a 'template for Kindle PDF documents'.

To figure it out exactly, I would create an image that is basically a solid rectangle with an aspect ratio 'fatter' than Kindle's screen, and another image that is taller. Wrap these in a PDF, and view on Kindle in fit-to-screen mode. Measure the size of the left/right margins for the first image, and the size of the top/bottom margins for the second, and compute the dimensions of the viewing rectangle from these measurements (for max precision, take screenshots and count pixels etc.). Then create a custom ('User') page size in OpenOffice or whatever that matches this aspect ratio, if not the actual physical dimensions of the viewing rectangle on Kindle. The template should also have zero width margins, because Kindle will add margins for you.

There are any number of reasons to want to create PDFs for Kindle. Here are just a few:
1 - you want or need to use particular fonts (display fonts, math symbols, music notation etc.)
2 - you need to use an unsupported script such as Arabic, Hebrew, Indic etc. (font hacks will not really help with these - Kindle's text layout doesn't handle right-to-left or complex scripts)
3 - you have diagrams, tables, or maps that you'd like to be able to zoom into (PDF allows 300% zoom, whereas mobi format only lets you zoom and image to full screen, which may not be large enough)
4 - you want to control the layout for whatever reason, lay out text in more than one orientation on a single page, etc. (you cannot do much of this with mobi format)
5 - you want to create PDF format manga or picture albums (for this we would want to resize the images an exact multiple of the viewing rectangle dimensions in pixels so that no rescaling artifacts occur). Yes, you can also use the picture viewer for this, but with PDF you can get reading progress, bookmarks, page navigation, annotation, contrast adjustment etc.

So it is a worthy goal to figure out what the exact dimensions are.

[tomsem]

I did the above test. Kindle imposes 20 pixel margins on left/top/right; 25 pixels are used on the bottom by the progress panel and some additional margin there. So the display area is exactly 560 x 755.

If the 600x800 screen is 3.5" x 5.25", then the PDF viewing area is 3.5*560/600 by 5.25*755/800, or about 3.27" x 4.95".

At some point, I'd like to generate a PDF picture portfolio where the image dimensions are 560x755 and/or 1120x1510, and verify that all of the pixels get displayed without any rescaling artifacts.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by jswinden

The actual screen size of a 6" K3 screen without bottom bar is 3.5" x 4.5". Be sure to use a very small margin, as in 0.1" or you will get a huge amount of whitespace.

Why in the world would you want to create PDFs though? PDF is the worst format available for ebook readers. Create a MOBI or even an HTML and you will get reflowable text and a faster page turn experience.

It's not for a generic reader. It's for that specific reader. My one.
I have templates for my iLiad (full-screen and with bottom-bar) and for my PRS-505, and so I end up with no less than 4 different templates, and 4 different PDF for the same book, one for each reader.

Why should I nedd reflowable text at all?
If I ever change reader, I apply another template to my ODT, and generate another PDF.
With the fonts, the latout and the typography I like the best.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I did the above test. Kindle imposes 20 pixel margins on left/top/right; 25 pixels are used on the bottom by the progress panel and some additional margin there. So the display area is exactly 560 x 755.

If the 600x800 screen is 3.5" x 5.25", then the PDF viewing area is 3.5*560/600 by 5.25*755/800, or about 3.27" x 4.95".

At some point, I'd like to generate a PDF picture portfolio where the image dimensions are 560x755 and/or 1120x1510, and verify that all of the pixels get displayed without any rescaling artifacts.

Thank you very much, tomsem!



560x755 @ 167 DPI means 3,35 in (8, 52 cm) x 4,52 in (11,48 cm).

I'll go for this size.
The test will be a couple of pages with 1 pixel lines (see attachment).
I'll try it on the Kindle, and I'll post here the result.

At the end I'll also post the template, just in case...

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Thank you very much, tomsem!



560x755 @ 167 DPI means 3,35 in (8, 52 cm) x 4,52 in (11,48 cm).

I'll go for this size.
The test will be a couple of pages with 1 pixel lines (see attachment).
I'll try it on the Kindle, and I'll post here the result.

At the end I'll also post the template, just in case...

Ahem. I made a slight arithmetic error: the bottom takes 45 pixels, not 25. So the target size should be 560x735 instead.

BTW your K3 Test.pdf had images that were a pixel too small in each dimension (559x754 rather than the intended 560x755). I fixed them, regenerated the PDF, and they look perfect (no rescaling). The thick vertical black line in the center of the second image is the way the original image is (so that a black row of pixels borders each side).

[curstpriest]

Kindle DX is 5.15 x 7.44 for PDF

You can't really use math to calculate the dimensions of the viewer by calculating scroll bar/bottom bar and dpi sizes, it does something else. Your best bet is to get ballpark with dpi, and then make a 40 page file or so with incremental .01 inch crops and slowly go from there. You'll get it eventually. That's what I did for the DX anyways, and that's what I got for my numbers. They seem to work well. Not having a K2/K3 anymore, I can't say what they are for that device.

[meem]

I simply use A5 or A6 paper sizes with some big fonts to export my books to PDF for Kindle 3 or Kindle DX.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by curstpriest

Kindle DX is 5.15 x 7.44 for PDF

You can't really use math to calculate the dimensions of the viewer by calculating scroll bar/bottom bar and dpi sizes, it does something else. Your best bet is to get ballpark with dpi, and then make a 40 page file or so with incremental .01 inch crops and slowly go from there. You'll get it eventually. That's what I did for the DX anyways, and that's what I got for my numbers. They seem to work well. Not having a K2/K3 anymore, I can't say what they are for that device.

I don't understand what you mean.

The Kindle screen has certain physical properties in terms of size and dot pitch, and its software places the PDF image in a fixed location on that screen. Deriving the proper dimensions to use in setting up a Kindle-targeted document's page size is not a matter of calculation, but of observation and measurement - just as if one needed to lay out a document to print on a non standard paper size. That's what we have done here.

If the goal is to have the text size that's displayed on your computer display physically match the size of the text on the Kindle display, then you would need to fudge the dimensions of the page size, because even when documents are displayed at '100%' or 'actual size', it is in general not an accurate reproduction of the size when the document is printed, or as in this case, displayed on Kindle.

If you're saying that the mapping from the page layout application's representation to the PDF file's representation to the PDF viewer's representation introduces some distortion or inaccuracy that can only be compensated for by trial and error, that's another matter. But since PDF is supposed to eliminate that possibility, I would want to know more about what you are seeing.

For example, I have seen more or less random instances where fit-to-screen fails to perform as advertised, and clips off the bottom of the PDF image (which is nevertheless always shown in other zoom modes). This may turn out to be something that requires a workaround of some sort when producing PDF documents for Kindle.

[LDBoblo]

This is an interesting problem for me as well, as I'd like to typeset my books to the screen. For the most part, I do not mind the fit-to-screen setting, except that it enlarges and vertically centers pages that have lots of white space. Using the PDF reader in Duokan seems to fix that for me, but it would still be nice if the stock firmware could display my PDFs the way I made them. Setting to "actual size" fixes the automatic layout issue but always enlarges and produces scrollbars, even when the proportions and dimensions seem correct.

I suppose I could also do a workaround by adding a near invisible border, or at least corner dots around the master page.

[curstpriest]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

This is an interesting problem for me as well, as I'd like to typeset my books to the screen. For the most part, I do not mind the fit-to-screen setting, except that it enlarges and vertically centers pages that have lots of white space. Using the PDF reader in Duokan seems to fix that for me, but it would still be nice if the stock firmware could display my PDFs the way I made them. Setting to "actual size" fixes the automatic layout issue but always enlarges and produces scrollbars, even when the proportions and dimensions seem correct.

I suppose I could also do a workaround by adding a near invisible border, or at least corner dots around the master page.

Easiest way to do this is to add a watermark, I usually extract a blank page of proper dimensions, and use this...

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by curstpriest

Easiest way to do this is to add a watermark, I usually extract a blank page of proper dimensions, and use this...

I just went to the master page (I use InDesign) and drew a very small circle of gray with 98% luminosity, duplicated it, and put them in the extreme corners. They are invisible on E-Ink, and only barely visible under rather large magnification on an LCD. Tested it on my Kindle and seems to work well. Total margins are a wee bit more than I really want, but still pretty tolerable.

Now that I think about it...I wonder if a plain white background rectangle over the master page would be just as effective...

[sinan]

I have been testing images with Kindle 3 for quite some time, and when I see those images I got suspicious immediately. I knew that those images were computer generated.

I tested the pdf to see if they were really computer generated.

First I converted the pdf to image with specified dimensions, than add to a html with following css attacted.

body, p, img{
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}

Images were hung to the top, and there was very large space below, maybe as large as 1/10 of the screen.

I converted via calibre, debugged it and studied the degub, everything was as expected.

RESULT IS THOSE DIMENSIONS (560x755) DOES NOT WORK!!
Maybe you should be more specific about your process.

Right dimensions should be around 800pxx588px.

Anyways. This thread is very old, I am going to start new thread with correct dimension.