Just got my pb360...questions

[tsantsa]

I just got my 360 and I am pleased as punch. Few queries if I may:

I have been looking at some PDF's on here and while they are ok, what is anyones prefered method of conversion with calibre, if any? PDF to ePub and etc.

Is it possible to increase the contrast at all? I had a Sony prs300 to test drive and ereading device, but it had better contrast than the pb360. It did, I took it to my local Walmart and compared. Is it a font issue? Maybe the Sony uses different fonts?

Which leads me to: What are your prefered fonts for the pb360?


Thanks.

[Piscean]

I convert everything to .prc format because I like the FBReader better than the other reader on the device.

For fonts, I copied over the Calibri font from Windows. The default fonts which ship with the 360 were not very good for my eyes. I found Calibri had a lot more contrast. But given the ease with which you can swap out the fonts, copy a bunch over to the device and see which ones work best for you.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by tsantsa

I have been looking at some PDF's on here and while they are ok, what is anyones prefered method of conversion with calibre, if any? PDF to ePub and etc.

I try to avoid books in pdf.
If there is no other option, I open pdf file in an OCR software, like Finereader or Readiris (that came as a bundle with a cheap multipurpose HP printer/scanner/copier/fax device) and do an OCR. This way I can save the book as rtf, or html and I can use FBReader to read it.

Originally Posted by tsantsa

Is it possible to increase the contrast at all? I had a Sony prs300 to test drive and ereading device, but it had better contrast than the pb360. It did, I took it to my local Walmart and compared. Is it a font issue? Maybe the Sony uses different fonts?

It is possible to enhance contrast.
Go to main menu, configuration, appearance, Text rendering and here you can choose: antialiased, non-antialiased and embolden
I would recommend to use default antialiased option and use a font that is a little bit bolder.

Originally Posted by tsantsa

Which leads me to: What are your prefered fonts for the pb360?

You can download Microsoft PowerPoint viewer 2007 and install it. It will install the new Microsoft ttf fonts on your computer. You can even install it on Linux, using wine. It is not completely OK (from the point of view of Intellectual Property lawyer) to use the fonts on your PocketBook, but nobody is going to knock your door down and examine your PocketBook for installed fonts.

My favourite font at the moment is Gentium,
You should also check Fontin and Fontin sans, The DejaVu fonts, Lido STF font (that was developed for Czech newspaper Lidove Noviny and is free for personal use).
Also Linux libertine fonts look nice.
If you install Safari browser into your Windows it will install Lucida Sans font. This is font Apple likes to use and it looks good on PocketBook. This font was used at the iPad keynote by Steve Jobs as main font in presentation.
I have installed quite a few font packages on my Linux computer at home using Synaptic package manager. Then I have installed a few font managers like FonyPython or Fontmatrix and I have found quite a few nice fonts for my PocketBook.
You can use other font formats beside *.ttf. Just rename them to *.otf.ttf or [whatever].ttf before copying to the PocketBook.
Try not to use more than 100 fonts in the PocketBook at one moment ;-). Seriously. If you load PocketBook with many hundred font files FBReader might crash.
EDIT
Google has paid a well respected foundry to design a font for the use on their Android platform. The resulting font Droid was released under Apache license.
The Droid Serif and Droid Sans font is designed specifically for use on small screens and on screens with low resolution. It looks very good at PocketBook screen
END OF EDIT

There are some fonts referenced in Russian discussion on www.the-ebook.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=32 ...

There are quite a few threads where we discussed various fonts here on Mobileread.
Some fonts look better on PocketBook than others. This depends on many, many factors, like hinting inside a font or a complexity of small details on fonts.