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This. I recently subscribed specifically to some Google website, including all my work related info, to get an ebook on the state of Kubernetes. I was looking f

This. I recently subscribed specifically to some Google website, including all my work related info, to get an ebook on the state of Kubernetes. I was looking forward to it... And then they send me a PDF which is completely unreadable on my Kindle and I'm not going to read a whole book on my laptop. I really hate it when people call PDFs ebooks. Sorry :)

ghaff 8y ago
It really depends. Kindles are great if you're flowing a bunch of text. They can work fine with more graphics (although you're mostly back to using a tablet again) but the e-version really needs to be properly designed for it--e.g. avoiding sidebars and that sort of thing. Just a low-effort conversion can look pretty awful.
- icxa 8y ago
  I have to disagree that they work fine with graphics, especially in low light conditions. It's downright terrible in my opinion. I have a kindle version of Calculus: Better Explained, and it's unreadable on my Paperwhite. I have to resort to the kindle app on a tablet or PC.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I actually agree with you. I was being sloppy. Kindle format can work fine with photos/graphics on a tablet and even a smartphone. (I've actually come around to mostly liking eguidebooks because they're right on my phone and I don't need to xerox the relevant pages to carry around.) But, much as I like my Paperwhite, it's really just for reading text.
ZebZ 8y ago
Amazon will convert formats for you so that it works on your Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email
vram22 8y ago
Have you checked if Calibre or pandoc or any other ebook format conversion tool can get you the format you want? Calibre was mentioned on HN recently (probably earlier too) and pandoc keeps getting mentioned. Both have been around for a while.
- UnFleshedOne 8y ago
  PDF is a lossy format, slightly better than an image, it can be really hard to extract legible data from it.
  - vram22 7y ago
    It's very much possible to extract legible (as you put it) data from PDF. It's just that it does not work 100% accurately 100% of the time. (And different libraries have different levels of accuracy.) But this is due to issues inherent in the PDF format. I know this because I worked on a project to extract text from PDF, for a startup client. They first gave me the work of researching various PDF text extraction libraries, hands-on, and evaluating them, and recommending one of them for use. I did that. Then based on that recommendation and report I gave them, they gave me the further work of using that library (from C), to extract text from a bunch of PDFs of financial data (think SEC data, EDGAR and the like - it was a fintech startup), and also further work of more processing of the extracted text data with Python. As part of all that work, I found that sometimes the text extraction was inaccurate, reported some bugs in the library (xpdf) to the company that makes it (Glyph and Cog), they fixed those bugs, etc. From discussions with one of the technical founders of G&C I got to know of these inherent issues, such as characters sometimes getting transposed, junk characters creeping into the output, etc. Also, plug: I've available for consulting work on PDF generation (using other libraries or xtopdf, my own toolkit for PDF generation from other formats), and for PDF text extraction work. Contact info in my HN profile.

ghaff 8y ago

It really depends. Kindles are great if you're flowing a bunch of text. They can work fine with more graphics (although you're mostly back to using a tablet again) but the e-version really needs to be properly designed for it--e.g. avoiding sidebars and that sort of thing. Just a low-effort conversion can look pretty awful.

icxa 8y ago
I have to disagree that they work fine with graphics, especially in low light conditions. It's downright terrible in my opinion. I have a kindle version of Calculus: Better Explained, and it's unreadable on my Paperwhite. I have to resort to the kindle app on a tablet or PC.
- ghaff 8y ago
  I actually agree with you. I was being sloppy. Kindle format can work fine with photos/graphics on a tablet and even a smartphone. (I've actually come around to mostly liking eguidebooks because they're right on my phone and I don't need to xerox the relevant pages to carry around.) But, much as I like my Paperwhite, it's really just for reading text.

ZebZ 8y ago

Amazon will convert formats for you so that it works on your Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email

vram22 8y ago

Have you checked if Calibre or pandoc or any other ebook format conversion tool can get you the format you want? Calibre was mentioned on HN recently (probably earlier too) and pandoc keeps getting mentioned. Both have been around for a while.

UnFleshedOne 8y ago
PDF is a lossy format, slightly better than an image, it can be really hard to extract legible data from it.
- vram22 7y ago
  It's very much possible to extract legible (as you put it) data from PDF. It's just that it does not work 100% accurately 100% of the time. (And different libraries have different levels of accuracy.) But this is due to issues inherent in the PDF format. I know this because I worked on a project to extract text from PDF, for a startup client. They first gave me the work of researching various PDF text extraction libraries, hands-on, and evaluating them, and recommending one of them for use. I did that. Then based on that recommendation and report I gave them, they gave me the further work of using that library (from C), to extract text from a bunch of PDFs of financial data (think SEC data, EDGAR and the like - it was a fintech startup), and also further work of more processing of the extracted text data with Python. As part of all that work, I found that sometimes the text extraction was inaccurate, reported some bugs in the library (xpdf) to the company that makes it (Glyph and Cog), they fixed those bugs, etc. From discussions with one of the technical founders of G&C I got to know of these inherent issues, such as characters sometimes getting transposed, junk characters creeping into the output, etc. Also, plug: I've available for consulting work on PDF generation (using other libraries or xtopdf, my own toolkit for PDF generation from other formats), and for PDF text extraction work. Contact info in my HN profile.