7 ms·

K2pdfopt

83 points by etaioinshrdlu 7y ago

etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
Besides being an interesting tool, this is a unique website that stands out today by looking perhaps from 20 years ago. But it's being kept up to date and it's an active project!
- sidpatil 7y ago
  If you like the way this website is presented, you may like http://wiby.me http://wiby.me. It's a search engine for simple (i.e. minimal CSS/JS, fast to load) websites.
stared 7y ago
There was a beautiful browser plugin "Don't print", which I used to turn arXiv (and other) papers to be read with a Kindle, with a click (no manual: save, convert, upload). https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dontprint-%E2%80%93-paperless-pri/ljngjnbjnhembcemchkkdmdnomoljdgc?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dontprint-%E2%80%9... (Website is gone, repo is stale: https://github.com/robamler/dontprint https://github.com/robamler/dontprint. It uses k2pdfopt.)
mikorym 7y ago
I used this tool a couple of times to get research PDFs onto my kindle and even emailed the author (he responded quickly) about how to stop diagrams from splitting; it's pretty cool to see these old school kind of programmers vs. the poor young web devs that spend 50% of their time writing hacky Javascript that will be obsolete in a year...
- jszymborski 7y ago
  You can argue that the "hacky Javascript" written by the "young web devs" you deride will be as obsolete in a year as the code this old school programmer has written. Just because you're not using the grooviest library or haven't been writing C++17 doesn't mean your application, which still functions on its target plaforms, is obsolete.
  - mikorym 7y ago
    The comment is not about obsolescence, it is about depth of study.
xupybd 7y ago
I wish I'd had this in uni. I used to have to read 3 research papers a week on my Kindle,it was terrible having to zoom about before they had a touch screen.
gillesjacobs 7y ago
The website might like out belongs in a museum but I use the tool weekly for reformatting research papers and pdf books. It works great and I highly recommend it.
cromat3 7y ago
I am using this to format pdfs for kindle. Better than pdf to mobi converter for any math or programming ebooks.
rjzzleep 7y ago
KOreader for android/Linux/ebooks has integrated k2pdfopt reflow https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/koreader/koreader
fsiefken 7y ago
Nice, I remember using the crop function in my mobile pdf readers. Nowadays I OCR all my pdfs into ePub/markdown so I can grep, reflow, RSVP speed read and text-to-speech them.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
thecleaner 7y ago
I tried converting this - http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/mmds/book.pdf http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/mmds/book.pdf for mobile but it doesn't work very well. Diagrams get spread across multiple pages and the zoom is not consistent. Maybe I did something wrong with the settings.
greenmountin 7y ago
I wrapped this for iOS, and linked it to Twitter. If you connect it to your account, there is a separate feed of any tweet with a PDF, and one for any arXiv or PDF tweet that you've liked. [You don't have to connect, you can also just input the URL or quick-paste]. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tweedf/id1434462362 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tweedf/id1434462362 It's great for following your favorite scientists and professionals, and now I favorite more of their posts, which makes me happy because I feel like I am spreading more love in the world.
- acqq 7y ago
  Can you please make this available in Europe? I get “not available in your region” in the AppStore now.
  - greenmountin 7y ago
    I will look into it! edit: fyi it's originally because the information about Encryption Compliance is so confusing. I just use HTTPS and I'm pretty sure the documentation has gotten clearer in the meantime, so I'm optimistic.
    - acqq 7y ago
      Thanks! And please write about your experiences trying or achieving that! I know more apps that "aren't available" and I hope it's not too hard to change that, if I knew I'd write to other authors too. And please consider that some who'd like to use k2pdfopt on the iphone don't use Twitter at all, I have a sure example of one, and I hope I could use your app independently from that?
- huydotnet 7y ago
  how do we use it actually? I tried to copy and paste a PDF url to it, but nothing happen
  - greenmountin 7y ago
    The app works for 1) arXiv papers 2) any url of a paper obtainable from the address bar of your phone. If you copy-paste, or copy and use the clipboard button, it will try to identify the arXiv identifier from the url, and then show you the title + abstract. Then you have to download the PDF, preview the transformed copy (copy stays in the cloud for 24h), and finally request a fully reflowed copy. The reflow is limited to about 30s via AWS Lambda, so this is not for dissertations -- this is for 2-20 page papers you can reasonably read on your phone. Nevertheless, there is a progress bar at the top of the screen to show you it's working, at that stage. These steps are pretty much reproduced in the app store images. For a non-arXiv link, the only difference is that there is no abstract. But note, the link can't just be to the journal page, you've got to get a PDF mime-type when it's requested. There are some things I should change, but it's very useful to me, and I just verified it works for both arXiv and non-arXiv. If it's not working for you, I would suggest deleting and reinstalling (sorry!).
Fnoord 7y ago
Calibre has a feature to convert file formats (ePub, PDF, etc). I haven't used it much as I tend to just go for ePub as source. Does K2pdfopt work better than Calibre?
- acqq 7y ago
  It’s not comparable. This tool reformats pdf to pdf which fits e-book readers, and often needs your input for fine tuning. But it does what other tools don’t (at least as much as I know). Calibre can convert between the ebook formats.
bdcravens 7y ago
“My site (willus.com) now offers SSL/https connectivity. Apparently this happened without my being notified, at no charge to me, which is nice. As a result, today I configured my site (and my backup site willus.org) to automatically re-direct http requests to https requests. Enjoy the added security!” That was only on August 3 2019 :-)
- hbcondo714 7y ago
  Yeah, it's using Let's Encrypt. There are a lot of DNS names listed on the cert, showing their webmail URL too.
huydotnet 7y ago
I know it's weird but I read most of the PDF on my iPhone with it. k2pdfopt -om 0.15 -w 800 -h 1732 <file-name>
- vallismortis 7y ago
  This works for eBooks too: k2pdfopt $* -dev kpw -mode fw -wrap -hy -ws 0.375 -ls-

83 points by etaioinshrdlu 7y ago

Besides being an interesting tool, this is a unique website that stands out today by looking perhaps from 20 years ago. But it's being kept up to date and it's an active project!

sidpatil 7y ago
If you like the way this website is presented, you may like http://wiby.me http://wiby.me. It's a search engine for simple (i.e. minimal CSS/JS, fast to load) websites.

stared 7y ago

There was a beautiful browser plugin "Don't print", which I used to turn arXiv (and other) papers to be read with a Kindle, with a click (no manual: save, convert, upload). https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dontprint-%E2%80%93-paperless-pri/ljngjnbjnhembcemchkkdmdnomoljdgc?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dontprint-%E2%80%9... (Website is gone, repo is stale: https://github.com/robamler/dontprint https://github.com/robamler/dontprint. It uses k2pdfopt.)

mikorym 7y ago

I used this tool a couple of times to get research PDFs onto my kindle and even emailed the author (he responded quickly) about how to stop diagrams from splitting; it's pretty cool to see these old school kind of programmers vs. the poor young web devs that spend 50% of their time writing hacky Javascript that will be obsolete in a year...

jszymborski 7y ago
You can argue that the "hacky Javascript" written by the "young web devs" you deride will be as obsolete in a year as the code this old school programmer has written. Just because you're not using the grooviest library or haven't been writing C++17 doesn't mean your application, which still functions on its target plaforms, is obsolete.
- mikorym 7y ago
  The comment is not about obsolescence, it is about depth of study.

xupybd 7y ago

I wish I'd had this in uni. I used to have to read 3 research papers a week on my Kindle,it was terrible having to zoom about before they had a touch screen.

gillesjacobs 7y ago

The website might like out belongs in a museum but I use the tool weekly for reformatting research papers and pdf books. It works great and I highly recommend it.

cromat3 7y ago

I am using this to format pdfs for kindle. Better than pdf to mobi converter for any math or programming ebooks.

rjzzleep 7y ago

KOreader for android/Linux/ebooks has integrated k2pdfopt reflow https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/koreader/koreader

fsiefken 7y ago

Nice, I remember using the crop function in my mobile pdf readers. Nowadays I OCR all my pdfs into ePub/markdown so I can grep, reflow, RSVP speed read and text-to-speech them.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

thecleaner 7y ago

I tried converting this - http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/mmds/book.pdf http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/mmds/book.pdf for mobile but it doesn't work very well. Diagrams get spread across multiple pages and the zoom is not consistent. Maybe I did something wrong with the settings.

greenmountin 7y ago

I wrapped this for iOS, and linked it to Twitter. If you connect it to your account, there is a separate feed of any tweet with a PDF, and one for any arXiv or PDF tweet that you've liked. [You don't have to connect, you can also just input the URL or quick-paste]. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tweedf/id1434462362 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tweedf/id1434462362 It's great for following your favorite scientists and professionals, and now I favorite more of their posts, which makes me happy because I feel like I am spreading more love in the world.

acqq 7y ago
Can you please make this available in Europe? I get “not available in your region” in the AppStore now.
- greenmountin 7y ago
  I will look into it! edit: fyi it's originally because the information about Encryption Compliance is so confusing. I just use HTTPS and I'm pretty sure the documentation has gotten clearer in the meantime, so I'm optimistic.
  - acqq 7y ago
    Thanks! And please write about your experiences trying or achieving that! I know more apps that "aren't available" and I hope it's not too hard to change that, if I knew I'd write to other authors too. And please consider that some who'd like to use k2pdfopt on the iphone don't use Twitter at all, I have a sure example of one, and I hope I could use your app independently from that?
huydotnet 7y ago
how do we use it actually? I tried to copy and paste a PDF url to it, but nothing happen
- greenmountin 7y ago
  The app works for 1) arXiv papers 2) any url of a paper obtainable from the address bar of your phone. If you copy-paste, or copy and use the clipboard button, it will try to identify the arXiv identifier from the url, and then show you the title + abstract. Then you have to download the PDF, preview the transformed copy (copy stays in the cloud for 24h), and finally request a fully reflowed copy. The reflow is limited to about 30s via AWS Lambda, so this is not for dissertations -- this is for 2-20 page papers you can reasonably read on your phone. Nevertheless, there is a progress bar at the top of the screen to show you it's working, at that stage. These steps are pretty much reproduced in the app store images. For a non-arXiv link, the only difference is that there is no abstract. But note, the link can't just be to the journal page, you've got to get a PDF mime-type when it's requested. There are some things I should change, but it's very useful to me, and I just verified it works for both arXiv and non-arXiv. If it's not working for you, I would suggest deleting and reinstalling (sorry!).

Fnoord 7y ago

Calibre has a feature to convert file formats (ePub, PDF, etc). I haven't used it much as I tend to just go for ePub as source. Does K2pdfopt work better than Calibre?

acqq 7y ago
It’s not comparable. This tool reformats pdf to pdf which fits e-book readers, and often needs your input for fine tuning. But it does what other tools don’t (at least as much as I know). Calibre can convert between the ebook formats.

bdcravens 7y ago

“My site (willus.com) now offers SSL/https connectivity. Apparently this happened without my being notified, at no charge to me, which is nice. As a result, today I configured my site (and my backup site willus.org) to automatically re-direct http requests to https requests. Enjoy the added security!” That was only on August 3 2019 :-)

hbcondo714 7y ago
Yeah, it's using Let's Encrypt. There are a lot of DNS names listed on the cert, showing their webmail URL too.

huydotnet 7y ago

I know it's weird but I read most of the PDF on my iPhone with it. k2pdfopt -om 0.15 -w 800 -h 1732 <file-name>

vallismortis 7y ago
This works for eBooks too: k2pdfopt $* -dev kpw -mode fw -wrap -hy -ws 0.375 -ls-