pdfs on the J3

[misc.]

I did do a google search and searched here too, the J3 does not support pdf files.

I understand from this thread that there are two ways to get pdfs onto the S9, and they will both work on the J3 (the j3 has the same flash player and can also display jpegs):

http://iaudiophile.net/forums/showthread.php?t=34660

I am wondering if anyone with the j3 has tried this, in either form and can comment on performance.

I understand that you can also convert PDFs to text, but unless there is some sort of converter that places the text the same width of the screen and takes spaces and paragraphs into account (which i am not aware of) then you end up with a really messy and hard to read pdf.

I dont *need* a J3, im happy with my D2, but i will upgrade if i can read books on my commute. (i really dont want ANOTHER device and buy an ereader!)

also, can you listen to music whilst in the flash player or viewing jpegs ?

thx in advance for any help, hopefully this thread might get some ppl reading pdfs on their j3 :)

[JunglePimp]

I really don't think it's possible to view pdfs on the S9/J3. You can convert it to text/flast and that's it. I don't see cowon incorporating Adobe Acrobat Reader in any of the future firmware upgrades for the J3/S9, sorry :(

As for the experience, I found PDFs converted to Text to be usually pretty much readable and not that bad. Converted to flash it was terrible. And for the ebooks with too many pictures, the Jpegs were too heavy and hence slow, and to a large extent messy to deal with as well.

[skypilotpete]

I haven't tried the pdf to flash option, but I have found a free utility which does an acceptable job of converting pdfs to text, while maintaining paragraph breaks. It's not perfect, but its better than other programs I have tried and it does a good enough job for me. I enjoy reading books on the J3, and it is MUCH better than the D2, which I also used to have. For one, the J3 has automatic word wrap, and adjustable font size, which, taken together with the larger screen, makes book reading a much more pleasant experience.

The free pdf to text converter is called - "Some PDF to Txt Converter" Do a Google search and try it out and see what you think. It has a few configurable settings, which are worth playing around with. In particular "Text Layout" (Yes/No) seems to allow you to either keep the original line breaks (select "Yes") or remove line breaks, but still keep the paragraph breaks (select "No")

[misc.]

OK, well ill give the pdf to txt thing a try on my D2, i assume the text reader is pretty similar.

im thinking i might buy one anyway as the power button on my d2 is becoming glitchy.

if i cant read pdfs, i might have to look at my next phone being the ideal pdf viewer.

[flokde]

Hey guys,
after dreading along for a couple of years with several low budget mp3 players I decided to upgrade finally and I have pretty much settled for the J3, which seems to have all my desired features (long battery life, good quality in sound and video, speaker, radio).
I'm currently travelling a long time so the music and video features are gonna be the most used (I understand that the screen is not made for long movies and such, but I tried my friend's ipod which seemed quite enjoyable - and I didn't find a player with larger screen and comparable battery life (well the bigger screens suck a lot I guess) and comparable quality).
The one problem is - unfortunately - ebooks. This i actually quite important to me. Don't get me wrong I'm not planning on reading immense novels on it (or on any electronic device for that matter - call me old fashioned :-) ).
It's just things like a lonely planet guide, a cook book or a sort of training book, that I would sometimes read, only a couple of pages at a time. I tried that on the ipod touch as well and it seems to be sufficient (the screen size being almost the same). I understand that there is no viewing pdf on the cowon and an email to the support about an upcoming firmware update didn't bring me any solutions to look forward to. Since there is some pictures in most of the ebooks I'm looking into, the .txt option pretty much fails for me. So I understand I can either go for .swf (which looked nice in my browser on the computer) or images. Is any of those comparable to the pdf experience on an ipod? The problem is, because of travelling I can't try the thing out, but have to order it blindly - I fell in love after spending days of reading and watching reviews and in forums, so I think it is a great player. I would just be really grateful, if anyone could provide some informations on the two solutions mentioned and if it is a good alternative to the pdf files. Is it hard to convert into pictures (like one by one) and do they take a lot of space (I'll only have the 8gig with 16gig chip)? Can I zoom in and out on the swf player/browser too and stop the slide show motion? Well it's just a few questions I wasn't sure about after searching the forum and the web. Although I did write a long post, it's just to try to get my situation across and a simple "yes it'll do for you" or "no, forget it" would be great :-)

Thank you so much in advance
flokde