# Japanese PDF Files on Kindle



## bikes n badminton (Jul 4, 2011)

Hi, I searched around for a solid answer to this question, but couldn't find one.

I plan on buying a kindle 3 soon, but I need to know if my PDFs will transfer over before I do. I have 1000s of pages of Japanese literature in PDF files... so that's why I really need to know before I buy one.

I read that a MS doc file will transfer over more easily, but these files do not open in OpenOffice or Text Edit, they just show up as ascii (?)

Is there an international version that would suit me better? 

Thanks and sorry for the noob questions


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

If you intend to mostly read PDF files, while the K3 with 6 inch screen will handle them, you'll probably find the DX, with a 9.7 inch screen will display them better.


As to whether they could be converted to Kindle format, that probably depends on whether they're in Kanji or have been transliterated into western characters.


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## bikes n badminton (Jul 4, 2011)

Thanks for the info!

Yes they are in kanji/kana.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I'm going to move this to Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting. . . .perhaps there's some third party software that will do what you need.


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## SusanCassidy (Nov 9, 2008)

Word files will not be readable on the Kindle without being converted to .mobi format first.

Kindle supports Japanese, but if you want to convert to Kindle format, you need to make sure you know the character encoding of the original document first, otherwise, you will get garbage when it tries to convert to UTF-8.  You may have to convert the files yourself if the character encoding cannot be correctly detected by whatever you try to use to convert.

The PDF itself may display, but the print might be small, you might not like scrolling back and forth, etc.


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## Ben White (Feb 11, 2011)

The Kindle can't display Japanese in a mobi file, it doesn't have the correct font.  It just shows up as a lot of gibberish.  I was so disappointed when I learnt this, I had such plans   PDFs work okay, but depending on the formatting (mostly page and font size) they can be a pain to read.  Generally I wouldn't recommend the Kindle for reading Japanese, but the DX might be okay.


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## SusanCassidy (Nov 9, 2008)

Amazon says that the Kindle supports Japanese.  I imagine that it has to be correctly encoded in UTF8, not one of the other encoding sets.  Encoding issues cause a multitude of problems.


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## bikes n badminton (Jul 4, 2011)

Thanks for all the help  

So, IF the PDFs could be converted to Kindle format,  they would work fine?

So tired of reading on my LCD screen, and I can't afford a DX. Anyone know of any other e-ink readers that might support Japanese?

Thanks again!


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## Ben White (Feb 11, 2011)

SusanCassidy said:


> Amazon says that the Kindle supports Japanese. I imagine that it has to be correctly encoded in UTF8, not one of the other encoding sets. Encoding issues cause a multitude of problems.


I tried using every different encoding I could think of, with no luck--maybe I'll give it another go. Do you know if there's an official guide to formatting a Japanese html file for the Kindle? In any case, it doesn't support tategaki (vertical formatting) ... or does it? I'd be very happy if it did, although just thinking of the potential formatting issues gives me a headache 

As for PDFs, you can put them on the Kindle without doing anything and they'll display, it's just that the screen isn't ideally sized for the way most PDFs are formatted. I've fudged my way around this a few times, changing the 'page size' on my original documents (three inches wide by four inches high worked quite well, with an 11pt font and .2 inch margins all around) before converting to PDF. I'm not sure if there exists a way to reformat an existing PDF document in this way, though.


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