# Kindle DX for reading academic papers?



## erforscherin (Feb 20, 2010)

I am in academia, and spend a lot of my time reading tiny-font-sized, multi-column technical documents on the computer. I'd like to have a way to read these documents without straining my eyes for hours on end, but I can't figure out whether the DX is a solution to this problem if it doesn't have .pdf zooming capability, or whether I should just wait until a different device (Kindle or otherwise) comes along which does support zooming.

It sounds like there are a few of you who have played with the Kindle DX in person, so if it's okay, I'd like to throw a few questions out there:

1) If you've had the chance to look up any tiny-fonted technical papers on it (let's use this as a somewhat typical example: http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObjectAttachment.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009236&representation=PDF), do you wish you had a zoom function, or is the font size okay for normal reading? (Figures, captions, and the references at the end are always the tiniest print, and are what I'm most worried about.)

2) Referring to the same journal article above - do the color graphs translate well to grayscale, or do all the shades look more or less the same? This is one of the key reasons I am hesitating between getting a DX or other e-reader now, versus waiting another year or so for the new color screens by Mirasol and company to make it into mass production.

3) Have you ever taken the DX with you while travelling? I am a little worried about problems getting it through airport security, and whether the large screen size would make it too awkward to read in cramped airplane seats.

4) How bad is the glare on the screen if you take it outdoors? I am curious if it's more reflective than a smaller K2 due to size.

Wow, sorry, I think I just wrote a novel up there.  HUGE thanks in advance to anyone who can help answer any of these!

-Jan


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## JeffM (Nov 22, 2009)

Hi Jan,

I figured the best way to answer some of your questions was to upload that document onto my DX and take some crappy pictures. My apologies, but my camera phone leaves a lot to be desired.

1) PDF viewed in portrait mode:









2) PDF viewed in landscape mode:









3) Image from PDF in portrait mode:









4) Same image in landscape mode:









As far as the other questions -

I've traveled with my first DX extensively. It was great. I never had any issues with security or it being too cramped in a seat. It's nearly exactly the size of a piece of paper, so it's really not that big.

I don't find the screen is any more reflective than the K2 my Dad has. It's the same screen, just bigger.

Hope this helps a bit. My pics suck, but they may help.

Best,
Jeff

edit: I just looked at them and I'm quite sure they aren't helpful at all. =(


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

I tried some shots myself and attempted to make them the size of the Kindle on your screen (you may need to click them in your browser to magnify a bit). They're not perfect but the lighting was difficult. I'll also post one at full size so you can get in close on the detail the way you might hold the Kindle closer to see detail if it was in your hands. _I_ can read this okay on mine in portrait mode, though some of the text does get pretty tiny. Turning it to landscape mode does help of course, however, with articles like these you will be reading down columns. That means changing the page three times per column assuming they go the length of the full page. Most pdfs I've tried are only two screens per one page in landscape mode, but this one goes over onto a third for some reason.

1) I do wish there was an easy way to zoom and navigate pdfs on the Kindle, but I don't really see a way since it would need to continuously redraw and that would take forever. The landscape option isn't perfect but it works in most cases.

2) The Kindle actually does a pretty decent job with color, but you do get some loss in pictures without a lot of contrast in the small details. For graphs and the like it really depends on the colors they use and how many there are whether or not it would be a detriment or not I think.

3) I haven't taken mine on an airplane yet, but just not having to turn pages I think would make it far easier than a book and definitely easier than a laptop or the like. I do lug my DX around with me to school and even out on errands sometimes and I never feel like it's in my way or too big to manage.

4) Like Jeff said, glare isn't an issue it all. It depends on the angle you hold it of course, but it's not just one sweet spot for no glare. It's more that there is one sour spot that does glare, so angling it just a bit will remedy it. It's no worse than my K2 at all.

All in all, I -really- prefer my DX to printing out pdfs and trying to staple them together and then lug them about. I hate not being able to highlight and I sent Amazon an idea how to make it happen, but that was ages ago so who knows. Maybe someone will make a pdf highlight app. You can still bookmark which works nearly as good. I also prefer it to lugging around a laptop. My Kindle boots up a lot more quickly and I don't need to go hunting the application or the file to open so much, so I am more apt to pull it out and read than I would be with it on my netbook. Not to mention the lack of eyestrain and phenomenal battery life.

You also have the option of sending them for free conversion to Amazon. They do a pretty nice job and I prefer this to pdfs when it works. Some pdfs are not actual text and just scans of text so this isn't always an option, but with these sorts of journals I would think it might work well. You'd lose some of the formatting, but it should keep pictures and the like intact. Why I prefer it is that you get the file in ebook form which means not only can you highlight and use the dictionary but you can also have your articles read to you.

Here's just two examples of the shots I got pasted into the thread with links to them all afterwards.



















These are various pages in portrait mode.
http://ancientmuse.sslpowered.com/DSC_1490.jpg
http://ancientmuse.sslpowered.com/DSC_1500.jpg
http://ancientmuse.sslpowered.com/DSC_1506.jpg
http://ancientmuse.sslpowered.com/DSC_1512.jpg
http://ancientmuse.sslpowered.com/DSC_1515.jpg

These three are all of the screens that make up page one in landscape mode.
http://ancientmuse.sslpowered.com/DSC_1516.jpg
http://ancientmuse.sslpowered.com/DSC_1519.jpg
http://ancientmuse.sslpowered.com/DSC_1520.jpg

These two are full size (as shot without resizing) of a portrait and landscape screen which may give a better idea of actual text readability. Remember your browser will probably resize it to fit your window so click them to zoom in. This still won't give you the full size, so you'd have to right click and save them then view them on your computer if it's still not big enough 
http://ancientmuse.sslpowered.com/DSC_1490_full.jpg
http://ancientmuse.sslpowered.com/DSC_1516_full.jpg


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## Pirate (Jul 5, 2009)

First, the PDF viewer on the DX is just a viewer. You can't change the size of the fonts or highlight ares to take notes. There is a workaround sort of.
I emailed your pdf to my kindle DX with the single word *Convert* in the subject line and no text in the body of the email. Amazon converted it to the standard Kindle format which allows you to change the font size and highlight ares and take notes but the topo maps are in only 16 shades of grey and you cannot zoom in or out on them. They looked like the images in the above two posts and were not very readable. Amazon also charges a small, 0.15-0.25 cents for the conversion I think. The wireless has to be turned on, on the Kindle before you sent the email or you don't get it, so I have been told. I also have read that some complex pdf formatting doesn't come through very well, both in the native format and when converted. When Amazon did some college trials with the DX they did not get very good marks from those that participated in the trials, especially the pdf viewer. I am looking for Amazon to come out with a DX2 sometime this year, my guess is Aug.-Oct, and I am betting they will fix a lot of the things that hurt them in the college trials. If it was me and I had a lot of pdf's to view, I would wait
Hopes this helps to answer your questions.


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## erforscherin (Feb 20, 2010)

Thanks everyone, and double-thanks to Scheherazade for the giant cache of pictures! This has definitely been helpful in seeing what the DX can do. Unfortunately, I think ultimately I will wait on making a purchase until a color-screen device comes to the market: the differentiation between the grayscale 'colors' is not as sharp as I would have liked to see, and the inability to highlight or take notes on unconverted .pdf documents which I can transfer back and forth between the DX and the computer is absolutely a deal-killer. 

Here's hoping that Amazon will bring better knowledge from their college trials to the table for the next incarnation.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

If you send your pdf to @free.kindle.com it's actually free and they just send the converted file to the email that you sent it in from.  I prefer this method because I don't have to worry about it being sent directly to my Kindle... plus it's free.  You just have to hook your Kindle up to the computer and transfer it.  And be sure to put CONVERT in the subject line or they'll just send you another pdf.


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