Some Kindle questions

[Kay]

I was offered a book to review for my expat site. Yipee! I love getting books. It's about a gay couple living in Turkey. Here's a link to the book just in case anyone is interested:
http://perkingthepansies.com/

The author, Jack, sent it to me by PDF and I put it on my new Kindle. The problem is that the writing is so small I can't read it. I asked our technical support department for help. He informed me that when someone creates a PDF they have fixed the font size and there's nothing the recipient can do to change it. Is that right? Is there really nothing I can do to enable me to read the PDF on my Kindle? Should I fire the technical support department?

[Chabrenas]

If it's true, you need one of those 'magnifying ruler' things to read it with. Unless you can transfer the kindle file to a computer and edit it...

[Clinton]

I zoom in on pdf text all the time using my Foxit reader. I presume the same is possible with Adobe Reader. It would be a major omission if that facility wasn't available on the Kindle.

[monty]

Depends on which Kindle it is. On my Kindle DX rotating it so it is on its side makes the font size for PDFs larger. I think I read somewhere that the newer Kindles have pinch and zoom gestures like the iPhone. But I have to say most PDFs are a pain to read on the Kindle.

[Dave McM]

Kay's got a keyboard Kindle without a touchscreen. Yes, it's possible to zoom, but moving around the page involves using the nav button; and although she can read the page without scrolling sideways if she rotates the screen orientation, she doesn't want to have to hold the device sideways to read. And, as I've told her, you can't expand the typeface independently of the page.

[monty]

If you're selling an ebook these days, its almost mandatory to provide a mobi version.

Theres a open source app called Calibre which I use when I need to convert something to read it on the Kindle, which may be worth trying although its a bit hit and miss with PDFs.

[Mikl]

The point about PDF is that it is page-oriented. The Kindle (and other ebook readers) by contrast is designed to show a continuous flow of text. At best you can rotate, zoom and pan the PDF's pages (depending on the model of Kindle and the version of its software), but it's still very difficult to read it as a book, unless the author specifically chose a page size and font size that was readable on the Kindle's screen.

The above is especially true if you transfer the file to the Kindle via the USB port. Amazon recommend that you mail PDF files to your Kindle (using the Kindle's email address), in which case it will supposedly get converted into a format that the Kindle is better able to handle. In particular, it will be able to support bookmarks, annotation, and text-to-speech. But it's still not a real ebook, and might not even let you resize the font.

Kay, you could consider asking the author for a copy of the book as a Word document or an HTML file. In those case, if you email the file to your Kindle, it will get converted into something more like an ebook, with flowing text, resizable fonts, etc. Of course, the author might be reluctant to send out copies in a file that can easily be edited. In that case, what he should ideally do is to convert the book to Mobi format, using free software that's available for that task. You can then either email the document to the Kindle or transfer it via USB. In both cases, it will be a real ebook, supporting all the features that the Kindle allows.

If the author is planning to market the book, he really should convert it to a real ebook format anyway.

Mike