Hacking PDF into Nook Color
February 6, 2013 Leave a comment
Just a quick tidbit about getting things done. As part of my current job, I have to lug around several reference books for training and consulting. I also carry a Nook Color for personal reading purposes and thought…
“Wouldn’t be great to get all these heavy books out of my bag and into the Nook?”
Well, for the most part it’s pretty simple to move documents between my computer and the tablet using the USB charger. What is often the problem is the format. ePub files tend to be oriented for text documents.
But if you need images, PDF files seem to be the friendliest so far. The same page in ePub above is shown in PDF below.
But as you can see, while PDF documents look a better, they are generally formatted for letter sized paper and still don’t look so good on small tablets. You can pan and zoom on a page, but sometimes that’s a bit more trouble then its worth.
So what’s the issue? Ownership I suppose. Some are published by myself and others are not. If you have any chance to control the output, then read on….
The key is the page size and margins. Really, you knew that already. After a bit of web searching and trial and error myself, I came to these dimensions:
Height: 6.1” {Edit – corrected to say 6.1. Had used 6.8 in previous trial but did not work}
Width: 4.1”
Margins: 0.1”
For reference, see a comparison chart below for your device:
| Device | Nook Color | Nook HD | iPad mini |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Screen Size | 7” | 7” | 7.9” |
| Resolution | 1024×600 | 1440×900 | 1024×768 |
| Pixels Per Inch | 167 | 243 | 163 |
NOTE: The above chart is not exhaustive and is taken from public information about each device. It does imply the Nook Color (now obsolete) is on par with the iPad mini. But not having seen either, I cannot confirm that.
If you have an iPad or large tablet, this is a moot point. Resolution and size overcome the limitation of my eyeballs. But. If you have a small tablet, reformatting the page results in output like this….
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