The Kindle DX and the PDF implementation chosen

Kindlezen's Steve Bain has a very thoughtful, well-researched, and thorough report on the strange choices made in Amazon's implementation of native Adobe PDF support for the Kindle DX.

He opens with the thought that "...my overall impression is very positive" and that this is a critique of the PDF interface rather than the unit itself.  It's an understandably tough critique, considering the DX's target audience.

I'd written earlier (May 15) on the contradictory replies I received from Amazon's Kindle Support department when Kindle-2 owners discovered that the Kindle DX User's Guide implied, via menu illustrations of a PDF document in use, that there would be no highlighting or notes capability with PDFs.  It's not spelled out via text that this is so.  A technical representative explained to me that he was able to highlight pages and add a note to a page, though these could not be done for subsections of pages.  However, as explained in that earlier report, official Amazon word came on the 18th that only a converted PDF (to MOBI text format) would allow users to highlight and add notes to PDFs.

It's been noted that the small Sony PRS-700 does allow users the highlighting and note-taking capabilities for text-based PDFs although the unit has its own drawbacks.  Therefore many surmise, rightly or wrongly, that the lack of these features is more due to the type of Adobe licensing involved.

Since then, Amazon has not, as of today, offered a mechanism by which PDFs could be converted by them for the Kindle DX as is currently done automatically for PDFs sent to Kindles 1 and 2  (because it's necessary in those cases just to read them), though I had asked them to consider offering this option to avoid problems upon release because of the expressed concerns in the forums back then.

  Searches are doable in text-based PDFs but not of course in books that are created only from pages scanned as images.  More troubling, as Bain describes, is the lack of Adobe support for working-links from the Table of Contents (possibly because licensing was for a restricted feature set).  Bain describes several workarounds and the difficulties with them.

 He points out, as forum Kindle DX users also have noted, that dictionary look-ups and Text-to-Speech are also not available for PDFs.

  As a result, Bain and users on the forums are of course asking that the firmware be updated to correct most of these problems, as the DX is marketed to students for textbook and study use and to business professionals and academics who need to work with many PDFs.  That one cannot 'work with' the PDFs then but only view them is a rather serious drawback for much of Amazon's stated target market.

  Bain describes physical interface problems he and others have noted, which you can read on his site.

However, most Kindle users who want the Kindle mainly for books and periodicals and are interested only in viewing PDFs that do retain the original layout of pages, rather than in working with them, won't be particularly affected.  Exception: the lack of active links in the Table of Contents.  Amazon needs to take care of this; Adobe provides that support if it's part of the licensing purchased. [Update from original 9:00pm post added the last sentence.]

  Some photos of scientific PDFs put on the Kindle DX by Kindleboards member 'Lynn' show a unit that does have accurate multi-format layout and remarkable clarity for PDFs when original sources are not in very small print.

  While there is awkwardness in the auto-rotation to landscape mode (and some slowness under certain circumstances) in that the top portion of the page is shown and then the bottom portion is reached by using the NextPage bar -- making columnar reading that requires PrevPage bar to get to the next column -- one can see the material about 1.5 times larger that way.  (Pan and zoom aren't possible with PDFs on the DX's screen, which while large is still smaller than an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, nor is it possible to increase the size of the fonts.)

  Lynn finds it less trying than scrolling around on the laptop though.  She has 400 journal articles placed on her DX already, to avoid using the laptop for them.

As a result of mulling the pros and cons of this device the last week, and because I won't be working with PDFs but only viewing them and using them for various electronics manuals, educational PDFs and a lot of sheet music, I've decided to get one for myself.
  Various photos links I've collected here and the photos linked to above helped.  There are even sheet music examples there.  Page turning will be a lot easier. :-)

  But business professionals and academics interested in the PDF capabilities for their work needs should be aware of what Bain has described at Kindlezen before they make their decisions.  And Amazon should provide the usual conversions for those wanting to use the usual Kindle tools on this type of document while working on the firmware changes to make this a real tool for academics and business professionals.

Update 3:47 PM: Clarified that lack of highlighting and notes involves only PDFs.

Kindle DX PDFs MIGHT/Might NOT accept added-notes

UPDATED 5/18/09:  Amazon's public relations department replied today with an offer to get an official Amazon response to the questions discussed Friday (below), in connection with whether or not the Kindle DX will have highlighting and note-adding capabilities for PDFs, even if only for pages rather than paragraphs.

  The manual's illustration of the menu options on Page 66 for an PDF page implied (heavily) that these options would not be available for PDFs while there was no text actually stating this anywhere that I could find, and many prospective DX customers in the Amazon forums and some Kindle blogpages have wanted some definite word on this.

 I'd mentioned at the bottom of Friday's article below that, if the capabilities were not to be implemented for the DX, there are 3rd-party options to convert any non-digital rights-protected text-based PDF file to a MOBI/prc version readable on the Kindle DX (as is done for the K1/K2), which would then allow global Kindle searches plus highlighting and note-additions - while keeping the original PDF with its formatted layout as a reference.  Amazon should provide an option to do this conversion for DX customers who need that on specific PDFs.

  Note 1: The User's Guide states on page 44 that PDFs sent to a DX would be wirelessly delivered directly [rather than converted] for a fee.  We can transfer these via included USB cable though.
  On the Amazon Kindle help pages, they list e-mailed conversions of PDFs only for the first-generation Kindles, at this point.

  Note 2: Conversions from image-scanned PDFs (vs text-based PDFs) for text-searching won't work for ANY device unless using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to convert the squiggles to characters.

Here's the official Amazon statement I received today:

"A bookmark can be added in a PDF, but you cannot highlight, add a note, perform a lookup, or sync to last location.  A converted PDF can do all of the above."

That's exactly as implied in the 1st edition user's guide except that the official statement adds that a converted pdf [text-based] will allow these actions on the text.

 It'll make sense if they offer a conversion option as they do now.

  What Ryan, the technical person described being able to do (page-oriented notes) is possibly something that they're not comfortable implementing at this time.

End of Update 5/18/09

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Originally posted Friday May 15, 2009
  Amazon customers in a couple of Amazon forums and on at least two blogs have brought needed attention to a passage in the currently distributed Kindle DX User's Guide "1st edition" which quite clearly implies that highlighting and note-adding are not options with PDFs.

 On page 66 of the DX User's Guide (1st edition), we see:

  "The options available while reading a PDF file are slightly different than when reading a book or a periodical on Kindle.  Options that are not available in PDF files are grayed out in the menu."

  Then the screen-shot of a PDF menu shows the "Add a Note or Highlight" options grayed out.

  Since then, forum and blog talk has included concern over the possible lack of a notation feature for PDFs.  Since PDFs are often used heavily by legal, medical, and academics these days, this is an important area for them.

I called Amazon to ask about this and got a very helpful representative ('P') who, though concerned, was reading from material after asking others about this.  After she took care of my other questions, I asked to speak to a technical person so I could ask, for clarification for others, why a note could not be appended to a separate file as is done now for regular files, as it shouldn't interfere with the PDF file.

Reaching representative 'K' who sounded very capable, I asked to speak with someone who has some technical knowledge of PDF files specifically; after the quick transfer, I was now talking to 'Ryan' who said he is with the technical team and gave me permission to quote him on what he was saying.  I confirmed with him my understanding of what he said.

Ryan said that a couple of them had discovered, while working with PDFs on the Kindle DX just a couple of days before the DX announcement, that although a PDF file is different from the regular text files and one cannot highlight a specific passage nor isolate words on a page, there were a couple of things you can do with PDFs on the DX:

1.  You can highlight a page though not just a part of a page, and
2.  You can add notes for the Page but not for specific text on the page.

The PDF pages on the DX are essentially functioning as images  He said you can highlight the 'image' which is the entire page and, as mentioned, you can add notes FOR the page (but not on it, of course).  Ryan said he had been able to do this himself and will take a look at the manual, as he had not seen page 66.

 This makes sense to me since I knew that any notes we make on regular Kindle documents are put into a secondary file associated with the main document (and also put into the "My Clippings" file). This apparently may hold true for PDFS for the Kindle DX.

HOWEVER:
Earlier the same day, 'P' who's not in the technical area, had read some material on this, after asking an associate about it, and said she found out we could highlight text that was not included in charts or illustrations or other images, but she added that no notes could be made.  That was an odd combo of capabilities and I then talked with Ryan.

When I mentioned to Ryan that customer service had said that notes for PDFs were not possible, he said that customer service was in another area and it takes time for information to get to everyone.

I called back to try to ask him one more question but they have no way of getting you back to the same person.  Only P was recorded in the log as talking with me.  The next person I talked with ('S') went to Engineering, he said, who told him, "No highlighting, No notes." They're the ones who should know, but ...

I asked S to check with a manager, as would-be buyers need a clear idea of what can and can't be done, and his last relayed message to me was given by the customer service manager rather than by the technical support manager.

  Ryan had at least tried it out on a PDF and he could, more or less, highlight the page (which changed shades as he did) and successfully add notes for a page.

  A big feature of PDFs is that pages are defined very strictly and reliably for most output, so Ryan's experience with it as a page-based operation makes sense.

  He added that, for the same reasons, the PDFs are not searchable for text when searching the entire Kindle, though you can search within a PDF for text.

  It seems somewhat likely (being optimistic here) that there are older notes saying things can't be done on a PDF (which would explain the conflict between the user's guide info and Ryan's experience) and that later work with pdfs resulted in more encouraging information.

  In the meantime, I wasn't able to get any specific person who might be responsible for being an authoritative voice on features of the DX.  The referral was always to the basic Customer Service number.  I have one more dept to ask about this but am reporting what I've found, as it is somewhat encouraging.

It could be that the DX capabilities are evolving as we head into the summer.

Side note:  Princeton University, part of the upcoming study, intends to scan material in Optical Character Recognition form to produce flowable text that's searchable and to allow easy annotations.

Side note 2:  It's occurred to me that when someone wants to add highlighting and notes to a PDF document, they can convert it to a MOBI/prc file via Kindle's auto-conversion (but in the case of a DX target, Amazon will probably not convert the file) or choose one of several (free) methods to easily convert one for that purpose.

Customer service note: I want to add that P had to handle several other questions from me and she was really very patient and said she would follow up on a couple of areas. Customer Service was easy to get on the phone and patient about questions and the time it took.

(See the later update at the top of this entry.)