How can I create a PDF file that my Nook Simple Touch won't reformat?

Question

I've written a document in Open Office Writer and I'm trying to read it on my Nook Simple Touch. I'm exporting the .ODT file to a PDF file, and it works perfectly. The pages are all behaving as intended. The problem however is when I try to open the PDF file in my Nook. About 60% of the pages are displayed without the nook trying to change them, however the other pages are reformatted by the Nook so they are not readable what so ever.

So basically what I want to do is to create a PDF document that is bunch of images instead of text, to stop my Nook from auto-formatting. How do I do this the easiest way? Or is there another solution? I've tried the security settings in OO Writer, but it only makes the PDF not openable in my Nook.

Answer 1

You could try optimizing your PDF for eReader screens with k2pdfopt.

Answer 2

The open source program k2pdfopt can do what you want in one command. I'd do something like this:

k2pdfopt -mode copy -dev nook -dr 2 srcfile.pdf

The output will go to srcfile_k2opt.pdf. The -dr 2 will make the images twice the resolution of the nook itself. If that's overkill, you can use -dr 1.5 or something smaller (output file size will be reduced). An advantage to this solution is that if your original document has searchable text, the converted images will retain a layer of that text so that the PDF remains searchable (provided the text layout isn't overly complicated).

http://willus.com/k2pdfopt

There are several tools for modifying PDFs for e-books at this forum:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=184

(See the sticky threads.)

Answer 3

The problem is that the Nook is attempting to "reflow" the PDF so the text is large enough to read but still fits properly on its screen. This works with some PDFs, but not others--as you have noted. Ideally, you would want to just disable reflow on the Nook, but from what I've seen this feature is not available (check your settings though, it may be a recent addition). Any alternate page layouts (fullscreen, landscape, etc.) may help as well.

One option you may have for getting around this problem is to add a watermark-type image behind all the text of your document. It can be extremely faint, so the image won't render on the Nook's screen, but it may make the Nook realize there is more "layout" to this PDF and won't reflow each page.

Another possibility is to install a PDF "printer" and use it to render your PDF. Rather than converting the text to PDF, many PDF printers create an image of the document and save it to a PDF. There are many PDF printers out there, and it's been a while since I used one, so I couldn't give you a good suggestion on one that would definitely go the image route.

Answer 4

Open the PDF in Adobe Pro. Export it as .tiff images. Then, re-create a new PDF from the .tiffs. This must strip whatever metadata that causes the NOOK to try reformatting it, and also allows you to name it without the NOOK using the metadata name, and other problems. It works perfectly.