Advice for Student Using a Kobo Clara Colour or BW as a Portable PDF Reader

[shyhermit]

Seeking advice for a student starting a pharmacy assistant internship at a hospital.

The hospital is switching over all of its medication references from paper to digital. In consequence, we have been given massive numbers of PDFs to use to look up different medications and other patient care materials that are used to be on paper. Normally, these materials are also available at each nursing station's workstation computers for us to look up. Some of us, however, are choosing to carrying them on our cellphones or tablets.

Because of eye strain issues, I am interested in trying out an e-ink tablet to store these materials as a substitute for my work cellphone. I need to have the tablet small enough to fit into a lab coat pocket, so the new Kobo Clara Colour or BW appears to be a good fit.

I am some newbie questions:

1. I plan to use this device solely as a PDF reader, so I need to sideload large numbers of large PDFs (hundreds in numbers, each over hundreds of pages long at minimum). Will this be an issue for the Kobo?

2. Does the Kobo PDF reader support built-in search and finger-pinch zoom in/out function which I need to scan and read the documents?

3. Does the Kobo PDF reader remember past word search history?

4. Am I correct that I will be able to use the same procedure for other Kobo readers to install KOReader in Kobo Clara Colour or BW? Is KOReader the preferred choice in my usage case?

5. Some documents I have from the hospitals are in .doc and .docx. Is there a plug-in I can install that will allow the Kobo reader to read these document types? Or I need to convert them to .PDF myself first before sideloading them onto the device?

6. For the beta browser in Kobo Clara Colour or BW, can I bookmark websites?

Thank you in advance for helping out a newbie.

[JSWolf]

The answer is don't. The screen is too small for PDF. You'll hate it. A 6" eInk screen is too small. So is a 7" screen. Nt sure how good an 8" screen is. But it may also be too small. You would be OK with a 10" or larger screen.

[Parsley]

Unfortunately, reading standard A4 or 8.5x11 pdfs on the Clara is a pretty painful experience (KOReader is a little better but not enough better). Zooming and panning is just too slow and the screen is small enough that you'd need to do a lot of it. The browser is also not something you'd want to use regularly, since scrolling is similarly bad. A lot of what you're asking about is technically possible, but I really do not recommend it.

[Cactus Chef]

You're not gonna like the answer, but reading PDFs is inherently difficult on small screens. And to be clear, this isn't the fault of Kobo: the PDF itself is a digital format that is trying to reproduce an 8.5x11" piece of paper. On anything that is smaller than that dimension, the display device is forced to shrink, crop, or pan-and-scan in order to show that PDF. You don't get the reflow options available with, say, an EPUB, because the whole point of a PDF is to try to represent the original image as closely as possible.

If you want an e-ink reader dedicated for PDFs, I'd go with an Elipsa. But bear in mind that one probably won't comfortably fit in your coat pocket.

[Aleron Ives]

You might also look at the Boox Nova series. A 7.8" screen is more likely to fit in your pocket than a 10.3" screen, and NeoReader has a massive number of formatting options to make reading PDFs on a small screen tolerable.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

You might also look at the Boox Nova series. A 7.8" screen is more likely to fit in your pocket than a 10.3" screen, and NeoReader has a massive number of formatting options to make reading PDFs on a small screen tolerable.

Forget the 7.8" screen. The 10.3" screen will make the PDF much easier to read.

[Pen&Paper]

Originally Posted by shyhermit

Seeking advice for a student starting a pharmacy assistant internship at a hospital.

The hospital is switching over all of its medication references from paper to digital. In consequence, we have been given massive numbers of PDFs to use to look up different medications and other patient care materials that are used to be on paper. Normally, these materials are also available at each nursing station's workstation computers for us to look up. Some of us, however, are choosing to carrying them on our cellphones or tablets.

Because of eye strain issues, I am interested in trying out an e-ink tablet to store these materials as a substitute for my work cellphone. I need to have the tablet small enough to fit into a lab coat pocket, so the new Kobo Clara Colour or BW appears to be a good fit.

I am some newbie questions:

1. I plan to use this device solely as a PDF reader, so I need to sideload large numbers of large PDFs (hundreds in numbers, each over hundreds of pages long at minimum). Will this be an issue for the Kobo?

2. Does the Kobo PDF reader support built-in search and finger-pinch zoom in/out function which I need to scan and read the documents?

3. Does the Kobo PDF reader remember past word search history?

4. Am I correct that I will be able to use the same procedure for other Kobo readers to install KOReader in Kobo Clara Colour or BW? Is KOReader the preferred choice in my usage case?

5. Some documents I have from the hospitals are in .doc and .docx. Is there a plug-in I can install that will allow the Kobo reader to read these document types? Or I need to convert them to .PDF myself first before sideloading them onto the device?

6. For the beta browser in Kobo Clara Colour or BW, can I bookmark websites?

Thank you in advance for helping out a newbie.

Not a good idea to deal with PDF of hundreds of pages on a slow eink device, no matter the size or the company.

You might try this kind of filter on your phone (or a small tablet like the iPad Mini.)

https://shop.eyesafe.com/eyesafe-blu...ctor-for-ipad/

[shyhermit]

Thank you to all who replied with your feedback. Your advice is most helpful.

Some more context to why I am looking for a small-sized e-ink device to see if this will work:

1. I already tried out using a regular sized tablet (iPad). This was the obvious solution that some of the pharmacists in the hospital turned to. This solution, however, does not work in practice because such large tablet devices are too heavy to have to carry around all the time in our arms (can't put in our lab coat pockets), prone to drop damage (the hospital said that over two dozens tablets were broken in less than six months when a pilot program for nurses was ran (before my time) a few years ago), prone to theft (tablet will get stolen if it is left unattended at the nursing station), problem with eye strains from prolonged usage (as in my case), and need for frequent charging. The hospital scrapped the idea, so all of us have since been told to implement our own "solution" if we want to use portable devices.

2. The staff who chose to carry around portable devices are all using cellphones solely because they can be pocketed. Obviously, the screens are even smaller so they are always zooming in and out the documents to read them.

3. One major difference I want to point out is that is we are NOT reading these technical documents like a novel. Almost always, we are searching for a specific medication to read up the dosage or formulation or administration details which takes up only a few lines of text each time. This is why I am thinking there must be a better way to do this than using a PDF reader on an iPhone or Android phone. No one in my hospital has tried out an e-ink reader. Portability of the device is critical for this to work.

[PHughes]

I love my Clara, but also think it is too small for PDFs. I understand your specific needs though, so maybe it would work.

As someone else suggested, an Ony Boox may be a better option. The do make a 6 inch model, but a 7.8 inch model from them may be better, and still be pocketable. The Onyx Boox devices are e-ink, but run Android. That may give you more flexibility with respect to organizing documents, among other things.

Phil

[Pen&Paper]

You might want to check videos about the PDF experience on Kobo and other eInk devices. Here's a sample on the 8" Forma. Maybe you'll understand better why people here are not recommending you buy one.

[Aleron Ives]

I would strongly recommend watching some of Voja's reviews on MyDeepGuide before making a decision. Here is his review for the Poke 5 (6") and Page (7").



It sounds like Boox will be your only practical option, as Kobo devices are meant for reading EPUB novels, not PDFs. You will need the power of an Android tablet to do what you want, so the question is whether you prefer a super portable 6" device or a 7-8" device that makes it easier to read PDFs with small type.

Either way, you'll want a Boox device for the huge number of options that NeoReader brings to the table when it comes to PDF formatting. Voja does cover the features of NeoReader in his older videos, but he got tired of covering the same things over and over, so he omits that from his more recent videos.

[John F]

Originally Posted by shyhermit

...

2. The staff who chose to carry around portable devices are all using cellphones solely because they can be pocketed. Obviously, the screens are even smaller so they are always zooming in and out the documents to read them.

3. One major difference I want to point out is that is we are NOT reading these technical documents like a novel. Almost always, we are searching for a specific medication to read up the dosage or formulation or administration details which takes up only a few lines of text each time. This is why I am thinking there must be a better way to do this than using a PDF reader on an iPhone or Android phone. No one in my hospital has tried out an e-ink reader. Portability of the device is critical for this to work.

IMO, if you stick with PDF, you will still be doing a lot of zooming. I'm a little surprised there isn't a dedicated app.

5. Some documents I have from the hospitals are in .doc and .docx. Is there a plug-in I can install that will allow the Kobo reader to read these document types? Or I need to convert them to .PDF myself first before sideloading them onto the device?

If you can convert them to an ebook format (epub), you may not need to zoom, although you may still need to page forward/backward.

[John F]

Maybe the Medscape app (on you phone)?

[shyhermit]

The materials I need to carry around are all from the hospital. They are not general references available online. Most are related to formulary information that we search regularly as a reference for unusual prescriptions we receive from physicians' orders.

Originally Posted by John F

Maybe the Medscape app (on you phone)?

[talaivan]

Use the largest pro iPhone. I read pdf's on mine all the time. Advantages: an OLED screen, ability to zoom in and out effortlessly, ability to mark up text that can be transferred to your computer or iPad (marking up text is especially easy on the iPad), ability to carry it around, and (with a good case) protection from breaking. I use my iPhone pro 13 max all the time to read pdf's -- it works pretty well, though obviously a larger screen would be advantageous. Can't speak to vision issues -- I find the OLED screen very comfortable. I think even the new Elipsa is much too slow for your purposes. I use PDF Expert on the iPhone, iPad and Mac. I had a Boox but did not care for NeoReader.
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