Let's try to solve the Lesson Note PDF problem for Mac users

[watermen]

More importantly, there are some lessons' PDF that offer no lite version, that essentially force a Mac user to use Acrobat reader to read the PDF.

Hello Watermen,

we would love to add any missing Lesson Notes Lite PDFs to lessons where they should be. Please feel free to post links to lessons here so we can quickly generate and attach the Lesson Notes Lite to those lessons. Lessons before we swapped to the new PDF generation software should only have a single PDF (that will work in all viewers, however with limited functionality), lessons after the swap should indeed have both the Lesson Notes and Lesson Notes Lite.

Thank you,
Charles Abbott

So far Intermediate #2 and #7 were the ones. I guess there could be more, since I have not finish studying all the lessons.

Actually like I mentioned in the previous post, you can make a "lesson note" readable under Preview if you use Acrobat Pro to re-save it and embed the font. This is save you the trouble of having a "lite" version for mac users.

Please consider changing the Japanese font to MSMincho and Latin fonts to Times Roman in the "lesson note" too, it makes reading such a long paragraph easier. This is scientifically proven.

[cwabbott]

Hello watermen,

I reviewed those two lessons and added the Lesson Notes Lite files so you can view them in preview. If you come across any more of the older lessons that need the Lite version - please post it here.

Thank you for your suggestions and research into making our PDFs better. We are reviewing font options for our PDFs and will make an effort to test several out soon. Currently the Lite versions do have an embedded subset of MsMincho, but perhaps there is room for improvement.

Charles Abbott

[watermen]

Hello watermen,

I reviewed those two lessons and added the Lesson Notes Lite files so you can view them in preview. If you come across any more of the older lessons that need the Lite version - please post it here.

Thank you for your suggestions and research into making our PDFs better. We are reviewing font options for our PDFs and will make an effort to test several out soon. Currently the Lite versions do have an embedded subset of MsMincho, but perhaps there is room for improvement.

Charles Abbott

Thanks for taking a look into it.

Yeah, the lite version does have MsMincho, however for unknown reason, the lite version doesn't display elegantly, and font in it cannot be changed at all even with Acrobat Pro. The "lite version" looks like a scanned document converted into PDF, which is why everything in the lite version cannot be modified even with Acrobat Pro. And also explain why it looks substandard. Despite having MsMincho, because it doesn't display elegantly on Preview, those wordings in the PDFs can be an eyesore at time. Which lead to so many Mac users complaining about it at the time you all changed it.

If you can change the font in the "original lesson note" to MSMincho and save it like the way I described and embed the font, that PDF should be able to be read under Preview, in such a case, "lite version" is not needed.

I can offer you a few samples of how I modified your "original lesson note", I changed the font and make it readable under Preview and make it displayed elegantly like the way the old PDF used to be. Just let me know how you want me to sent the files to you and I will do it.

[cwabbott]

Hello watermen,

While investigating and fixing a recent unrelated issue with our PDF generator (you made a comment on a recent lesson about the PDF size) I also spent a few minutes reviewing our software settings to see how we can improve the quality of the embedded PDF.

We automate the generation of all our PDFs, so we cannot follow your instructions on opening and modifying PDFs in Adobe Reader Pro.

Luckily I found a few areas where we can tweak quality-to-size of the PDF. Since you have kindly volunteered to help, I'm going to post 2 PDFs here for you to review on your Mac.

http://www.japanesepod101.com/LI_S4L20_ ... bedded.pdf

and

http://www.japanesepod101.com/LI_S4L20_ ... edded2.pdf

The are the same lesson, same PDF, both with embedded font (same process we currently use to produce the Lesson Notes Lite). However, the second one has an increased resolution of 2X the original - at the cost of an additional ~70Kb of disk space.

Please review and let me know how they appear in Preview.

Thank you,
Charles Abbott

[untmdsprt]

I never had a readability issue with my Mac and the PDFs, I've only had a spacing issue when it came to the chart listing kanji, hiragana, romaji, and English. Long words like ありがとうございます　or similar length were on top of each other when trying to read the kanji/hiragana part.

Would the adjustments made for the above poster's request also fix spacing issues?

BTW, I like the new PDFs that have each character set underneath each other instead of side-by-side. This makes hiding the other character sets much easier when you're trying to practice one. Please keep this format!

Oh, is it possible to have more flexiblity to adjust the page size for printing? Everyone but Canada and the US use the A4 size.

Thanks!

[watermen]

Hello watermen,

While investigating and fixing a recent unrelated issue with our PDF generator (you made a comment on a recent lesson about the PDF size) I also spent a few minutes reviewing our software settings to see how we can improve the quality of the embedded PDF.

We automate the generation of all our PDFs, so we cannot follow your instructions on opening and modifying PDFs in Adobe Reader Pro.

Luckily I found a few areas where we can tweak quality-to-size of the PDF. Since you have kindly volunteered to help, I'm going to post 2 PDFs here for you to review on your Mac.

http://www.japanesepod101.com/LI_S4L20_ ... bedded.pdf

and

http://www.japanesepod101.com/LI_S4L20_ ... edded2.pdf

The are the same lesson, same PDF, both with embedded font (same process we currently use to produce the Lesson Notes Lite). However, the second one has an increased resolution of 2X the original - at the cost of an additional ~70Kb of disk space.

Please review and let me know how they appear in Preview.

Thank you,
Charles Abbott

Thanks Charles for getting me involved, I am so happy you guys responded.

Regarding the 2 PDFs you posted.

The 1st one is just like all the other "Lesson note lite". No different and nothing special.

For the 2nd one, the quality is definitely improved, and the wordings are displayed elegantly like the old PDFs, however there is a downside, you can't highlight or copy the words in the PDF. Given the choice I will still choose the 2nd one.

Despite the fact you embedded the fonts in both PDFs, these fonts still remained unmodifiable and undisplayable under a Mac environment. That means, there is no way I can modified it with Acrobat Pro and because of this reason the wordings in the PDF are being treated like a picture instead of fonts. The downside to this solution is that, you are highly relying on the resolution of your PDF to make it readable, because it is a picture after all. The higher the resolution, the clearer the wordings and the bigger the file.

Till now, I still don't know what software you use to generate the PDF, so I can't comment on that part. But in order to be free of all these resolution problems, the person who make the pdf must make sure that the wordings in the file are not converted into pictures when they save it. Let the words be displayed by fonts and picture be picture, that is what a good PDF supposed to be.

File size below 500KB is still considered reasonable. But a file size of 5.6MB like the JLPT #1, is way too huge, not a problem if I read it on my computer, but will become a problem eventually if I read it on an iphone.

By the way, have you considered changing the font in the original "lesson note" from ArialMS to MSMincho and TimesNewRoman? IMHO, this will actually solve all the problem, because with Snow Leopard, Mac user will not have trouble reading all PDFs under Preview, even for those who don't have snow leopard, they can get Acrobat reader and easily convert it to be readable under Preview in no more than 1 second.

P/S: Because of the low quality lite version, I have been spending like 30-60 mins on each lessons PDF trying to convert the original "lesson note" into a high quality one by changing the fonts. Some of these PDF are not even modifiable or easily screwed up if you modify it.

Thanks again, keep me updated, I am very happy to volunteer.

[watermen]

Conclusion: In a good PDF, wordings are displayed by fonts, and pictures are pictures. If wordings are displayed by pictures, low quality PDF will ensue. This is reason plaguing the "lesson note lite" version now.

[watermen]

I realized that you guys just change the lite version resolution to make it "looks" better. But that is not the solution. It still looks blurry and ugly, especially when you view it on a smaller screen. On the top of that you can't even select and copy it.

Why is it so hard to change the font in the original lesson note? Why are you guys avoiding me on the topic? This is a problem that can be solved very instantly without much trouble. I am really getting frustrated with the slow response.

Changing the font only takes you 1 second to do it !!!!

Please don't produce half-made product or inferior quality product, I don't pay to buy a PDF that looks horrible on my Mac!

I am already offering to volunteer for you guys, I just don't understand why is Jpod101 so lukewarm and elusive on this PDF thing!!!!

[watermen]

Still no reply from Jpod101????

Fine, go ahead by not replying. You will not see me subscripting to Jpod101 once my current one ends. I will also take down my post in my personal blog that promotes Jpod101.

By the way, just for your knowledge, a lot of people are looking at how you guys dealing with this problem, I personally have received some messages about this, why are people asking me how to solve this Jpod101 technical problem? Because you guys are not doing your job to solve the problem.

[Yamanchu]

Hi Watermen, sadly, I have to agree with you here. There are some simple questions/issues they seem to be avoiding.

I'm looking at altering the lower intermediate pdfs for my own use (taking out the romaji). If you're interested I could send you a copy to see if they work on your machine. The altered file size should be quite small.

I still believe that if JPod embed the fonts (a very simple thing to do), the problems will cease.

untmdsprt, I guess no matter what the size, somebody will be upset. When I print, I just set the 'page scaling' box to: 'Fit to Printer Margins'.

[watermen]

Hi Watermen, sadly, I have to agree with you here. There are some simple questions/issues they seem to be avoiding.

I'm looking at altering the lower intermediate pdfs for my own use (taking out the romaji). If you're interested I could send you a copy to see if they work on your machine. The altered file size should be quite small.

I still believe that if JPod embed the fonts (a very simple thing to do), the problems will cease.

untmdsprt, I guess no matter what the size, somebody will be upset. When I print, I just set the 'page scaling' box to: 'Fit to Printer Margins'.

Please send me a copy let me see if it works. I will send you a personal message with my email.

[cwabbott]

I never had a readability issue with my Mac and the PDFs, I've only had a spacing issue

Hello untmdsprt, please give us a link to a lesson that has spacing issues so we can review, and we will gladly take a look.

BTW, I like the new PDFs that have each character set underneath each other instead of side-by-side. ...Oh, is it possible to have more flexiblity to adjust the page size for printing?

We will keep this layout and have no plans of changing it at this time. We will investigate your other request, but for now it appears A4 will likely remain in place.

Thank you,
Charles Abbott

[cwabbott]

Hello watermen,
Allow me to take a moment and review,

[watermen] Actually like I mentioned in the previous post, you can make a "lesson note" readable under Preview if you use Acrobat Pro to re-save it and embed the font.
[...]
If you can change the font in the "original lesson note" to MSMincho and save it like the way I described and embed the font, that PDF should be able to be read under Preview, in such a case, "lite version" is not needed.

[cwabbott] We automate the generation of all our PDFs, so we cannot follow your instructions on opening and modifying PDFs in Adobe Reader Pro.

Next we reviewed a newly generated PDF after some modifications were made to our generation software:

[watermen] [...] the quality is definitely improved, and the wordings are displayed elegantly like the old PDFs, however there is a downside, you can't highlight or copy the words in the PDF.

So we have managed to get the Lite PDFs to now display elegantly like the old PDFs, and if not 100% the same - we are very close. The downside you mention, copying from the PDF, was also the case for the old PDFs on most computers.

Here is a thread when the PDF change took place (http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/vie ... php?t=3602). In the second post I am described some benefits of the new Lesson Notes PDF that is read in Adobe Reader.

[cwabbott] * Searching PDFs now work (it did not work in the old PDFs)
* COPY / PASTE now works - this is very useful to people studying and trying to take notes elsewhere
* The PDFs are now compatible with special accessibility software (ie. screen readers)
* There are bookmarks already in place for you to quick-click

The Lesson Notes and the Lesson Notes Lite PDFs are the exact same in content. However, they serve 2 separate purposes.

The Lesson Notes PDF is designed to support many advanced PDF options and will act more like a traditional PDF. Thus it supports copy / paste, screen reading software, and other soon-to-be utilized features. However, Adobe Reader is only officially supported and recommended for viewing.

The Lesson Notes Lite PDF is designed to be read on any device regardless if Adobe Reader or the correct fonts are available.

Now, allow me to quickly address a few questions you had.

[watermen] Why is it so hard to change the font in the original lesson note?

In the Lesson Notes PDF we use Adobe standard font packs, we have no plans of changing from the standard font packs.

[watermen]
...if you use Acrobat Pro to re-save it and embed the font.
[...]
If you can change the font in the "original lesson note" to MSMincho and save it like the way I described and embed the font, that PDF should be able to be read under Preview...
[...]
Till now, I still don't know what software you use to generate the PDF, so I can't comment on that part.
[...]
This is a problem that can be solved very instantly without much trouble.

This appears to be the general direction of your remaining questions, suggestions, and assumptions (please add to it if I am missing some other question you may have posted).

We do not use Adobe Pro to generate the PDFs. Across our sites we use several open source server libraries for automatic generation of PDFs. These libraries are written in C, PHP, and shell scripts.

When you fully embed the Japanese font MSMincho it will create a PDF that is 5.6MB in size, this is not acceptable. We partially embed the font in the Lesson Notes Lite to avoid the filesize issue. Additionally, we flatten the PDF to save space, which creates a PDF that is viewable on any device, but it does not allow for copy and paste or other advanced features.

As with most interoperability concerns, this is not a solution that can be reached instantly or in only one way. Our current system provides 2 PDFs for all of our members, one that follows Adobe standards and can be read on any machine that uses the free Adobe reader, and another that supports reading from any device and reader that can open a PDF.

The quality and functionality of both will never be equal, since they were designed with two different purposes in mind.

We will continue to evaluate new options as the become available. Thank you for your patience, and I hope this clarifies things.
Charles Abbott

[watermen]

Thanks for replying.

1. Is there a reason you guys are sticking to the Adobe font pack? MSMincho is in the Adobe system too. In fact, MSMincho is a native font in every computer now. I am bringing this up because readability is an issue with Arial MS. You go and try reading those very long intermediate lessons, it is so straining to the eyes.

2. The old lessons notes though have problems when you copy, but it can be highlighted, more importantly, it is modifiable under Acrobat Pro to make it copiable. Your new PDF lite version on the other hand, is completely unmodifiable.

3. You mention about the "Lesson note" PDF functions, but what are the functions of these PDF other than able to copy and highlight?

4. I did mention that when the resolution is higher, the lite version PDF is more elegant, however, I only made this comment base on the example you showed me. Throughout the whole week, I have been monitoring your lite PDF, and I realize that the quality is still substandard.

5. You mentioned you use open source to generate PDF, may you tell me what are those open sources, I may be able to help you guys to investigate and find a solution.

6. By the way, why not Jpod provide the original note in word document file, in this case anyone can do whatever they want. We can also convert it to PDF file on our own.


I am not satisfy with your reply. This PDF thing is not something that can't be solved, yet you guys remain so lukewarm and elusive, and not wanting to do anything to improve it. PDF is not a free thing provided by Jpod101, in order to get the PDF, we have to subscribe, therefore unlike the audio/video files which are free, the PDF is something we pay for it. We have every right to demand a good quality PDF. It is also Jpod101's job to make sure that we get what we paid for.


If your audio/video is horrible, I can't make a complaint, because it is provided free in the first place. That is why I never complaint about the audios when you guys insert advertisement in your audio a couple of years ago, because it is free. However, this doesn't apply to your PDF and premium service.

[cwabbott]

1) We will continue investigating other options for this font.

2) The current lesson notes file supports highlighting and can be modified under Adobe Pro. Since you have Adobe Pro it should be easily accessible.

3) I quoted a list of current benefits in the previous post. There are more benefits that may appear later, and some that affect the way we do our work - which allows us to produce more content quicker.

4) Not all the recent PDFs reflect the recent changes. The updates will be noticeable though.

5) Yes, we do use open source, but we also use proprietary implementations. If you are a student of computer-science or other similar studies, and you are interested in an internship - please email us your resume.

6) We do not maintain any original word documents, and we will not be providing any alternative downloads in the foreseeable future.

I was very thorough and straightforward with my last reply, and will continue to be so. However, I am unable to meet all the requests immediately, but will look into alternatives as time goes on. I have never said things cannot be solved, but have consistently stated that we will look into them.

We have a very busy schedule but we are not going to lose sight of opportunities to improve the product and service.

Thank you,
Charles Abbott