I’ve been compiling LaTeX PDFs for the Kindle. If you like LaTeX typefaces, especially mathematical fonts, you’ll love how they render on the Kindle. It’s a good thing because you won’t like the Kindle’s cramped page dimensions. For simple flow-able text this isn’t a big deal but for complex LaTeX documents it is!
There are two basic LaTeX to Kindle workflows.
- Convert your LaTeX to HTML and then convert the HTML to mobi.
- Compile your LaTeX for Kindle page dimensions.
For simple math and figure free documents mobi is the best choice because it’s a native Kindle format. You will be able to re-flow text and change font sizes on the fly. There are many LaTeX to HTML converters. This is a good summary of your options. You can also find a variety of HTML to mobi converters. I’ve used Auto Kindle; it’s slow but produces decent results.
Compiling LaTeX for Kindle page dimensions is more work. First decide what works best for your document: landscape or portrait. Portrait is the Kindle default but I’ve found that landscape is better for math and figure rich documents. You can flip back and forth between landscape and portrait on the Kindle but it will not re-paginate PDFs. Of course with mobi this is no problemo!
After choosing a basic layout expunge all hard-coded lengths from your source *.tex files. Replace all fixed lengths with relative page lengths. For example, 4in might become 0.75\textwidth. If you have hundreds of figures and images to adjust write a little program to replace fixed lengths. I did this while preparing a Kindle version of Hilbert’s Foundations of Geometry.
The next hurdle to overcome is the Kindle’s blase attitude about length units. LaTeX is extremely precise: an inch is an inch to six decimals. This is not the case on the Kindle! You will have to load your PDFs on the Kindle and inspect margins for text overflows. Be prepared for a few rounds of page dimension tweaking! For more details about preparing LaTeX source check out LaTeX Options for Kindle.
Finally, after you have compiled your PDF and loaded it on your Kindle, there are some Kindle options you should set to optimize your PDF reading experience. My next post will walk you through setting these options.
The following *.tex file loads packages that are useful for Kindle sizing. It also shows how to print out LaTeX dimensions with the printlen package.
% A simple test document that displays some packages and settings
% that are useful when compiling LaTeXe documents for the Kindle.
% Compile with pdflatex or xelatex.
%
% Tested on MikTeX 2.9
% July 22, 2011
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
% included graphics in immediate subdirectory
\usepackage{graphicx}
\graphicspath{{./image/}}
% extended coloring
\usepackage[usenames,dvipsnames]{color}
% hyperref link colors are chosen to display
% well on Kindle monochrome devices
\usepackage[colorlinks, linkcolor=OliveGreen, urlcolor=blue,
pdfauthor={your name}, pdftitle={your title},
pdfsubject={your subject},
pdfcreator={MikTeX+LaTeXe with hyperref package},
pdfkeywords={your,key,words},
]{hyperref}
\usepackage{breqn} % automatic equation breaking
\usepackage{microtype} % microtypography, reduces hyphenation
% kindle page geometry (no page numbers)
%\usepackage[papersize={3.6in,4.8in},hmargin=0.1in,vmargin={0.1in,0.1in}]{geometry}
% portrait kindle page geometry space reserved for page numbers
\usepackage[papersize={3.6in,4.8in},hmargin=0.1in,vmargin={0.1in,0.255in}]{geometry}
% landscape geometry
%\usepackage[papersize={4.8in,3.6in},hmargin={0.1in,0.18},vmargin={0.1in,0.255in}]{geometry}
% headers and footers
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhead{} % clear page header
\fancyfoot{} % clear page footer
\setlength{\abovecaptionskip}{2pt} % space above captions
\setlength{\belowcaptionskip}{0pt} % space below captions
\setlength{\textfloatsep}{2pt} % space between last top float or first bottom float and the text
\setlength{\floatsep}{2pt} % space left between floats
\setlength{\intextsep}{2pt} % space left on top and bottom of an in-text float
% print LaTeX dimensions
\usepackage{printlen}
% reduces footer text separation adjusted for page numbers
\setlength{\footskip}{14pt}
% scales down page number font size if document is at 12pt -> page numbers 10 pt
\renewcommand*{\thepage}{\footnotesize\arabic{page}}
\begin{document}
The \verb|\textwidth| is \printlength{\textwidth} which is also
\uselengthunit{in}\printlength{\textwidth} and
\uselengthunit{mm}\printlength{\textwidth}.
\uselengthunit{pt}
The \verb|\textheight| is \printlength{\textheight} which is also
\uselengthunit{in}\printlength{\textheight} and
\uselengthunit{mm}\printlength{\textheight}.
\end{document}
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 
Thanks for your note. I would make sure that your original *.jpg images have sufficient resolution to print at least 300 dpi on A4 pages. When you rescale to the smaller Kindle dimensions LaTeX rendering will re-sample your images to create smaller versions. You should only need one size.
I understand the difficulties in producing accurate and authentic old fonts. I’ve always thought an excellent software project would be a program that scans old fonts at high resolution and then reconstructs them as proper modern vector outline fonts. This is for more difficult than it sounds which explains why we don’t have such a tool.
Hi John
Thank you for your generous advice on formatting Latex for Kindle. I am writing a book on 17th Century beekeeping and using A4 PDF for the main effort – but when its finished a Kindle version would be good. Mostly text but some quotes included as jpg floats in authentic 17th Century font – I retired from the fray trying to incorporate them into MikTex and don’t have time to return to that.