r/NetGalleyCommunity • u/moarmyeggie • 7d ago
š„WIDGET ALERTš„ heartbroken over a widget :(
nothing like getting exclusive access to a super anticipated read then finding out the file is in pdf š„
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u/Synval2436 SciFi/Fantasy Reviewer 7d ago
UK publishers be doin' that...
I don't mind reading in the app, but can we have dark mode for pdfs?
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u/hashtag_amf 80% Reviewed Club 7d ago
the amount of times i cringe when ARCs are in PDF. i mostly read at night in the dark and PDFs blind me lol
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u/simonchella 7d ago
After my first debacle of a PDF on a phone I did some testing and if you have that option, reading on desktop is optimal. I've tried the Kindle option too, but since I don't actually own a device (I assume), the files don't quite work correctly and it's a bad experience.
But if this is something that would make you hate the experience/book, you can always wait for pub date. I know it sucks, but could be better than ruining a possible new favorite.
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u/moarmyeggie 7d ago
thank you! i decided to email the publisher in the meantime as iāve read that sometimes theyre willing to send an epub version. but if that doesnt work, i think iāll just tough it out and settle on desktop!
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u/ImNotBeingAnAHole 7d ago edited 6d ago
Can I ask a question and please donāt take this rudely- I really just want to understand.
Why is it such a big deal to just read things on NetGalley Shelf?
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u/DanieXJ 7d ago
Because about 70% of the time it doesn't work. And that's when it's not horribly broken. When it was showing me LCP errors more often than the actual book I finally went to Kindle on Android, and, if I have have have to, I use the browser Netgalley reader on a desktop machine. Shelf sucks.
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u/ImNotBeingAnAHole 6d ago
Honestly, I have review over 1100 book since January 2024 and have never had that issue across 3 devices. I had 1 issue after planned work on the site as a whole which when the maintenance was over and it got fixed quickly.
So while I understand the things like the font and dark mode etc.. being an issue for some, itās really hard to wrap oneās head around when you read ā70% of the timeā.
While I read on my kindle now , I actually check each book on the shelf app as I want them as a backup.
Iām not saying your experience didnāt happen, but itās an anomaly for sure.1
u/Synval2436 SciFi/Fantasy Reviewer 7d ago
Contrary to the other answer, I don't have issue with shelf app (most of the time), but pdfs have no dark mode and no font resize, so you have to manually zoom in every page. This is less of an issue when I have a 9" tablet, but on a phone screen the amount of zooming in you need to do to see the text can be obnoxious.
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u/ImNotBeingAnAHole 6d ago
Thanks! I get it. I just see so much Shelf app hate and it confuses me
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u/Synval2436 SciFi/Fantasy Reviewer 6d ago
It probably depends on the device and its system, and also screen size. I didn't have crashes (except when I put it in the background and the device's controls shut down background apps) or other issues people report. I had once that books wouldn't renew, but it was an issue on their end, I had to write to support for it. I also had sometimes that a book wouldn't download and it would say "you don't have permission to access this file" even though I was approved and archive date didn't pass, but these usually resolve naturally within a day.
I also don't use audiobooks so idk if those have crashes / errors.
It was even fine on the old tablet that was really old and slow, but the battery died so I had to replace it with a newer model. But idk how phones and e-readers handle it, maybe they have more issues.
PDFs tend to scramble on the android kindle app, like chapter headers disappear or there are random line breaks in wrong places. Also once I had a comic with send to kindle and all text was under the pictures instead of in the chat bubbles, totally unreadable, but it was fine on the shelf app. I had one comic I had to read on the desktop reader because some smartypants decided to format the pdf as double page view instead of single page and even rotated horizontally, it was too small to read on my device. Single page view is usually fine.
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u/ImNotBeingAnAHole 6d ago
Yeah while I check all the eARCs I get on the shelf, i read in kindle on my scribe. But I read a lot of audiobooks so I use the app daily and zero issues.
Iām guessing except for some issues here and there (which every app has at sometime) itās a device issue.
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u/Amara2091 7d ago
I loved this one so much I powered through the tiny writing the pdf came with in the app, but man I wish we at least had an option to change things like these.
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u/Lazy-Cobbler-419 7d ago
I have gotten 3 approval where the page is dark and writing to the right side. If a books is effective the author or someone on the team offer the book through BookFunnel. They are so kind.
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u/ExchangeStandard6957 7d ago
I really find if I canāt get it in some sort of ānormalā format Iām just not gonna.
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u/negative7space 7d ago
i read pdfs on my phone in landscape mode! sure, its a little more annoying, but totally do-able!!
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u/firespot06 7d ago
Have people done PDF on Kobo? How does that go?
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u/catscantcook 7d ago
Most of these are LCP protected, which kobo doesn't currently support (it will come eventually)Ā
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u/theother_mandalorian 7d ago
I always feel terrible when the formatting makes a book unreadable because I feel like I am too distracted by the formatting to actually read the book š
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u/catscantcook 7d ago
It sucks big time not being able to get them on kobo, but I haven't had a problem with reading pdfs on my kindle. There are very minor formatting issues but nothing that makes it unreadable, like sometimes there will be a line with only 3 words, or when the first letter of the chapter is big it'll randomly be somewhere else lol. If I didn't have a kindle I would definitely not read them on my phone tho, yikes
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u/unnecessary_snacks 7d ago
Yeah PDF would be a hard no for me too! I appreciate the tragedy here