Scanned PDFs on reMarkable

The 100 MB wall

reMarkable’s import guide gives one hard number: 100 MB. It applies to the two routes most people try first.

A scanned book is easy to push past 100 MB. Each page is a photograph of paper, and grey or yellowed paper is full of fine variation that doesn’t compress well. Several hundred pages of that adds up quickly.

You could move to the desktop app and stop there. But a file that big is still a grey scan, and it reads like one.

What the screen does to a scanned page

reMarkable lists these screens on its own pages:

We couldn’t find a screen size for Paper Pure on reMarkable’s pages, so it isn’t listed.

The two large models show a typical paperback page at close to its printed size. A 6 × 9 inch page is about 10.8 inches corner to corner, so on the 10.3-inch reMarkable 2 it shrinks only a little, and on the 11.8-inch Paper Pro not at all. On the 7.3-inch Paper Pro Move the same page drops to about two thirds of its size, and the margins start to cost you real reading space.

What reMarkable’s own PDF tools do

reMarkable’s navigation guide covers two tools for PDFs:

• Pinch to zoom, with two fingers to pan and a tap on the zoom indicator to reset.
• Adjust view. Open the PDF, tap Document settings, then Adjust view, and pick Fit to width, Fit to height or a custom view. The setting applies to every page in the document.

A custom view is a good way to hide margins on screen. It doesn’t change the file, though, so the size stays the same and the grey stays grey. And a scanned book rarely sits in the same place on every page: the gutter swaps sides between left and right pages, and the book shifts on the scanner glass. One view that fits page 10 can clip a line on page 200.

Clean the file before you write on it

Best suited for: anyone who reads with the pen in hand.

Your notes on a reMarkable belong to the document you wrote them on. If you annotate a grey scan for three chapters and then swap in a cleaned copy, the notes stay on the old copy. So prepare the book first:

1. Upload the scan to FixMyScan. PDF or DjVu, up to 1,000 pages.
2. Decide how much margin you want. Keep the book’s own margins if you write beside the text; cut to the printed block if you only read. Either way, the scanner edge and spine shadow go.
3. Draw the crop once over the stacked pages. You see 50 pages laid on top of each other, so drift across the book is visible before you commit.
4. Let it clean and read every page. Plain text pages become pure black on white, which also makes the file much smaller. Pages with pictures stay greyscale. Tilted pages are straightened, and OCR puts searchable text under each page.
5. Download the PDF and upload it to your reMarkable. If it’s under 100 MB, the web app or USB will do. If not, use the app.

The pages keep their order and their printed page numbers, so a note on page 87 lines up with page 87 of the book.

On colour screens

Paper Pro and Paper Pro Move both have colour displays. FixMyScan keeps pages with pictures in greyscale and turns plain text pages to black and white, so a scanned book won’t come back in colour. For most old books, where the colour is just the tint of the paper, that is the point.

What this won’t do

FixMyScan doesn’t read handwriting, convert your reMarkable notes, or move notes from an old file to a new one. It doesn’t turn the scan into an EPUB. It gives you a PDF that is lighter, cleaner and searchable.

FixMyScan is not affiliated with reMarkable.

Questions