Optimize LaTeX PDF Output for Kindle

Kindle can display PDFs, but usually the result is very hard to read. Normal PDFs are not suitable, especially when it comes to paper size for the relatively small display of the Kindle. For a forthcoming project, which I intend to write in LaTeX and read on Kindle, I looked into optimizing the document settings so the result would be rendered in a readable manner on Kindle.

I’ve started with the normal article class. The result is not good at all:
While Kindle zooms in automatically to remove the usually very wide margins LaTeX uses, the big (A4) paper size still results in a tiny font on the Kindle display. Switching to KOMA-Script is a bit better, but mainly provides better mechanisms to control the paper size for later experiments.

The next try is simply to use the A5 paper size. The result is getting better, but the paper size is still too big. Setting the paper size manually to 12cm by 9cm (the screen’s physical dimensions) and setting the pagestyle to empty (which removes the page numbering, among other things) results in much better results, but because of the (still) wide margins and the auto-zoom, the font size is too big and not enough content fits on a page:

Finally, manually setting the text area to be a bit smaller (11cm by 8cm) than the paper size results in small margins and very little auto-zoom. The output can be clearly read on the Kindle, and still quite a bit of text fits on a single page:

The LaTeX code for the last example is:

documentclass[DIV=calc,paper=9cm:12cm,pagesize]{scrartcl}

areaset{8cm}{11cm}
pagestyle{empty}
usepackage{lipsum}
begin{document}
lipsum
end{document}