eBooks

[kayshapero]

I recently picked up Mobipocket Creator, a lovely program for creating ebook files in the prc format from a number of other things including pdf. Which is great, given that I don't usually have time to read long items on the computer, or the paper and ink to print out large files, so I usually read large files on my PDA. And I've yet to find a pda reader for the thing that really works properly; Documents to Go doesn't handle pdf files nearly as well as it thinks it does (one gets literary jigsaw puzzles. 'nuff said.)

Alas, it would appear that if I want to convert pdfs I still have to do a few other things if I don't want the result to be mashed together; apparently it has trouble "eyeballing" paragraph returns, at least when there's no line between paragraphs. So I wind up editing the interim HTML file by hand... :( Oh well, better than nothing. And it DOES get the data out of pdf and into something that I actually can edit.

Mostly, though, I've been editing html and doc files into ebooks with the program. I also downloaded Mobipocket Reader, the latest version of which has a library catalog similar to those various music programs have music file catalogs. Nice!

I'm also just about satisfied with my first anthology - I've taken the five stories I've got up on my site and stitched them into an ebook, which I will make available there for download at some point.

Comments

[fara-shimbo.livejournal.com]

We used to have a guy John at Lord and Taylor when I worked there, who was always coming into our studio and yelling about nothing was ready. All four of us would stand up and sing "Sit down, John!" until he left!

[kayshapero]

ROFL!!

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

Have you tried iSilo?

[kayshapero]

iSilo was the first thing I tried - for whatever reason, it caused no end of aggravation. Coulda been the Tungsten T3 I suppose; I may try it again now that I've got a new device. Docs to Go was my second attempt...

[kengr]

I deleted Documents to go from my Dana Wireless. It was causing too much grief. Among other things, if I powered down while a document was open, it "lost" the document. When I removed it, it freed up 11 meg of RAM, most of which was due to losing large files (Baen ebooks)

It also got into endless loops trying to read some *simple* RTF files...

[kayshapero]

Sigh... My biggest problem has been the fact that it has trouble keeping track of more than 15 or so documents at a time, and includes .prc files, which I don't even READ on Docs to Go. I keep it on hand because it's the only program I've got I can write to whilst on the PDA, though the way it's been scrambling Excel files of late...

I just deleted and reloaded it (on top of everything else it got stuck in the "trial mode" setting, and I kept having to reenter the same much too long numbers. ) We'll see what it does on the TX.

[kengr]

My Dana has Alphaword which is adequate for the writing I do. And when you synch, it'll import/export from the pdb files to rtf files or vice-versa.

And I can load/save text files over the wi-fi with a server. So that pretty much covers most things.

Yeah, it won't do tables or embedded images. But I can live with that for now.

[kengr]

Oh yeah. Mobipocket is nice, but since it doesn't realize that the screen opn my Dana is much wider than on a standard PDA, it's not terribly useful. :-(

[kayshapero]

You might want to write them and tell them they've got a loophole. They may well not know there's anything out there wider than a Palm.

[kengr]

The Dana is a bit of an oddity. It's a PDA with delusions of laptop-hood. Full size keyboard, decent sized landscape oriented screen (though you can change that). And if the battery gets low, you can swap in 3 AA batteries.

But it's way lighter than a laptop, and the "instant on" and long battery life make it great.

[kayshapero]

I saw one when I was searching the net for a car charger for my new TX. Exactly how large is it? I've got a wireless full sized folding keyboard for my PDA, but might consider something like that in the future.

[kengr]

http://www1.alphasmart.com/danastore/dana-w_features.html

has all the specs, but it's a bit over a foot wide, The top is the thickest part at about 1 3/4". the bottom, edge is thinner than a pencil.

It goes in my shoulder bag with no trouble, but then I carry a lot of stuff. Weighs less than my old Model 100 by a *lot*. And has the same nice features like instant on.

[kayshapero]

Nice! One thing I like about the TX (and before that, the T3) is the way I can stick it in a pocket, but that does sound like a good alternative to a laptop. Come the day I need a new portable they may well have something even better, and I may go for it.

[kengr]

I needed a reasonable size keyboard that was usable on the bus. Which lets out all the folding ones. And let out all the regular units too.

Only pocket-size I have seen with a reasonable sized keyboard in years was the discontinued Philips Velo.