Shiny New E-Book Gizmo: The Amazon Kindle


View Full Version : Making PDf for the Iliad with OpenOfiice!


CommanderROR
07-16-2006, 06:01 PM
Hi!

Sorry for being absent so long...I've been busy, and unfortunately not with playing around with my Iliad.

But I just did a bit of experimenting and came across a good way of making PDf files for the Iliad.

All you need is a source file (ebook, .txt, .html, .rtf) and Open Office, an application that is very good value for money (sepecially since it's free... :vulcan: )

Now.
You open your file in Open Office (Writer). If you want to make any changes, feel free to do so.
Then you go to "Format" and "Page settings".
Here you can do some experimenting. I used the Settings:
Paper size: 13x17cm
Margins: left and right 0.2cm
top and bottom: 0.5cm

The you go to the file menu and select "Export as PDF"
And a few seconds later you have a perfect (or pretty good anyway) PDF ebook that you can comfortably read on your Iliad. Of course it would be niver to take a normal, uncahnged PDF and simply zoom in and out on the Iliad, but since this doesn't work yet, we'll all have to make do with conversion.

One little Tip:
You'll have to either remember or write down the page number you were reading when you switched the device off since neither bookmarks nor "opening the document on last page" is implemented yet... :wink:

DuaneAA
07-16-2006, 06:46 PM
Hi Roland,

Have you heard when the "opening the document on last read page" is expected to be implemented? I have my invite, but was holding off ordering until people started actually receiving units (not that they appear to be shipping any to the U.S. yet anyway). Now hearing the level of functionality, I think I may hold off until at least this feature is implemented. I am not a programmer like a lot of the current posters; I am just looking for a good book reading experience. And I think having it remember what page I was on is a necessary feature.

Thanks,
Duane

Xsavior
07-16-2006, 08:04 PM
do you actually have to shut the iLiad off? If it's just displaying a page, can't it do that indeffinitely? I can understand how thi would impat you if you went from one book to another, but if you are reading one all of the way through, why would you ever turn it off more than just not flipping the page?

tribble
07-17-2006, 01:19 AM
do you actually have to shut the iLiad off? If it's just displaying a page, can't it do that indeffinitely? I can understand how thi would impat you if you went from one book to another, but if you are reading one all of the way through, why would you ever turn it off more than just not flipping the page?

Since powermanagement doesnt work properly yet, you only have about 7 hours of power. If you dont read for a few hours, that drains alot on your battery even without doing anything. Once the power management works, i guess you can leave on the device and have your last page shown for quite some time.

On the other hand, "open last read page" and power management are supposed to work with the next OS update.

CommanderROR
07-17-2006, 02:54 AM
yep...and that update is supposed to come out this week for the beta testers...I still don't know whether I was accepted to the beta-tester list...but I hope so...then I'll be able to tell you more later this week or next...I'll keep you posted.

Sischa
07-17-2006, 04:26 AM
And yes it will be indeffinitely page view. Already in the current state of the software you can see this if your device runs out of battery i.e. the actual page keeps beeing displayed.

The first time my battery runs out of power i was a little bit lost because the device seemed to be crashed but no reset etc. was working. Of yourse it was out of energy :-)

VillageReader
07-17-2006, 09:44 AM
Commander,

I'm not certain which thread it was in, but you indicated you weren't that satisfied with Scientific American when you transferred the .pdf to the Iliad.

Can you expand on that? It is a magazine I had hoped to be able to load to read while traveling.

tribble
07-17-2006, 09:49 AM
Can you expand on that? It is a magazine I had hoped to be able to load to read while traveling.

Well, the magazine is made for A4 and therefore the fonts are quite small. It is readable, but not comfortable. Especially since the design of the magazine is using a quite weird layout. As long as the zoom option on the pdf viewer is missing, you will probably not want to read SA for an extended amount of time.

branko
07-17-2006, 10:01 AM
You'll have to either remember or write down the page number you were reading when you switched the device off since neither bookmarks nor "opening the document on last page" is implemented yet... :wink:

How about writing the page number where you were on the first page?

tribble
07-17-2006, 10:08 AM
How about writing the page number where you were on the first page?
only works with xeb files.
But i scribble it on my page.jpg (white jpg) where it gets saved into my page_note.jpg :)

CommanderROR
07-17-2006, 10:10 AM
Since annotation in PDf doesn't work...^^

@VillageReader

I've never head about that magazine...^^
Maybe that post you mentioned was from another user...:-)

tribble
07-17-2006, 10:21 AM
I've never head about that magazine...^^
Maybe that post you mentioned was from another user...:-)

Hehe, that was me. And i gave an answer a few posts above.

VillageReader
07-17-2006, 10:46 AM
Hehe, that was me. And i gave an answer a few posts above.

Yeah, CRS disease.