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NightGeometry · 02-27-2010, 04:34 AM

I assume I probably just need a link to a previous thread, but in my (admittedly lazy) search, I didn't see one...

Given the argument raging in another thread on format and rendering, I thought I'd like to try taking an epub (no DRM), running it through TeX to create a PDF that would look superb on a PRS600 (a fairly standard 6" screen, 600x800 pixels resolution, 167DPI). My problem is that I really wouldn't know where to start, or even what features of typography are likely to be 'nice' - kerning and ligatures pop up, I'm sure they are probably important, and I do kinda know what they are, but they do always sound more like medieval sports injuries than typography, to me.

For me superb would be reasonably small font, very small font, paragraph indentation, portrait format, ability to try with either left justification, full justification with white space expansion, full justification with hyphenation (sorry, I'm not really up on the correct terms for those two, I think the semi-description makes sense...).

A bit of an assumption - there are probably people who already have a set of scripts to do this, for their values of superb rather than mine. I have no issue hacking the script to give adjust these values. I'd just like to try it out, and if I prefer the output to the epub, then to be able to just run all my epubs through this. Hey, as long as I maintain the source then I'm going to be able to reformat if (hehehe, when), I change to a device with different screen attributes.

Technical info: I'm on an OSX 10.6 Mac, have TeX 3.141592, reasonably comfortable with shell scripting, able to hack a bit of perl, python and similar, or at least know how to read enough documentation to get there. (I just realised, TeX is the software where the version number tends towards pi, isn't it?).

Not even sure if this is the appropriate area of the forums to post this request.

Many thanks in advance for any help, suggestions.

02-27-2010, 04:34 AM	#1
NightGeometry Zealot Posts: 139 Karma: 1057240 Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Brighton, England Device: Sony PRS-T1, Kindle 3G, Kindle DX	ePub to TeX to PDF I assume I probably just need a link to a previous thread, but in my (admittedly lazy) search, I didn't see one... Given the argument raging in another thread on format and rendering, I thought I'd like to try taking an epub (no DRM), running it through TeX to create a PDF that would look superb on a PRS600 (a fairly standard 6" screen, 600x800 pixels resolution, 167DPI). My problem is that I really wouldn't know where to start, or even what features of typography are likely to be 'nice' - kerning and ligatures pop up, I'm sure they are probably important, and I do kinda know what they are, but they do always sound more like medieval sports injuries than typography, to me. For me superb would be reasonably small font, very small font, paragraph indentation, portrait format, ability to try with either left justification, full justification with white space expansion, full justification with hyphenation (sorry, I'm not really up on the correct terms for those two, I think the semi-description makes sense...). A bit of an assumption - there are probably people who already have a set of scripts to do this, for their values of superb rather than mine. I have no issue hacking the script to give adjust these values. I'd just like to try it out, and if I prefer the output to the epub, then to be able to just run all my epubs through this. Hey, as long as I maintain the source then I'm going to be able to reformat if (hehehe, when), I change to a device with different screen attributes. Technical info: I'm on an OSX 10.6 Mac, have TeX 3.141592, reasonably comfortable with shell scripting, able to hack a bit of perl, python and similar, or at least know how to read enough documentation to get there. (I just realised, TeX is the software where the version number tends towards pi, isn't it?). Not even sure if this is the appropriate area of the forums to post this request. Many thanks in advance for any help, suggestions.