How to tell if an eBook is Topaz before purchase?

[JSWolf]

eBooks that are in AZW get sent to the iPod as .prc even if there is DRM.

[Blue Tyson]

So is this a Topaz book?

http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Forward-F...6231211&sr=1-4

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

So is this a Topaz book?

http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Forward-F...6231211&sr=1-4

Yep... it is. This is what I saw when downloading the sample to my computer.

[badgoodDeb]

But hey -- if it interests you, it *is* possible to read them! Sometimes a book is just worth it.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

Yep... it is. This is what I saw when downloading the sample to my computer.

Bugger.

Thanks daffy.

Because that is one I'd want if a Kindle for PC thing would work for me - but I'd want it to put on my PDA. So I'd still have to screen capture and OCR it.

Anyone tried that with a Topaz book I wonder - people mentioning dodgy fonts and all.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

But hey -- if it interests you, it *is* possible to read them! Sometimes a book is just worth it.

In this case, I've read it already, same goes for Blood Of Ambrose by James Enge, same publisher, which is the other book I'd be interested in.

Wonder why they went with user unfriendly process, or is this Amazon's choice when they do the process?

[koland]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Wonder why they went with user unfriendly process, or is this Amazon's choice when they do the process?

It does appear that Topaz is what results when Amazon does a scan and convert to ebook. If the problems were only limited to the scanned fonts used, that would be bad enough. But I've had topaz books where it looked like someone cut out lines and moved them on a page, had paragraphs that began in the middle of a sentence and ended in the middle of the same sentence. So, this paragraph would read like this:

lines and moved them on a page, had paragraphs that began in the middle of a sentence and ended in the middle of the same sentence. So, this paragraph would read like this: It does appear that Topaz is what results when Amazon does a scan and convert to ebook. If the problems were only limited to the scanned fonts used, that would be bad enough. But I've had topaz books where it looked like someone cut out

Some books, however, have been quite readable (although the fonts never look as good and can be fuzzy in large or small sizes).

[KarlB]

An amusing/annoying thing about .tpz books and text-to-speech: There appear to be two copies of the text in the .tpz file; one used for display and another used for TTS, and the TTS version often has optical character recognition errors in it. I've been listening (via TTS) to some .tpz books on artificial intelligence, and often the abbreviation "AI" will be read aloud as "Al" (as in short for Allen). Sometimes the TTS will switch between reading "AI" correctly and incorrectly several times in the course of a single page. The displayed text is always correct (made clear thanks to the seriffed font).

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

Yep... it is. This is what I saw when downloading the sample to my computer.

Btw, with Kindle for PC, the same sample is a .prc file, so interesting, maybe.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Btw, with Kindle for PC, the same sample is a .prc file, so interesting, maybe.

Is it actually a TOPAZ ebook? If you open it with a text editor the first three letters will be TPZ for a TOPAZ ebook and an AZW will have BOOKMOBI near the start.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

Is it actually a TOPAZ ebook? If you open it with a text editor the first three letters will be TPZ for a TOPAZ ebook and an AZW will have BOOKMOBI near the start.

Yes, the samples are Topaz even though they show the extension .prc, IIRC the iPhone/Touch app does the same thing with Topaz files (puts a .prc extension on them).

[Blue Tyson]

So all samples are Topaz files? I looked at a few and they seemed to be.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

So all samples are Topaz files?

The sample is the same type as the full ebook.

Do you have a case with a TOPAZ sample that lists the filesize on its Kindle Store page? Typically TOPAZ does not list the filesize and AZW does include the filesize.