jetBook New Firmware v033c is Ready!

[alxab]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Interestingly, however, all the plain txt us-ascii titles I've downloaded from Gutenburg yesterday ALL display perfectly!

Their Library (on the Reader and on their webpage) should probably be addressed - and very quickly, at that - or there will be some very unhappy customers. Only a few of their txt files display correctly. -- But, as mentioned, the quick solution is to re-download them from Gutenberg.

I'll be downloading more txt files today from Gutenberg, just to make certain that I wasn't "lucky."

Don

Let’s go a little technical here. Feel free to skip if you are bored. Every time you press “Enter” when you type you insert a “Hard Return” which consists of two invisible characters: “CR” (carriage return) and “LF” (line feed). That will force a new paragraph. You don’t have to do it when you reach the right margin of the screen – you just continue typing, and the text will flow to the new line automatically. Therefore the text will re-flow and properly fill a screen or a page of any width from margin to margin. You need a Hard Return only when you really want your line to break for a new paragraph, or a new line in a dialogue or a verse.

Gutenberg is an old project. Their plain text files are special. Early on they specified their own rules that require every line to be about 70 characters wide ending with a Hard Return. Remember old typewriters when you had to hit a lever (CR/LF) every time you reach the right margin? In modern readers and word processors texts with hard returns after 70 letters and double returns for paragraphs don’t look pretty.

So my guess is Ectaco decided to accommodate old Gutenberg files at the expense of all modern texts. Looks like they stripped all single Hard Returns (at the end of lines) to allow the text wrap at the right margin. They left double returns in place to allow correct paragraphs. Good for Gutenberg. Total mess for any normal text you might create in your MS Word. If this is a business decision – it’s a bad decision. If it is a bug – it’s a bad bug.

[Kralik]

It would be easy enough to do a quick find-and-replace to make every hard return a double return in Word. It sounds like it's now processing text files exactly the same way as Calibre.

Originally Posted by user_none

It recognizes single spaced lines as the same paragraph. All paragraphs are borken by an empty line.

So:

line1 is right here.
line2  is part of the same paragraph as line1.

line 1 is it's own.

line2 is also it's own.

It almost sounds like the file is:

    para
    para
    para

In which case that would be interpreted as all one large paragraph.

[alxab]

Originally Posted by Kralik

It would be easy enough to do a quick find-and-replace to make every hard return a double return in Word. It sounds like it's now processing text files exactly the same way as Calibre.

Looks like it. If my theory is correct a txt file needs to be prepared before loading by doubling-up every hard return. That will retain the text structure where a single break was supposed to be. If there is an empty line in the original text (2 breaks) this method will insert 4 breaks. We don't know how their algorithm treats 4 returns. We might end up with large gaps in place of empty lines. In this case simple doubling won't help. Some extra steps are needed to fix it.

Anyway, I don't want to convert every simple standard text file into something else. I would rather fool around with outdated Gutenberg files if I need them. Here is how:
1. Replace every double break with some placeholder (like "@@@");
2. Only single breaks are left at line ends. Replace each of them with a space.
3. Replace every "@@@" with a break. That will create line breaks where they are supposed to be.
4. Load into JetBook and enjoy.

Not perfect, but good enough. A simple Word macro will automate the whole procedure.

So, Ectaco, give us our text files back!

[wodin]

Originally Posted by alxab

Looks like it. If my theory is correct a txt file needs to be prepared before loading by doubling-up every hard return. That will retain the text structure where a single break was supposed to be. If there is an empty line in the original text (2 breaks) this method will insert 4 breaks. We don't know how their algorithm treats 4 returns. We might end up with large gaps in place of empty lines. In this case simple doubling won't help. Some extra steps are needed to fix it.

Anyway, I don't want to convert every simple standard text file into something else. I would rather fool around with outdated Gutenberg files if I need them. Here is how:
1. Replace every double break with some placeholder (like "@@@");
2. Only single breaks are left at line ends. Replace each of them with a space.
3. Replace every "@@@" with a break. That will create line breaks where they are supposed to be.
4. Load into JetBook and enjoy.

Not perfect, but good enough. A simple Word macro will automate the whole procedure.

So, Ectaco, give us our text files back!

I'm not sure about Word 2007, but the old ones used to have a "Format All" command that would do that.

[alxab]

Originally Posted by wodin

I'm not sure about Word 2007, but the old ones used to have a "Format All" command that would do that.

You probably mean "AutoFormat", right? No, it will not do it. It only tries to automatically prettify you document using styles, replacing "--" with a dash, straight quotes with curly quotes, etc. If you want to do something conditionally (like, if this... do that), and in a certain order you have to do a little bit of primitive programming. Like executing a bunch of Find-Replace commands within a Macro.

[Kralik]

Well, I think that since it's an eBook reader, and PG has the largest (I think?) number of free eBooks, that it's not a bad idea or business decision to have it work the way it does in this latest firmware. Just a hassle for those who were already using it for "normal" text files and have to reformat. Toggle option would be the best of both worlds.

[alxab]

Originally Posted by Kralik

Well, I think that since it's an eBook reader, and PG has the largest (I think?) number of free eBooks, that it's not a bad idea or business decision to have it work the way it does in this latest firmware. Just a hassle for those who were already using it for "normal" text files and have to reformat. Toggle option would be the best of both worlds.

I agree: a toggle option or a separate "GP reader" would be an optimal solution. But given a choice between GP and standard text files I would still prefer a native support of text files and RTFs. In fact, I have never heard of an e-reader that could not handle them out of the box (I don't have much knowledge of other readers, I have to admit).

True, there must be many people out there for whom PG is the principal source of texts. On the other hand, imagine a businessman who needs to read a lengthy legal document on his transcontinental flight. Used to be simple: save your doc as RTF on your reader and head to the airport. I would guess there are at least as many users who want plain texts and Word docs as Gutenberg fans. IMHO Ectaco made a wrong decision about it.

Ironically, up to now every time a user complained on Ectaco forum about PDF of fb2 performance they had a canned answer to the effect: "Shut up and use plain text files. Our device is optimized for them".

[Kralik]

Well, if anyone is having second thoughts, here's the old link to 0.30i to downgrade.

Definitely the way line breaks affect RTF is not good. And actually, though I may guess that it was done for the sake of PG... since you can download another supported book format (ePUB, for instance), it would probably be best to revert to the old TXT handling. Ironically, they break their own preloaded books with the new firmware!

[boating]

guess I'm glad I didn't get around to upgrading! The OpenOffice pdf export has been very good to me so far!

[alxab]

All right, looks like it's a bug, not a "feature" after all. I reported the problem on the Ectaco forum, and that's what I got:

Dear Customer

We will do everything to fix this issue as soon as possible.

Customer Support Team

Good! Now we have a chance to see the fix soon. What I like about Ectaco: these guys are pretty active developing the OS, adding features, fixing bugs, etc. JetBook of today is quite different (and much more capable) than the same hardware half a year ago.

[sein]

jetBook now accepts and recognizes all my SD Cards: 2GB, 8GB, and 32GB. Pretty amazing! Now I can have a really, really HUGE library, and so neatly and easily organized by folders structure...

I do feel, though, that this beta firmware is somewhat sluggish in many operations. Takes longer to open files. It freezes more often.

On the other hand: so many ebook formats are accepted now. The capacity to use the dictionary on most formats is really neat, (which would be better if they upgraded the current English-English dictionary).

All in all, it's a really fun little reading device and I love it.

[Kralik]

I've noticed it being a bit slow as well... let's hope they iron the kinks out. Sticking with it because I don't have much reason to downgrade and the ePUB is better.

[GoneNova]

I've only had the Jetbook for a few days. I updated the software and everything went fine. But I have noticed that whenever I add files to the SD card I need to push in the reset button before I can access the new files. If I don't I either get a message that says there are no files, or the files are there, but when I attempt to open them the device freezes up. Is this normal? I am dumping a lot of new files and folders onto it during each session. Maybe too much to process? That said, I am enjoying it a lot and find that in certain lighting conditions I prefer the Jetbook screen to the Cybook. I will keep the Cybook safe at home and take the Jetbook when I'm out and about. It's more portable and it feels sturdier.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by GoneNova

I've only had the Jetbook for a few days. I updated the software and everything went fine. But I have noticed that whenever I add files to the SD card I need to push in the reset button before I can access the new files. If I don't I either get a message that says there are no files, or the files are there, but when I attempt to open them the device freezes up. Is this normal? I am dumping a lot of new files and folders onto it during each session. Maybe too much to process? That said, I am enjoying it a lot and find that in certain lighting conditions I prefer the Jetbook screen to the Cybook. I will keep the Cybook safe at home and take the Jetbook when I'm out and about. It's more portable and it feels sturdier.

What you are experiencing is NOT normal.

What update version of the software do you have?

What is the brand/size is your SD card?

Did you go through the 2-step update process completely?

How much free space do you have left on the SD card? (You mention that you may be dumping too many files onto the card, so do you have another SD card that you can play with, as members here try to find the solution to the problem.)

I don't have the problems that you mention. All my various file formats open - and open very nicely, indeed - whether it be the Reader itself or files from my SD card.

I'm not certain why you're experiencing these problems, but your answers to my questions above will give a heads up for someone here to give you some helpful advice.

The jetBook, as you have discovered is really an elegant solution to reading, with its various file formats that it can accept. Don't give up.


Don

[imaredr]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

(Now, just make .lit files accessible....

Don

I keep hoping that each update has it. The same with the Bebook which does support lit files, but not well.

Ellen