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View Poll Results: How do you feel about Topaz formatted books?
Who cares? If that is what Amazon has I buy it. 12 17.91%
Look around for non-topaz versions (fictionwise, BOB) but if not available, so be it. Topaz it is. 16 23.88%
Avoid altogether. Hello library or paperback version or just wait. 39 58.21%
Voters: 67. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 02-01-2009, 06:22 PM   #16
desertgrandma
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If its a book I want to read, I'll read it. Regardless of where it comes from.

I"ll slog thru the lousy formatting, and just enjoy the book itself.
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Old 02-01-2009, 06:55 PM   #17
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I mean, look at this piece of crap font that "Death by Black Hole" forces me to use. The letters have big gaps in them! It looks like a freaking photocopy with the contrast set too high!
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Old 02-01-2009, 06:59 PM   #18
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Wow that's pretty bad.
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Old 02-01-2009, 11:16 PM   #19
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I mean, look at this piece of crap font that "Death by Black Hole" forces me to use. The letters have big gaps in them! It looks like a freaking photocopy with the contrast set too high!
Drat. I was interested in that book, too.
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Old 06-15-2010, 04:46 PM   #20
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If you've made a list of books to find elsewhere because of the topaz format, you may want to check Amazon again. Several of the books I refused to get in the past are now available in both formats, tpz/azw1 and the far superior azw. Look for the newer publishing date (and maybe download the sample to be extra safe). They're all published by Macmillan as far as I have seen. Maybe our complaints about the topaz formatting and speed have been heard. That makes me a little less upset about Macmillan's higher prices.....
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Old 06-15-2010, 06:01 PM   #21
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I think topaz books are a direct result of people clicking on the "I'd like to read this book on Kindle" link... for those books that aren't available on Kindle.

If they get enough of those requests, they (working with the publisher) slam together an ebook and another topaz monstrosity is born.

I have no proof, but I quit clicking that link a long time ago.
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Old 06-16-2010, 02:16 AM   #22
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Anyone know how to convert a topaz file? Apparently, the first book that I paid for was a topaz. It's still readable, just it's such a large file, particularly since it's three books smashed into one.
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Old 06-16-2010, 06:39 AM   #23
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Yeah, you can, but it is very painful to do. Google will find it for you.

Never again, for me!
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Old 06-16-2010, 07:21 AM   #24
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Anyone know how to convert a topaz file?
The best single place to look for this kind of info is Apprentice Alf's Blog.
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Old 06-16-2010, 07:46 AM   #25
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Hint: Once you figure out how to do it, write a note to yourself on the steps you followed .....

So if several months from now on a Saturday morning you mess up and buy another topaz monstrosity it won't take YOU almost 4 hours to figure out how to run all the scripts ... like it did ME last week.

To answer the question: I now own two horribly formatted topaz books and their two horribly formatted mobi siblings.
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Old 06-16-2010, 02:57 PM   #26
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I do care, but will buy them if there's no alternative. Those alternatives will multiply when I have a mobile device that can get content from B&N, Borders, etc. (I'm thinking in terms of the next gen iPod Touch w/326dpi screen).

Amazon should kill this format completely, or at least make it possible to override the embedded fonts with the default.
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Old 06-16-2010, 03:02 PM   #27
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I'm not motivated enough myself to do this, but if you like tedium (and it is important enough) you can always screen capture and OCR using a Kindle or Kindle4PC/Mac. Probably could automate this to some extent fairly easily also.

I did a small experiment with Kindle screen captures and Acrobat's OCR, which proved very accurate in terms of capturing the raw text. Alternatives would potentially do a better job preserving text attributes and formatting.

Last edited by tomsem; 06-16-2010 at 03:07 PM.
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