Questions about moving from kindle to sony reader

[txgecko]

Well, as the title states, I'm thinking about moving from a kindle (keyboard) to a sony reader (the new one is PRST-2, I believe?) and have some questions.

First, dictionaries: I understand it comes with several preloaded, but can I set my own to the default dictionary the way I can in the kindle? Failing that, is the Reader's Spanish-English dictionary any good?

Second, notes and highlights: One of the main draws of the Sony Reader is that it appears to be much easier to take notes with than the rather clumsy keyboard on the kindle. I also see buzz about evernote supposedly making it so very easy to sync notes, etc. Is it possible to take the notes I have in my kindle books, from either the my clippings file or the .mbp file and import them to the Reader? For instance, if I have a nice, DRM-free mobi book from Gutenberg that I've marked up in my kindle, is there any way, once I've converted the mobi, to 'attach' those notes and highlights to the epub I'd have on the Reader?

Thanks!

[pssquirrel]

Originally Posted by txgecko

... dictionaries: I understand it [T2] comes with several preloaded, but can I set my own to the default dictionary ...?

Yes, you can choose which dictionary you want to default to.

(I'm not familiar with how Kindles work, and I've never tried importing annotations into a book -- I've only exported notes/highlights out -- so someone else will need to chime in on that.)

[txgecko]

That's good - I've got a couple on the kindle I like that I'd like to be able to convert and keep using. Thanks! EDIT: (and what's up with the timestamps on these? Is the server in the mid-atlantic or something?) D'oh! Says it right there on the bottom, times are GMT. sorry.

[pssquirrel]

Originally Posted by txgecko

That's good - I've got a couple on the kindle I like that I'd like to be able to convert and keep using.

Hold on. I thought you were referring to the built-in dictionaries. The T2 has 2 built-in English dictionaries (New Oxford American and Oxford Dictionary of English) plus 4 or 10 translation dictionaries, depending on if you're in the US/Canada or Europe. You can choose one of the aforementioned to be your default dictionary (and you can switch it around whenever you like).

I don't know about installing your own dictionaries. I've never tried that. Sorry!

P.S. The US translation dictionaries are Oxford Spanish Dictionary (EN-ES & ES-EN) and Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary (EN-FR & FR-EN).

[txgecko]

I see. Do you happen to know if the spanish/english translation dictionaries are any good? The ones I was wanting to carry over are mostly for translation, but I guess I wouldn't mind losing them that much as long as I still have access to a good translating dictionary.

[pssquirrel]

I'm not a good judge of Spanish-English translation dictionaries, but if it means anything, the one that's built-in is from Oxford -- the Oxford Spanish Dictionary to be exact.

[Rizla]

If you don't mind me asking, why are you thinking of changing over?

Originally Posted by txgecko

First, dictionaries: I understand it comes with several preloaded, but can I set my own to the default dictionary the way I can in the kindle? Failing that, is the Reader's Spanish-English dictionary any good?

Yes, you can set a default. Check up to see whether the Oxford English Spanish is any good. I use the Oxford-Hachette on a Sony. It's okay, but it's not as good as the Collins which is what I would use for professional translation. However, the Hachette is more than good enough for casual reading in French. Can't comment on the Spanish specifically.

Originally Posted by txgecko

Second, notes and highlights: One of the main draws of the Sony Reader is that it appears to be much easier to take notes with than the rather clumsy keyboard on the kindle. I also see buzz about evernote supposedly making it so very easy to sync notes, etc.

Yes, I think the T2 runs Evernote. You could also root a T1 and I imagine it would run Evernotes, though I'm not 100% sure.

Originally Posted by txgecko

Is it possible to take the notes I have in my kindle books, from either the my clippings file or the .mbp file and import them to the Reader? For instance, if I have a nice, DRM-free mobi book from Gutenberg that I've marked up in my kindle, is there any way, once I've converted the mobi, to 'attach' those notes and highlights to the epub I'd have on the Reader?

It might be possible but I would guess it would be a project to do it. I read elsewhere that exporting annotations from a Kindle is easier than it is with a Sony (though I'm not that familiar with T1/T2). Don't take it for granted. It might be harder to export on a Sony.

[txgecko]

Originally Posted by Rizla

If you don't mind me asking, why are you thinking of changing over?

The kindle I have is nearly 2 years old, and apparently thats toward the end of it's life, as it's started to develop some bugs - power button is sometimes unresponsive, and more worryingly, it freaked out this summer and I had to factory reset twice in the course of fixing it, general wear-and-tear on the other buttons. And, as I mentioned above, its not the easiest to take notes on, and, since I do a lot of reading for classes and a book club on it, notes are something I use a lot.

And, just in general, I dislike the idea of being locked into one companies products and thought I'd do some advance research on my other options. (the kindle will probably remain serviceable for at least a little while yet, so, like I said, advance research )

[txgecko]

Originally Posted by pssquirrel

I'm not a good judge of Spanish-English translation dictionaries, but if it means anything, the one that's built-in is from Oxford -- the Oxford Spanish Dictionary to be exact.

Oh, Oxfords are usually pretty good. Thanks!

[pssquirrel]

Originally Posted by txgecko

... notes and highlights: One of the main draws of the Sony Reader is that it appears to be much easier to take notes with than the rather clumsy keyboard on the kindle. I also see buzz about evernote supposedly making it so very easy to sync notes, etc. Is it possible to take the notes I have in my kindle books, from either the my clippings file or the .mbp file and import them to the Reader? For instance, if I have a nice, DRM-free mobi book from Gutenberg that I've marked up in my kindle, is there any way, once I've converted the mobi, to 'attach' those notes and highlights to the epub I'd have on the Reader?

Originally Posted by txgecko

... I do a lot of reading for classes and a book club on it, notes are something I use a lot.

I've been giving this more thought. Again, I don't know how Kindle works, so I can't compare the two, but I can offer a few insights on how Evernote works on the T2:

* T2 has an Evernote app that allows you to upload book highlights and notes to Evernote. (Highlights on DRMed books are limited to 140 characters; for DRM-free books I've uploaded up to 2,200 characters.) Once you've uploaded your highlights/notes, when you go to Evernote (web or desktop app), each highlight/note will appear as a separate item. From there, you can combine multiple items into a single item.

* The T2 Evernote app also allows you to download items from Evernote to your T2. These items show up on your Evernote bookshelf (which is separate from your Books bookshelf).

* As you probably know, if you're switching from Kindle to Sony, you're going to have to convert all your Kindle books to epub. I'm pretty sure your notes and highlights will not survive the conversion process, and I'm assuming you will export your notes/highlights before you convert. If you can combine all your notes/highlights into a single document and upload them to Evernote, you will be able download that single document from Evernote to the T2. This document will show up on your Evernote bookshelf, and it will be separate from the ebook. As far as I can tell, you can't use Evernote to attach or re-insert notes back into the book that they came from. The notes and book will end up as two separate files on two separate bookshelves (and switching between the two will be a little clunky).

There may be other options and hacks to preserve Kindle notes/highlights, but as far as I can tell, going from one to the other will be awkard as far as preserving notes/highlights go.

[txgecko]

Originally Posted by pssquirrel

I've been giving this more thought. Again, I don't know how Kindle works, so I can't compare the two, but I can offer a few insights on how Evernote works on the T2:

...

There may be other options and hacks to preserve Kindle notes/highlights, but as far as I can tell, going from one to the other will be awkard as far as preserving notes/highlights go.

Hmm, that's what I was afraid of. I can indeed export the notes and marks from the kindle. I do it with Calibre, which associates them with the individual book by what appears to be just copying the mbp file into the calibre library. I can see the individual notes and marks in the comments window for each book. I guess the root of the problem is that epub doesn't use .mbp to store its notes, etc, since thats a mobi specific file.

I suppose I should go back to the beginning. How does epub store notes, highlights, etc?

[pssquirrel]

I believe the T2 (same as T1) stores notes/highlights in a database file on the reader, not in the epub file.

Try these two threads for more info:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=163210

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=165559

[txgecko]

That is quite helpful, especially the second one - in theory, then, I could add my notes, etc to the database.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by txgecko

Hmm, that's what I was afraid of. I can indeed export the notes and marks from the kindle. I do it with Calibre, which associates them with the individual book by what appears to be just copying the mbp file into the calibre library. I can see the individual notes and marks in the comments window for each book. I guess the root of the problem is that epub doesn't use .mbp to store its notes, etc, since thats a mobi specific file.

I suppose I should go back to the beginning. How does epub store notes, highlights, etc?

What???
Calibre can store notes from a Kindle?

Holy... I need to test that out!!!
Doh, KT is at home.

Wow, I had no idea. I have been getting the notes off kindle.amazon.com.
But... annotations from Kindle to Calibre? Wow,


Now, regarding SONY and annotations....
I don't have a T2. But, based on everything in the past, don't.
It's clumsy. It's hard to backup. If the book is DRM-protected, you can't export. Even if you strip the DRM, it will be a problem if you bought the book from SONY's store. Notes tend to disappear. Notes get duplicated. With Evernote, you need to upload them one-by-one (I don't have a T2... that's what I read about Evernote...).

And I have never found a way to carry notes over to Calibre from SONYs.
My take is, if you are looking into SONY because of annotations, you will be disappointed. Big time.

[txgecko]

Originally Posted by vxf

What???
Calibre can store notes from a Kindle?

Holy... I need to test that out!!!
Doh, KT is at home.

Wow, I had no idea. I have been getting the notes off kindle.amazon.com.
But... annotations from Kindle to Calibre? Wow

Heh. That was my reaction too . I only just discovered it recently (when I started thinking about getting another reader for easier note-taking, actually). Not sure how long its been there.

When you've got your kindle plugged in, go the the drop-down menu for "Send to Device" and select "Fetch Annotations".

I just started looking up reviews of the new kindle last night, and it looks quite promising as well. News is scarce as to how well the soft keyboard works, though (not that there's been much time for in-depth reviews, yet).