Formating RTF Files for the Sony Reader

[Draz]

I've used a number of mobile book readers, from a Franklin Ebookman, Pocket Pc, several Palms and now a Sony PRS505. I have a large number of books as RTF and straight ASCII text files. I tried a couple of methods of methods of formatting my books for the Sony such as Book designer and Calibri for some reason I can never get the font sizes and formatting to be consistent. I sure it must be very easy but I don't seem to be able to do it easily. Life its just to short to sort out all the components of Book designer.

My solution is to use RTF files. I'm on Windows Vista and use the bundled Wordpad to edit them. I thought I would give my quick and dirty solution to RTF files in case it helps anyone else.

To get a text file into RTF format that suits the Reader, you need three things. Wordpad, Notepad (or any straight text editor), and a little freeware program that removes extra lines and extra carriage returns called “Textify1.1.exe”. Texify will even add a paragraph first word indent if desired..

First process the text file in textify1.1 It creates a new file and leaves the original unchanged. You will then have a text file with only one carriage return after each paragraph. I choose to indent the first word five spaces and have no blank lines between paragraphs.

Second. Edit the new file in Wordpad and set the font size that is suitable for the reader. I've found that 15 point works great for me. To do this click on 'Edit' from the toolbar and click 'Select All'. Or more simply use the keyboard shortcut 'Control+A'. Click on the font dropdown box and select 14. I find 14 slightly too small. The drop-down box only gives a choice of even number sizes but you can edit the box directly and change it to 15. Depending upon how young your eyes are, you may want to experiment with a text size that suits you. The size you choose is the base size in the Reader and you can enlarge it twice. The reader ignores the font you choose and displays the Readers standard font. The Reader can display bold and italics, so edit the file to change any of the formatting. I like the tile page to be bold and centered and the same for paragraph headings but how far you go is up to you. When you are ready save the file in RFT format.

Next you need to add the the author and title information. Unfortunately you cannot do this with wordpad. If you use XP you can Right click on the file and select properties using explorer and edit the Title and Author under the Summary tab. I have Vista and you cannot do this with Vista. All is not lost and you can add the information with Notepad. Right click the new RFT file and choose 'Open With' – Notepad. At the beginning of the file you will see something like this:-

{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang2057{\fonttbl {\f0\fswiss\fcharset0 Arial;}}
{\*\generator Msftedit 5.41.21.2508;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs30 Formatting test\par}


These are the RFT formatting tags that Wordpad adds to the file. All you need to do is add a couple of extra tags for the title and author eg {\info{\title The Time Machine }{\author HG Wells}}. Insert the tags just after the first {\rtf1 so the edited file looks like :-

{\rtf1{\info{\title The Time Machine}{\author HG Wells}} \ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang2057{\fonttbl{\f0\f swiss\fcharset0 Arial;}}
{\*\generator Msftedit 5.41.21.2508;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs30 Formatting test\par}

Of course, change the title and author to suit your book. Ensure you only have one space between the word Title and the acual title. The same with Author, or the tags will be ignored. The bad news is if you edit the file in Wordpad it will remove the extra tags and you will have to put them back.

Do you like fully Justified books on the Reader?. Well with RTF you can by adding a few more tags using Notepad. Add \pard\hyphpar0\sl288\slmult1\qj before the beginning of the text of the book and your book will be fully justified on the Reader.

{\rtf1{\info{\title The Time Machine}{\author HG Wells}}\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang2057{\fonttb l{\f0\fswiss\fcharset0 Arial;}}
{\*\generator Msftedit 5.41.21.2508;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\qc\b\f0\fs30 THE TIME MACHINE \par
by H. G. Wells [1898] \par
\pard\b0\par
\par
\pard\f0\fs30 \pard\hyphpar0\sl288\slmult1\qj
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way--marking the points with a lean forefinger--as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it and his fecundity.\par
}

You wont see any difference if you open the file in Wordpad (don't save it or you will have to put the tags back) , but it works on the Reader. I must add, I'm using the new firmware so not sure if this works with the old.

Slightly more advanced; you can change RTF font sizes using notepad. The Tag \fs30 sets font point size 15. Do a a search and replace in Notepad and change \fs30 to \fs34 and you now have a 17 point font size; \fs20 is 10 points etc etc.

Well thats my quick and dirty RTF guide. I hope someone finds it useful.

[RCR]

I've had my Sony since last Christmas. I've tried all sorts of formats, but now I prefer to use RTF whenever I can.

The main reason being it is so easy to fix typos and spacing errors.

For example if the text is too small on the Sony screen, even at "Large", just port the file to a computer, increase the font using MS Word, and port it back to the Sony (as I have done in a hotel room far from home).

The downside of RTF is you can forget about illustrations, footnotes, tables, etc. It's only suitable for plain, flowing text, such as you get in a novel or popular non-fiction.

Instead of using Textify and Wordpad to convert, I use E-Book Tidy and MS Word. I think these two programs are easier to use than the ones Draz talks about.

I prefer Arial 16 point, with page breaks for new chapters and a larger font for chapter headings, no indents, no right justification, a space between paragraphs. Makes the text very plain and easy to read.

(Here's a question for the experts - what would happen if you connected your Sony to your computer and then directly operated on a RTF file while it was still on the Sony? Would the Sony have a seizure? I'm not brave enough to try it).

[Timoleon]

Here is another great tool for altering/cleaning up text files. It's virtually impossible to find it on the web anymore (freeware/abandonware).

Tim

[Draz]

I've tried both E-Book Tidy and Interparse4 and I must say both are excellent pieces of software. Thanks to both of you for telling me about these. I'll be using them from now on.

[marcinmachura]

I made micro silverlight tool for rtf tilte & author property editing. So it is a little bit more flexible (and works without installation)
it is on smp.if.uj.edu.pl/~machura/fb/TestPage.html

Best,
MM