Question to .lit lovers......

[hidari]

IS .lit still a widely accepted format. I have some books in .lit but I always convert them to .epub or .fb2... What am I missing?

[Spiffy]

Wasn't LIT's main advantage (to publishers) how easily DRM-able it was?

I doubt consumers had much of an opinion one way or the other, other than being annoyed by the restrictions associated with that.

[hidari]

Not sure. I know it is easy to convert with Calbire. Some people seem to insist on using it with their Pocket Pro..which I do not understand. There are many other formats one can use to read with on the Pocket Pro.....

[fjtorres]

LIT is in many ways a precursor to ePub; both are derived from the OpenEbook spec, both are HTML/XML based internally and can be easily converted from one to the other. Most of the differences between LIT and ePub stem from attempts to make ePub more PDF-ish with embedded fonts and hard-wired formatting, etc. Calibre loves LITs as feedstock for conversion, and turns them into ePub in a wink of an eye.

MSReader on PC is an underappreciated reading app with some of the best typographic rendering available despite receiving essentially zero updates in five years. MS Reader on VGA Pocket PCs was and is a delight, usurpassed until the current 5in eInk screens arrived.

Unless MS gets serious about it (maybe as part of their Courier project) LIT will remain a second tier, legacy format much like the way eReader seems to be going.

The main problem is that non-MS LIT Reader apps tend to be crude, unstable and generally flaky. (Tiny Reader on Windows Phones seems to be the exception.) My experiences with the Hanlin LIT parser for the V3 series is that it will rarely glitch with LITs created with the MSWord add-in, will often glitch with LITs created out of a single HTML file using Readerworks, and will *never* work properly with LITs created out of multiple HTMLs (say, one file per chapter).

After 18 months waiting for a fix, I just moved on from the BeBook.

[ThomasMcKean]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

LIT is in many ways a precursor to ePub; both are derived from the OpenEbook spec, both are HTML/XML based internally and can be easily converted from one to the other. Most of the differences between LIT and ePub stem from attempts to make ePub more PDF-ish with embedded fonts and hard-wired formatting, etc. Calibre loves LITs as feedstock for conversion, and turns them into ePub in a wink of an eye.

Really....Does Calibre get it right? I will try converting one!

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ThomasMcKean

Really....Does Calibre get it right? I will try converting one!

I am pretty happy with the LIT -> EPUB
Way better than PDF -> EPUB

I am sure that there are LIT files that rate a after conversion, but simple books with covers and a few ilios seemed fine.

[hidari]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

LIT is in many ways a precursor to ePub; both are derived from the OpenEbook spec, both are HTML/XML based internally and can be easily converted from one to the other. Most of the differences between LIT and ePub stem from attempts to make ePub more PDF-ish with embedded fonts and hard-wired formatting, etc. Calibre loves LITs as feedstock for conversion, and turns them into ePub in a wink of an eye.

MSReader on PC is an underappreciated reading app with some of the best typographic rendering available despite receiving essentially zero updates in five years. MS Reader on VGA Pocket PCs was and is a delight, usurpassed until the current 5in eInk screens arrived.

Unless MS gets serious about it (maybe as part of their Courier project) LIT will remain a second tier, legacy format much like the way eReader seems to be going.

The main problem is that non-MS LIT Reader apps tend to be crude, unstable and generally flaky. (Tiny Reader on Windows Phones seems to be the exception.) My experiences with the Hanlin LIT parser for the V3 series is that it will rarely glitch with LITs created with the MSWord add-in, will often glitch with LITs created out of a single HTML file using Readerworks, and will *never* work properly with LITs created out of multiple HTMLs (say, one file per chapter).

After 18 months waiting for a fix, I just moved on from the BeBook.

Thanks for the info... was not aware of all the background to it.

[hidari]

Originally Posted by theducks

I am pretty happy with the LIT -> EPUB
Way better than PDF -> EPUB

I am sure that there are LIT files that rate a after conversion, but simple books with covers and a few ilios seemed fine.

agreed LIT to EPUB is good with Calibre....


FOR PDFs.... I do PDF->html-> epub.

[ThomasMcKean]

Originally Posted by hidari

agreed LIT to EPUB is good with Calibre....


FOR PDFs.... I do PDF->html-> epub.

How can yew do this? There is no option for converting to HTML? None that I can find ennyway? *Blink*

[Xochipilli2012]

Originally Posted by ThomasMcKean

How can yew do this? There is no option for converting to HTML? None that I can find ennyway? *Blink*

Yew can dew it with Mobipocket Creator Publisher Edition, ore using Calibre via command line:

ebook-convert filename.pdf filename.epub --debug-pipeline foldername

As noted in another thread hear on MobileRead, Calibre converts PDFs too HTML files during intermediate stages along the weigh towards other formats. The example above shows how it wood work converting from PDF two EPUB. The command ebook-convert determines the source and destination formats based on the file extension(s). The intermediate HTML files will bee found in sub-folders within whatever folder name yew provide as an argument following the --debug-pipeline switch.

Sea the Calibre Manual pages four moor details.

Eye half gotten grate results using MobiPocket Creator, but wood recommend yew try both two sea witch yew like best.

Cheers!

[hidari]

I usually do it via Mobipocket Creator. Also my wife has a great program called PDF transformer from ABBYY....but that costs money....

[rxsz]

Originally Posted by Xochipilli2012

Yew can dew it with Mobipocket Creator Publisher Edition, ore using Calibre via command line:

ebook-convert filename.pdf filename.epub --debug-pipeline foldername

As noted in another thread hear on MobileRead, Calibre converts PDFs too HTML files during intermediate stages along the weigh towards other formats. The example above shows how it wood work converting from PDF two EPUB. The command ebook-convert determines the source and destination formats based on the file extension(s). The intermediate HTML files will bee found in sub-folders within whatever folder name yew provide as an argument following the --debug-pipeline switch.

Sea the Calibre Manual pages four moor details.

Eye half gotten grate results using MobiPocket Creator, but wood recommend yew try both two sea witch yew like best.

Cheers!

Amazing.

Just minutes prior I was mentioning to a class of ESL students that just because a person is an American and able to speak native English, it does not mean that he/she is educated or literate.

Thank you, thank you for backing me up. Yeah, I knew you were just laying it on, but I didn't bother to enlighten them!

They took it at face value. I told them you were writing phonetic English, you know, almost like pinyin!

[ThomasMcKean]

Originally Posted by Xochipilli2012

Eye half gotten grate results using MobiPocket Creator, but wood recommend yew try both two sea witch yew like best. Cheers!

Great day my spelling is THAT bad I pray!!!

I am quite satisfied with the way the Pocket Pro renders HTML. I will try the Mobi program.

[Xochipilli2012]

Originally Posted by ThomasMcKean

Great day my spelling is THAT bad I pray!!!

I am quite satisfied with the way the Pocket Pro renders HTML. I will try the Mobi program.

Hey Thomas,

I believe I spelled every word correctly, but I've been wrong before. (No offense intended, mate. Just having a spot of fun! )

I too appreciate how how well the Pocket Pro manages HTML, with or without using Cool Reader.

The PP is a nifty little piece of kit!