Basic content for the Iliad!

[CommanderROR]

It seems that many new Iliad users are missing the content files to take notes, look at example books and pictures etc.

Some of us have these files already, but since most apparently don't maybe it would be nice if somebody could upload them to their webspace for sharing. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of free traffic, so I won't be able to do that myself. If somebody else would be so nice and could host the files? We could even put up a torrent...although I doubt that would be worth the effort...

[tribble]

Ok, here you go:
http://www.cogitatio.de/downloads/content.zip

[CommanderROR]

thanks tribble...:-)

[wiljo]

I'm currently trying out a bit to get a "book-like reading experience".
It's all about margins, fonts, font-size, whitespace, etc. bla-bla.
Anyway - I put up a "first try" for download. Its is the 1782 german translation of Voltaire´s "Candide". Just to be sure that copyright on the text has expired....

So it's in German, and very historic .... (nevertheless I still liked to read it...).

Download link:
http://www.espritvoltaire.de/download/iliad/kandide.zip

Maybe you have a look at it and "feed me" some comments on the "book-feel" of it???

rgds

Wiljo

[wiljo]

of course ... english reading iliad owners might want to take a look at:

http://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_eb...?CurrentPage=1

g'night

wiljo

[ath]

Originally Posted by wiljo

Maybe you have a look at it and "feed me" some comments on the "book-feel" of it??

I can't say how well it works on an iLiad, but some comments in general:

Over all, looks very good -- much better than I expected. Perhaps a bit too wide pages for the iLiad, but as I don't have one to check on, it's just a guess.

You've worked to avoid widows, and end-of-page hyphenation. This produces some 'jumping' when switching to/from '+1' pages. I think in at least some cases it would have been possible to avoid it -- did you try making columns slightly wider/narrower (+/- 1 pt or so) on or before these pages? It's invisible, but can help a lot. (Allowing character width changes also helps, but I suspect you've already used that?) Moving pagination to the page head would help disguise this a bit, I think. Could probably be removed as well.

A bit too many short pages ... they grate a bit on my eyes, and I think it may
be possible to avoid most of them (at the cost of some further work, of course).

Typeface is a bit 'smudgy' on a PC screen ... I expect it looks clearer on the iLiad, with its higher resolution. Looks like it needs a little extra spacing before !, and perhaps a few other 'high' symbols.

I think the 'table of contents' icon is a little too eyecatching.

And I think some hyphenations are slighty less than perfect -- probably automatic, but I don't trust the Proximity dictionaries very far. You may want to doublecheck these if you want perfection.

As you see, I'm nitpicking. This is, by and large, what I think a PDF eBook should be. I think it could use some polishing, but that's all I've been able to find in a very quick look-over.

Four and a half stars out of five for general production value! Actual iLiad value, I can't say yet, but I expect you will need only minor layout adjustments, along with some more widow-hunting, of course.

[DHer]

out of pure curiosity, ath:

are you doing this as a profession or are you just an enthusiast on typesetting and page layout?

I actually never really bothered to think about this stuff. But it really makes a difference.

[tribble]

Originally Posted by wiljo

Maybe you have a look at it and "feed me" some comments on the "book-feel" of it???

If you make the PDF especially for the iLiald, the you should consider removing the pagination since the iLiad does that always by itself. Would give you some more space for the story aswell

The i would use different icons for the link button. and make them some shade of grey, so they are not that prominent.

And i would moove the index button to the top left corner (would be best i we could move that to the iconbar)

[ath]

Originally Posted by DHer

are you doing this as a profession or are you just an enthusiast on typesetting and page layout?

Enthusiast. That's why I'm so vehement about it ... a pro can't afford to be :-)

I actually never really bothered to think about this stuff. But it really makes a difference.

That's part of what fascinates me: so much of reading is unconscious, yet minor tweaks can almost be felt to make a difference, even if they can't always be seen by the normal reader.

There's an old story -- possibly not true -- about a library trying to figure out why one edition of a particular title remained on their shelves, while another was lent much more often. The difference was in the typography: one had generous spacing, and 'looked' more inviting and easy to read. The other looked denser, with less spacing, and generally felt 'difficult' to someone who took a look at it.

For eBooks to succeed, I think traditional typography has to be taken into account, and adapted to the new medium. I've been looking for 'good' PDF eBooks, but generally not found any -- in another thread I've recently posted this link: http://www.anders.thulin.name/ . It's perhaps another example of what eBooks can be with a bit of work ... though most of the titles may be uninviting, the Saki books of short stories are fairly readable.

This copy of Candide is above much of what I've seen so far in PDF eBooks ... I think it may have made my day ... :-)

[yokos]

@ tribble: a big thank you for your content.zip file!
I'm reading the User Manual "iLiad-offline" [still not shipped ] now.

[donkaarlos]

Hi,

Where could I get a sample newspaper file?

Pdf's work nicely and can be printed from all programs with tools like PDF-XChange print driver! Hmtl support looks promising as font scaling is possible here. Anyway software update from 2.4 to 2.6 is really needed, as functionality is still pretty limited.

-

[tribble]

Originally Posted by donkaarlos

Where could I get a sample newspaper file?

I would like to see a sample aswell. CommanderROR, anyway you can get one for us?

[LittleTalker]

Reading manual. Grammar horrible. Me astounded.

[Riocaz]

The manual was written by non-native english speakers.

As such I'm not overly surprised (dissapointed yes, but not surprised).

[yokos]

"Reading manual. Grammar horrible. Me astounded." are not complete sentences too.