04-30-2010, 01:28 PM | #46 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 5,185
Karma: 25133758
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA
Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)
|
I want bold, italics, indented or otherwise marked quotations, and chapter breaks as new pages. Prefer indented paragraphs to space between, but that's almost entirely a matter of "prefer fewer page turns." Prefer ragged right because I don't like the spacing issues of big words on small screens, but with either halfway decent hyphenation or enough average words per line, I don't care.
I wish more ebook readers supported PML/eReader PDB files. (Was disappointed to find out the Astaks only support PalmDOC PDB; that bumps my decision to buy one farther away, because I have dozens of ebooks I converted to eReader that I'd like to reread, just not enough to go to the hassle of re-converting them.) Wish we had a (common, open source, easily added to devices) filetype that supported something between plaintext and full HTML abilities. Italics & bold are sometimes necessary for stories; indents or *some* indicator for quotes/callout texts keep the author from having to put extra "***" dividers in, and starting a new chapter on a new page is pretty much how one I mentally separate "book" from "document." Oh, and the ability to include images is nice. Quick, someone make an ePub-lite generator that copies PML's options and ignores other formatting. |
04-30-2010, 01:47 PM | #47 |
creator of calibre
Posts: 43,839
Karma: 22666666
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Mumbai, India
Device: Various
|
@Elfwreck: use markdown
calibre will convert it to EPUB |
Advert | |
|
04-30-2010, 04:08 PM | #48 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 5,185
Karma: 25133758
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA
Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)
|
What's markdown? (I know I could get something to convert them. Haven't taken the time to sort out the details.)
What I want is a converter that takes a Word/RTF doc, lets me mark it up with *just* PML-compliant tags of some sort, and converts that to ePub, or exports to HTML generator with only a tiny set of tags and ignores other formatting. (And some coder should invent it. For me! With a Windows-compatible GUI! Because I want it!) |
04-30-2010, 04:10 PM | #49 |
creator of calibre
Posts: 43,839
Karma: 22666666
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Mumbai, India
Device: Various
|
markdown is a simple txt based format, so you represent italics like *this* bold like **this** and so on.
|
04-30-2010, 05:38 PM | #50 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,234
Karma: 3350652
Join Date: Feb 2008
Device: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (300ppi), Samsung Galaxy Book 12
|
Markdown avoids the need for RTF at all:
http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax Very cool, I used it for an FAQ I posted to gamefaqs.com |
Advert | |
|
04-30-2010, 06:48 PM | #51 | |
MR Drone
Posts: 1,613
Karma: 15612282
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: DRONEZONE
Device: PB360+, Huawei MP5, Libra H20
|
Quote:
CONTENT IS KING: If I have the time I change the font. But, with Fb2 I can do that any time on my PP. For me font size is more important than any formatting issues... or grammar/ misspellings.... I can figure those out as I read them. Maybe, misspellings, indenting, spacing, lines between paragraphs etc annoy people, but for me I never find it bothersome. Hence, I don't mind .txt at times... |
|
04-30-2010, 06:52 PM | #52 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 5,185
Karma: 25133758
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA
Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)
|
Quote:
Markdown looks good; I don't mind doing the markup in Word & then copy-pasting into Notepad to strip out the Word formatting. (That's what I did with PML.) What would I use for a page break? Or maybe that depends on ebook conversion software; hm. |
|
04-30-2010, 07:31 PM | #53 |
Apeist
Posts: 2,126
Karma: 381090
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: The sunny part of California
Device: Generic virtual reality story-experiential device
|
|
04-30-2010, 09:32 PM | #54 |
Wizard
Posts: 2,300
Karma: 1121709
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Amazon Kindle 1
|
Because for the most part text is text when it comes to simple novel reading? And a house isn't a house, a significant other isn't a significant other etc.?
As long as the formatting is pretty much correct in terms of spacing, paragraphing etc. I'm good to go. I'm much pickier with houses, who I date, how I look etc. than how the text in whatever I'm reading on my Kindle looks! |
04-30-2010, 10:37 PM | #55 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,234
Karma: 3350652
Join Date: Feb 2008
Device: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (300ppi), Samsung Galaxy Book 12
|
|
04-30-2010, 10:48 PM | #56 |
PORTAL
Posts: 7,204
Karma: 2884640
Join Date: Apr 2010
Device: Kindle 1, Kindle 3 (3G), iPhone
|
Yes, I do like a nicely formatted book.
|
04-30-2010, 11:06 PM | #57 |
browneyedgurl
Posts: 523
Karma: 356470
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Warren, OH
Device: PRS-505/950x2, PRS-600 silver, Galaxy III purple, T2 black
|
As a matter of fact I do. Lite pages, dark print and easy on the eyes. Fully clothed is preferred; I don't like them when they can't cover up their fronts, if you know what I mean.
|
05-02-2010, 04:16 AM | #58 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,385
Karma: 16056
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Asia
Device: Kindle 3 WiFi, Sony PRS-505
|
|
05-02-2010, 07:30 AM | #59 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 11,732
Karma: 128354696
Join Date: May 2009
Location: 26 kly from Sgr A*
Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000
|
In general, yes, I care about formatting.
It's a matter off how much it disrupts immersion. Hard-coded txt I find unreadable. Bad hyphenation, white-space rivers, extra lines between paragraphs, no paragraph indent... anything that draws me out of the narrative flow I find annoying. Non-disruptive but still annoying is the persistent use of straight quotes in commercial ebooks. Basically, I want decent basic typography; never mind fancy stuff like drop-caps, artistic chapter headings and what-not. Just the basics but done right; it doesn't take much effort--a couple minutes in MS Word--to cook up a macro to fix most of the stuff and output a clean rtf/html. Even the antique gutenberg txt files can be made readable with a simple run through the Gutenberg prettifier so there is no excuse for bad formatting in the file itself. |
05-02-2010, 06:09 PM | #60 |
Nevermore
Posts: 63
Karma: 10000
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: the Flint Hills, KS
Device: ex-iLiad, DR800SG
|
It depends on what the book is: for pulp fiction, isn't paperback fine? On the other hand, while you can pick up Shakespeare in paperback, wouldn't you rather have a nice hard-bound copy that will last? With ebooks, if I'm only going to read something once, I'm not going to worry too much about formatting; but, if it's a book that I really love, I care quite a bit about formatting. For the books I've taken the time to scan, I've also taken the time to try to replicate the typesetting of the hard copy. Of course it's vastly easier for me, since I've resolved to only own one device at a time.
If you haven't read a book, there's no sense in spending gobs of time beating it into shape only to read it and find you didn't really care for it. |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
e-Book Care and Protocol. | sceadugenga | General Discussions | 46 | 08-22-2010 02:09 AM |
Kobo Customer Care - they really do care! | HarleyB | Kobo Reader | 2 | 08-03-2010 05:49 AM |
Free Book (Kindle) - Critical Care | koland | Deals and Resources (No Self-Promotion or Affiliate Links) | 9 | 07-06-2010 04:58 PM |
Best way to care for/honour a special p-book? | ficbot | General Discussions | 2 | 04-06-2010 11:20 PM |
Care to help me name this cat? | uRwhatUr | Lounge | 92 | 03-30-2010 09:38 PM |