Reader with good annotations support?

[JackTaylor]

I have a Kindle Keyboard and I used to use it alot when I was in school because there was always enough light but it's since gone unused because my house is rather dark and I usually want to read at night and end up using my ipod/ipad.

I was waiting for Amazon to release there newest model so the things would have the latest features for the next few years but the Oasis has been a complete slap in the face so I'd like to know if after all these years there's something good enough that I can ditch amazon for.

I mostly read drm-free epubs, email them to amazon so they're all synced between my ipod and kindle, make lots of highlights, then export the notes by extracting the .mbps. But if I could get an e-reader that let you properly export stuff, I don't care about sync at all.

My ideal device would have a good UI (for notes, annotations, dictionary & wikipedia lookups), some way to export those notes in full, 7+ inches, backlit, 200+ppi, and sd card support. Speakers/jack and buttons would be nice but not deal breakers. And then it'd be nice if it was either waterproof or had a flush screen. I've spilled water many times on my kindle and it always goes for the groove. I'm also interested in having a stylus but I'm not sure I'd use it. The max I'm willing to spend is ~200 dollars.

The best I've found is the Kobo Aura H20, but apparently pdf support is horrible. How's the rest of the UI? Is exporting notes easy? I heard you can install Koreader, but I only found one video for it's PDF features. How is Koreader with regular books?

Thanks

[tovare]

Maybe you should look at something like the LG G Pad 2 8" with built in stylus (LGV498), it´s $184 on amazon. Install Evernote and you´re good.

[davidfor]

From what I can tell, there are no ereaders that match your requirements for annotations. Most seem to have some annotation support. Making annotations seem to be OK and the problems are related to the hardware. I personally don't like making long annotations because the on-screen keyboard is horrible.

Syncing between device/apps has different support. Kindle supports everything. Kobo only syncs for books bought from them and downloaded from the server. Sideloaded books support annotations, but they stay on the device.

Exporting annotations is definitely an afterthought. I don't think any current does. The Sony's had something, but I have never used one and don't know anything about it. Kobo have had a hidden option to do it for a while, but it is a very simplistic text dump.

There are some third party tools. I maintain the Annotations plugin for calibre. This supports fetching annotations from Kobo and Kindle e-ink devices plus a couple of apps. This can be extended to other devices/apps, but no-one has been interested. The annotations are put into a column in calibre.

There are some other tools floating around here. At least two for the Kobo's, but I don't pay enough attention to the other devices to know what is there.

Originally Posted by JackTaylor

I mostly read drm-free epubs, email them to amazon so they're all synced between my ipod and kindle, make lots of highlights, then export the notes by extracting the .mbps. But if I could get an e-reader that let you properly export stuff, I don't care about sync at all.

You have me interested here. The Annotations plugin reads the "MyClippings.txt" file. There were some suggestions to read the .mbps, but I couldn't find any useful information on it. Any chance of seeing what you have to do it? Even better is if you wanted to update the Kindle support that is in the Annotations plugin

The best I've found is the Kobo Aura H20, but apparently pdf support is horrible. How's the rest of the UI? Is exporting notes easy? I heard you can install Koreader, but I only found one video for it's PDF features. How is Koreader with regular books?

I don't think that Kobo's PDF support is horrible. It seems to do an excellent job of rendering the pages. But, for big complex PDF's, it's slow. Now, the navigation, yes, that is horrible. If you need to zoom and change pages, that can get painful.

I can't comment much on Koreader, as I don't use it. From comments in the forums, the PDF handling is better. I don't know about the annotations support.

[JackTaylor]

@tovare The LG pad is not e-ink. It's just a tablet. I have an ipad/ipod for that already. They burn my retinas after an hour.

@davidfor

So I was looking to see if there's any new ways to extract the annotations and it appears that amazon finally added support ios and androids. I just updated the app and it's great! Damn it amazon. I'm so conflicted. I'll probably end up buying a refurb voyage for the convenience of staying in their ecosystem. sigh... Sorry for the bother.

If you don't have an android (I think there are emulators though) or ios to extract them (though hopefully they'll add it to a future firmware unless it exists already on newer kindles and I'm not aware) there's a .mbp extractor/reader. Basically you sync your kindle so that it has all the notes from other devices, then you plug it in, go into the documents folder and sort by file type. Select all the .mbps, copy them to your computer into a folder, then you run the extractor in that folder and get .txt files you can manipulate. Some might be blanks because bookmarks aren't exported.

I unfortunately don't know enough programming to fix the annotations plug in.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JackTaylor

So I was looking to see if there's any new ways to extract the annotations and it appears that amazon finally added support ios and androids. I just updated the app and it's great! Damn it amazon. I'm so conflicted. I'll probably end up buying a refurb voyage for the convenience of staying in their ecosystem. sigh... Sorry for the bother.

That's OK, you were looking and needed to ask.

If you don't have an android (I think there are emulators though) or ios to extract them (though hopefully they'll add it to a future firmware unless it exists already on newer kindles and I'm not aware) there's a .mbp extractor/reader. Basically you sync your kindle so that it has all the notes from other devices, then you plug it in, go into the documents folder and sort by file type. Select all the .mbps, copy them to your computer into a folder, then you run the extractor in that folder and get .txt files you can manipulate. Some might be blanks because bookmarks aren't exported.

I unfortunately don't know enough programming to fix the annotations plug in.

Thanks for the link. There should be enough information there to read .mbp files. Or simply port the Perl code to Python. I'm a bit surprised this was found the last time the topic came up.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by JackTaylor

I have a Kindle Keyboard and I used to use it alot when I was in school because there was always enough light but it's since gone unused because my house is rather dark and I usually want to read at night and end up using my ipod/ipad.[...]

My ideal device would have a good UI (for notes, annotations, dictionary & wikipedia lookups), some way to export those notes in full, 7+ inches, backlit, 200+ppi, and sd card support. Speakers/jack and buttons would be nice but not deal breakers. And then it'd be nice if it was either waterproof or had a flush screen. I've spilled water many times on my kindle and it always goes for the groove. I'm also interested in having a stylus but I'm not sure I'd use it. The max I'm willing to spend is ~200 dollars.

Apart from the waterproofing, your iPad meets and exceeds all of your requirements, doesn't it? It's your best PDF-reading and annotating option by far. Enable Night Shift, control your brightness and colour settings in your chosen reading app, and you're away.

[roger64]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I can't comment much on Koreader, as I don't use it. From comments in the forums, the PDF handling is better. I don't know about the annotations support.

From my experience, Koreader works with Kobo Glo and PW3. It can save highlighted text and you can export them all once the book is finished to an html file using the Evernote plugin included. I find this feature quite convenient and use it for proofreading.

However, it still does not have any "annotation" capability.