Converting Russian books for the Nook Color

[MikeFromMesa]

Well, perhaps what was needed was a decent night's sleep. Here is what finally worked:

@font-face {
font-style: italic;
font-family: 'LiberationSerif', serif, sans-serif;
font-weight: normal;
src: url(../Fonts/LiberationSerif-Italic.ttf);
}

Spacing apparently matters. This worked:

src: url(../Fonts/LiberationSerif-Italic.ttf);

This did NOT work and appears to have been the source of all of my problems!

src: url (../Fonts/LiberationSerif-Italic.ttf);

Adding the fonts generated the error until the proper statement was added to the style sheet. In this case I just added to the top of the existing style sheet and did not try to add a second style sheet.

Now I can try to see if this generates a book readable in Nook.

Thank you to everyone who posted to help solve this problem. I truly appreciate it.

[RAH]

Originally Posted by MikeFromMesa

How did you do that (the paste directly into the window)? I tried to do a copy and paste directly into the window and the paste portion of it never worked. I then tried to save the paste in a file and do an upload and the resulting file size (using WordPad) was apparently too large.

On this forum, as well as many others, if you want an image right in the posting, you use the Inser Image icon (with the mountains). The wrinkle is that the image has to reside on the web somewhere and you have to give the address of the image. So, what I did was upload the image to my domain and then give that address in the Insert Image box. I know other forums work with a direct paste from the clipboard directly into the Reply to Thread box, but maybe it doesn't work on this forum.

As far as your font, I am glad you got it to at least accept. It is very odd to me that it would not accept the font until you got the syntax correct in the style sheets. It is odd because in my little experiment (in that snapshot), I had NO CODE at all that mentioned that font. I just tried to add it. Soooo, I'm guessing that the better way to embed a font is to FIRST add it to the font area before you make any coding changes that use it, and then add the code to use it. Very interesting!

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by MikeFromMesa

.

Actually one of the first things I did when I had my hands on the NC was to build an sd card with CM7 on it and then, when the device booted from it, I added several Cyrillic readers - fbReader, Moon+ and (I think) Aldiko.

IMHO, CoolReader 3 is one of the best FB2 readers, with FBreader not far behind. Almost all of the serious development discussions concerning CoolReader are conducted in the Russian language, so it must be well designed for use in that language.
If you are really intent on converting decent FB2 books into EPUB, and you are using a Windows PC, there is a much better way to go than the mess that Calibre often creates. There is a Russian program called FB2EPUB that will convert a standard complaint FB2 book into a standard compliant EPUB book complete with embedded fonts containing the Cyrillic alphabet. The output of FB2EPUB passes epubcheck-1.0.5 and/or FlightCrew which is something that has seldom happened with my Calibre conversions.
http://www.fb2epub.net/

[MikeFromMesa]

Thank you so much for the link. I have been looking for something like this for a week now, but all I had found were online conversion pages. They worked, but took the time of uploading the fb2 book, converting and then downloading the converted book. It was better than nothing, but still a workstation based program would be much better. That was the reason I have been trying to get Calibre and Sigil to work for me.

I contacted the publisher of one of the online conversion pages and offered to buy a workstation version of the product, but never heard back. I expect this to solve all of the conversion issues. I already converted several books and found that the PC Nook app would display them properly, so I assume this program is good to go.

Thanks again.

[HarryT]

Mike,

If your wife wants to read FB2 books, would the most sensible option not be to get a reader that supports FB2 natively, rather than going through all this hassle for every book she wants to read?

[MikeFromMesa]

We bought a PocketBook, which is a native Cyrillic ebook reader, for her son who specifically asked for that reader. But my wife said that she did NOT want that kind of reader for herself. She did not like the screen display and the slowness of the reader.

She is now used to using touch-screen lcd displays like the iPad and that is what she wants. The iPad itself would be fine if it were not so large and heavy. If I could find a native Cyrillic reader with a touch-screen lcd that was light, small and easy to use I would certainly consider buying it for her.

It seems surprising to me that there is not a regular bricks-and-mortar ereader store anywhere in the area where I live. There are plenty of electronics stores like BestBuy, but no place where you could find a really good set of ebook readers on display to play around with and choose. So I end up having to guess and buy something from some place like BestBuy and their selection is extremely limited - Kindle, Nook, Nook Color and a handful of tablets.

The Android tablets, like the Samsung Tab, have a lot of reader apps that would work, but something like the Nook Color, which is exactly the size and weight she would like, does not so I am trying to find a way to make it work for her.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MikeFromMesa

The Android tablets, like the Samsung Tab, have a lot of reader apps that would work, but something like the Nook Color, which is exactly the size and weight she would like, does not so I am trying to find a way to make it work for her.

I'm sure you know this, but the Nook Color IS of course an Android tablet. Have you looked at installing an FB2 reader app on it?

[MikeFromMesa]

There is no way that I know to do that without rooting the tablet. If you can tell me some way to install a native Russian reader on the Nook Color as it is I would jump at the chance since it would solve all of these problems.

I have done a CM7 sd-card install and have booted the NC from that card, but I found the result to be slow and somewhat unstable. This is supposed to be a present for my wife and I want it to run properly and well.

[HarryT]

Oh well, it was just a thought.