Best download file format for Kindle?? - Page 2

OakIris · 10-09-2010, 12:00 PM

desertblues - thank you for your encouragement! Just got my Kindle (WiFi) yesterday; it came while I was at work, of course, so I didn't get to look at it until around 8 PM. Charged it up for the night and started playing with it this morning. I had "purchased" a bunch of free books from Amazon; they automatically downloaded to my Kindle once I joined my network. Very cool.

I also had downloaded "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" (.mobi file) from Project Gutenberg to my PC and downloaded this to my Kindle via USB. This choice was a mistake, unfortunately - it was formatted O.K., but there's no table of contents so you can't go to a play or Sonnet or whatever you want, just have to go page by page to find it; needless to say, this was a no starter!

I deleted it and will just download plays separately. Live and learn!

Anyway, I'm presently very pleased with my Kindle and hope to start reading books very soon.

Holly

FF2 · 10-09-2010, 01:13 PM

I downloaded a bunch of Shakespeare yesterday and now have about 30 titles - still have not explored Collections but shall. The Complete Works would be neater other than the lack of a table of contents but you can search using the Kindle so you could find stuff that way although it might prove tedious.

OakIris · 10-09-2010, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FF2

I downloaded a bunch of Shakespeare yesterday and now have about 30 titles - still have not explored Collections but shall. The Complete Works would be neater other than the lack of a table of contents but you can search using the Kindle so you could find stuff that way although it might prove tedious.

I thought a "Complete Works" would be quite wonderful to have in eBook form; I have at least three versions of it in hard back that I've collected over the years. (

Now you see why I need to down-size my pBook collection!)

I'm hoping there is a "Complete Works" eBook version out there that does have a table of contents, but otherwise I will just download Shakespeare's works one play at a time. The folks at Project Gutenberg took a very long time (I would assume, anyway) to convert the complete works into an eBook and I admire and thank them for that, I just wish someone had taken the time to include some way of finding the play or sonnet you wanted to read. But hey, it was free and a work of love, I am sure, so I mean no harm to them with my criticism!

Holly

whitearrow · 10-09-2010, 01:54 PM

You can always search within an open file.

OakIris · 10-10-2010, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whitearrow

You can always search within an open file.

Sorry, I don't know what you mean by this.

@ FF2: I purchased a $0.99 version of Shakespeare's complete works from Amazon that has a useable table of contents. I have only looked at it briefly but it looks O.K. from what I saw. They also had a $28+ Oxford version which is probably worth the money, but I can't spend quite that much right now.

Holly

FF2 · 10-10-2010, 12:17 PM

I can see the $0.99 version but not the $28 version.

The Kindle has a search function. So if you are looking for the Merchant of Venice in that complete version you grabbed without a table of contents you could search for "Venice" or "Merchant" and hopefully land on the correct play.

OakIris · 10-10-2010, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FF2

The Kindle has a search function. So if you are looking for the Merchant of Venice in that complete version you grabbed without a table of contents you could search for "Venice" or "Merchant" and hopefully land on the correct play.

I should have known that was what whitearrow meant. For some reason, I didn't think she was talking about the Kindle search function but that there was some way to see inside the file for a list of the plays included in the file.

Anyway, I thought of using the Kindle search function but decided that would be a bit awkward so I downloaded the "active table of contents" version instead. Besides which, I'm probably too lazy to do a search everytime I want to read a particular chapter/play/etc. - a simple "click" is so much easier.

Holly

HarryT · 10-10-2010, 03:20 PM

You may wish to look at the complete Shakespeare I've uploaded here at MR. It's split into four voloumes: comedies, histories, tragedies, and poetry.

OakIris · 10-11-2010, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

You may wish to look at the complete Shakespeare I've uploaded here at MR. It's split into four voloumes: comedies, histories, tragedies, and poetry.

I definitely should have looked here first! Thank you Harry - I'm off to download it right now. I have heard very good things about the MobileRead eBooks and I bet your format/rendition of Shakespeare is much better than the version I got from Amazon.

Holly

curstpriest · 10-11-2010, 06:25 PM

Beware of poorly OCRd books, they plague the internet. Often when I search for an ebook I will find the same awfully OCRd version 5-20 times before locating a single version that is of exceptional quality. Sometimes you will be surprised and find that the epub/mobi ebooks are awful quality, and the .txt/.rtf/.doc files out there are quality corrected/OCR versions of texts (this is very much the case for older novels - 1970's and older prints).

Also, non-english texts and translations also have things that english versions leave out, such as pictures, chats, figures, etc. Try other formats that are less popular in english, shuch as FB2 and convert them. You will get better results.

This goes for all ebooks, especially ones with many versions/releases. Lots of the public domain ebooks released at the amazon store of are VERY LOW quality. You are often better off locating your own version for free and converting it from a higher quality source.

Ultimately convert all books to .mobi

For public domain books offering lots of formats:
http://www.feedbooks.com/ (high quality usually, have chapters/images, few errors)
http://www.archive.org/details/texts (varies, but there are lots of versions to preview)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page (most are free of errors, but not all have contents/image content)

As far as DRM is concerned, that is irritating. If you bought the book, I think you should be allowed to remove the DRM, especially if the DRM allows you to print the book and have a copy for yourself. I used to use virtual print driver to pdf and then acrobat ORC to accomplish this ages ago, but I bet there are more elegant ways today.

BVLarson · 10-11-2010, 06:35 PM

I've had the best luck converting things into .PRC files from other formats using Mobicreator (as others have suggested). That looks really clean on the Kindle. PDFs are a mess. For other readers, I would suggest sticking to EPUB.
-BVL

curstpriest · 10-11-2010, 06:46 PM

I can't use mobicreator with windows 7, does anyone know why? I get horrible text issues with whitespace and deleted characters/strange symbols. Something with unicode or something I think.

Using windows 7 ultimate (english)

It will take a sentance like

I like to eat apple pie

and it will turn out:

iliket
o eatappl
ep ie

oh, and there will be random dollar signs and euro signs and crap in there.

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10-09-2010, 12:00 PM	#16
OakIris Addict Posts: 310 Karma: 18487 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Colorado Device: Kindle 3 WiFi; Kindle Paperwhite	desertblues - thank you for your encouragement! Just got my Kindle (WiFi) yesterday; it came while I was at work, of course, so I didn't get to look at it until around 8 PM. Charged it up for the night and started playing with it this morning. I had "purchased" a bunch of free books from Amazon; they automatically downloaded to my Kindle once I joined my network. Very cool. I also had downloaded "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" (.mobi file) from Project Gutenberg to my PC and downloaded this to my Kindle via USB. This choice was a mistake, unfortunately - it was formatted O.K., but there's no table of contents so you can't go to a play or Sonnet or whatever you want, just have to go page by page to find it; needless to say, this was a no starter! I deleted it and will just download plays separately. Live and learn! Anyway, I'm presently very pleased with my Kindle and hope to start reading books very soon. Holly

10-09-2010, 01:13 PM	#17
FF2 Wizard Posts: 1,105 Karma: 1025784 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: WiFi Kindle3	I downloaded a bunch of Shakespeare yesterday and now have about 30 titles - still have not explored Collections but shall. The Complete Works would be neater other than the lack of a table of contents but you can search using the Kindle so you could find stuff that way although it might prove tedious.

10-09-2010, 01:54 PM	#19
whitearrow Guru Posts: 808 Karma: 2260766 Join Date: Apr 2008 Device: Kindle Oasis 2	You can always search within an open file.

10-10-2010, 12:17 PM	#21
FF2 Wizard Posts: 1,105 Karma: 1025784 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: WiFi Kindle3	I can see the $0.99 version but not the $28 version. The Kindle has a search function. So if you are looking for the Merchant of Venice in that complete version you grabbed without a table of contents you could search for "Venice" or "Merchant" and hopefully land on the correct play.

10-10-2010, 03:20 PM	#23
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	You may wish to look at the complete Shakespeare I've uploaded here at MR. It's split into four voloumes: comedies, histories, tragedies, and poetry.

10-11-2010, 06:25 PM	#25
curstpriest Confused Posts: 402 Karma: 5538 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Bay Area Device: Kindle DXG	Beware of poorly OCRd books, they plague the internet. Often when I search for an ebook I will find the same awfully OCRd version 5-20 times before locating a single version that is of exceptional quality. Sometimes you will be surprised and find that the epub/mobi ebooks are awful quality, and the .txt/.rtf/.doc files out there are quality corrected/OCR versions of texts (this is very much the case for older novels - 1970's and older prints). Also, non-english texts and translations also have things that english versions leave out, such as pictures, chats, figures, etc. Try other formats that are less popular in english, shuch as FB2 and convert them. You will get better results. This goes for all ebooks, especially ones with many versions/releases. Lots of the public domain ebooks released at the amazon store of are VERY LOW quality. You are often better off locating your own version for free and converting it from a higher quality source. Ultimately convert all books to .mobi For public domain books offering lots of formats: http://www.feedbooks.com/ (high quality usually, have chapters/images, few errors) http://www.archive.org/details/texts (varies, but there are lots of versions to preview) http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page (most are free of errors, but not all have contents/image content) As far as DRM is concerned, that is irritating. If you bought the book, I think you should be allowed to remove the DRM, especially if the DRM allows you to print the book and have a copy for yourself. I used to use virtual print driver to pdf and then acrobat ORC to accomplish this ages ago, but I bet there are more elegant ways today.

10-11-2010, 06:35 PM	#26
BVLarson Author Posts: 123 Karma: 900 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: California Device: Kindle	I've had the best luck converting things into .PRC files from other formats using Mobicreator (as others have suggested). That looks really clean on the Kindle. PDFs are a mess. For other readers, I would suggest sticking to EPUB. -BVL

10-11-2010, 06:46 PM	#27
curstpriest Confused Posts: 402 Karma: 5538 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Bay Area Device: Kindle DXG	I can't use mobicreator with windows 7, does anyone know why? I get horrible text issues with whitespace and deleted characters/strange symbols. Something with unicode or something I think. Using windows 7 ultimate (english) It will take a sentance like I like to eat apple pie and it will turn out: iliket o eatappl ep ie oh, and there will be random dollar signs and euro signs and crap in there.