Economist on the Kindle

[SpiderMatt]

I found a new script for outputting The Economist in Mobipocket format. I found this just before searching these forums and seeing that Calibre now supports mobi output. Still, I think this is worth mentioning.

Found via Google, the blog Fat Knowledge made a post last September with a PHP script for grabbing "print editions" of The Economist. There are a couple notable things about this that differentiate it from Calibre's script. First, the TOC is set up differently. Where Calibre sets up the TOC like you'd expect t see in any Kindle newspaper or magazine subscription, this script puts the full contents at the beginning, divided into its respective sections*. I think this is useful because it allows me to quickly browse the articles and see which ones I want to read first before I ever click on a link. Also, the TOC on this script includes not just the title of the article but what the article is about, as well, which is placed above the title on Economist articles. For example, instead of seeing just "Running the world," which tells me nothing about the article, I see "The National Security Council: Running the world." This way I know what I will be reading about and putting it all up font allows me to quickly browse to the articles that are most important to me. The Fat Knowledge script will also leave the title of any article it fails to grab in the TOC without a link. While trying out both this script and the Calibre one, both failed to pull an article from the site (a different article each time). With the Fat Knowledge script I knew an article was missing and I knew which one it was. Obviously, this is helpful if I decide I want to go find this article later and read it. The article Calibre failed to pull was left out of the TOC entirely. I didn't even know it was missing an article until I compared it with the Fat Knowledge mobi.

Second, this script allows you to pull past issues from the site through some minor editing of the PHP script. I haven't tried this out yet, but I'm sure it works the same way as the current issue since there are links to old print editions on the site. I don't know how important this feature is for most of you but I think it's pretty neat.

Since there is no GUI involved, it takes a little more computer savvy than Calibre but it is pretty easy to follow the instructions on his blog. Check it out if you're interested. Maybe some of these things can be incorporated into Calibre in the future.

There are a few cons with this script. The Calibre script is that it shows you the progress by percentage finished. With the Fat Knowledge script, you have no idea how close it is to being finished at any given time. Not really a big deal. It only takes about 10-12 minutes for me but it's still nice to see the progress. The Fat Knowledge script also puts all the Politics this week paragraphs right after each other instead of spacing them out and the "see article" link after each paragraph is gone. Just the words without the link. That's not particularly a big deal since the full TOC is up front, though.

I've uploaded the issue of the Economist so you can see if you like it. It includes the missing link. I didn't bother to redo it to see if I would have better luck. I wasn't terribly interested in that article, anyway.

[*Update: I just realized the Calibre TOC also has all the articles laid out but still doesn't have the full title telling what the article is about.]

[*Update 2: The attachment has been removed due to copyright issues.]

[arvsinha]

Thanks a lot.

[SpiderMatt]

Another thing I noticed is that the metadata with this Fat Knowledge script is like that of the Kindle subscription newspapers. I haven't uploaded a second issue, yet, but it looks like it might group them together in a "folder" like the Kindle does with its own newspapers and magazines.

[babygator]

thanks for the article

[RWood]

I removed the attachment in the first post. It was copyrighted material and we do not have permission to post it.

[pengrus]

By the way, can Calibre fetch the "complete" print content of the Economist?

[svakanda]

wow thanks that is great!!

[scotty1024]

I personally still find myself reading things such as The Economist on a device like the Sony Vaio P. Which by the way is my current Zinio Reader platform of choice, that 1600x768 screen is *perfect* for zooming and reading... and at 1.4 lbs it actually weighs more like a book than a computer.

Of course this is simply because of the lack of color support but sometimes you do want the pictures/graphs/ads in color.

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by pengrus

By the way, can Calibre fetch the "complete" print content of the Economist?

Yes, Calibre fetches all the same content but the format is a little different as I pointed out above. I think there are advantages to each. Calibre is also easier to use since it has a GUI. I just like the way this script sets up the final document.

[StanDaMan]

Thanks for that

[mulderc]

I hope the economist just makes a kindle edition available. They are usually really good about these things.

[robb01]

thanks for this