Can you do this with an Android reading app yet?

[surrealmind]

Okay, here's what I'd like to do on my Android tablet, and I just haven't been able to find out if it's possible. I would like to create my own editions of public domain books from Project Gutenberg, mark them up in a reading app, and then open the marked-up books on my Windows computer. Can this be done?

I've read that one can possibly force Kindle apps into syncing sideloaded books and annotations if a person uses special software to assign an ASIN to a .mobi file. My main worry here is that Amazon could suddenly lower its fist and put an end to this workaround.

I also know that you can mark up epubs with different reading apps, but if I understand correctly, there is no standard annotation system (meaning annotations might not show up in other e-reading software). So are any Android reading apps compatible with Window-based e-reading software? I hear many good things about Mantano. Would it be possible to mark up a custom, non-DRM'd epub in Mantano, sync it via Dropbox to my computer, and open it with something like Adobe Digital Editions, with all highlights, annotations, etc, intact?

I mean, this should be possible, right? It's 2012, isn't it? Heck, I'd settle for an app that would let you add highlights and annotations (via footnotes) to .html, just so long as I could mark up on my reader and open later on my computer.

Thanks for your help.

[=X=]

I've recently written a how to in how to synchronize kindle books. It's in the revising stage so I should post it in a day or two. It's been years since I used the kindle desktop app, but back when I tried using it it did not support annotation.


The only way I can think of where the annotation system is standard and works on any platform or tool is with PDF. I'm able to annotate from my Linux desktop, phone, tablet on the same files and modify annotation made from other tools

[murraypaul]

Another option would be to have the books in a word-processing format rather than an ebook one, and use one of the Word clones to the the editing and markup. Something like Dropbox would allow you to synchronise the files between PC and tablet.

[surrealmind]

Thanks for the responses.

=X=, it'd be need to read your writeup about syncing non-Amazon .mobis on Kindle. Concerning .pdfs, are you talking image-based files or reflow? I often download Google Books pdfs of old materials and mark them up in PDF Annotator on my TC1100, but I've been skeptical that these books would work well on my little NC screen. Reflow, however, might be a different story. Are you saying that you can markup reflowable PDFs and have those annotations available on a desktop program?

murraypaul, interesting idea, I'll have to think about that one. Not an elegant solution, but I suppose it would work. Again, interesting.

I will say it is a little sad if word processing files are the best we can do with the current state of e-reading.

[=X=]

The answer is yes to all your questions. I annotate image based PDFs all the time, You just won't be able to select the text you'll have to just paint overlays over the text.