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Old 02-28-2009, 08:19 PM   #15
sigma8
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Posts: 107
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Sony PRS-505
Quote:
Originally Posted by ProDigit View Post
The problem is that I currently have no epub software to create books from.
Otherwise I'd love to give it a try!
Hm. The ePub format looks pretty, well, how to say it.. open-standardsy?

As far as I can see, it's basically an XML file with metadata, and then just one or more HTML files and images (if any). Zipped for compression.

To see if it might even be worth your time to investigate epub, in regards to max-length and performance, you might want to grab a small epub book from somewhere, rename the extension from .epub to .zip, then unzip it, replace the HTML file in there with yours.. Then zip it back up and see if it will work?

I haven't tried that yet, but I will soon. I will most likely be leaning towards epub for any stuff that I make. One nagging limitation I read about--and seems to be true from what I've seen so far--you can't fully justify text. Only left (and presumably center or right) justification is available.

I just did a cursory google search on that, and it sounds like you can specify justified text, but since the epub specification considers it optional, it appears most things (including the sony reader) ignores it. Hopefully that will change soon and they'll release a firmware.

edit: just found this news which hopefully means we will get justification soon?
http://blog.feedbooks.com/?cat=19

IMO the blogger's concerns about it being a user setting have no merit. LRF and other formats seem to treat justification as a publisher setting, not a user setting. I'm not saying a user override would be bad, but what next? change the font face? color? make it all italics?

Last edited by sigma8; 02-28-2009 at 08:29 PM.
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