Quote:
Originally Posted by derekaustralia
DMcCunney Interesting what you say about pdb and prc files. i havent come across them. I guess book designer will convert to these formats. what programs do you use to convert from pdf?.I have up to now been trying to convert to fb2 format as I was led to believe it was fb readers chosen format, but its hard to find conversion software that works really well. Just obtained Asus EEE for dummies online which has lots of useful hints on the machine and linux.
|
PDB and PRC files originated under Palm OS. Both are Palm Database files. Palm OS devices can only have Palm Database files in RAM. A program on a Palm device is a Palm Database containing "resources", which are the actual program code. All files in RAM on a Palm device will have a PRB or PRC extension. All Palm Database files have a header as the first record, and Palm OS uses entries in the header to know if they are programs, and what programs use them if they are data.
The Plucker desktop application converts HTML files to a form the Plucker view on the Palm device can use, and gives them PDB extensions.
MobiPocket Creator converts source files to the format used by the MobiPocket viewer,and can apply either a .PRC or a .MOBI extension. Mobi Creator can use HTML files, Word or RTF files, text files, or PDF files as input. How well it does on PDFs depends on the PDF. My experience has been that one column PDFs with in-line illustrations convert fairly well, but anything else is problematic. Mobi Creater rips the source to HTML and creates the Mobi file from that, so it's possible to go in and massage the generated HTML before creating the book.
By preference, I get stuff in HTML format and convert for Plucker, but I've accumulated a fair bit in Mobi format from places like MobileRead.
FBReader provides some support for an assortment of formats, though some are better supported than others:
http://www.fbreader.org/docs/formats.php
Depending on what you want to read, it might already be available in a format FBReader handles, like ePub or Mobi, and not require conversion.
I just found it a happy coincidence that FBReader supported the two ebook formats I use the most when I looked at putting my ebook library on my notebook.
______
Dennis