One Mobipocket, One Plucker Question

cerement · 04-18-2008, 04:14 PM

Been watching the news about Kindle lately and got around to digging my old Palm TX out of storage and booting it up, cleaning off the old software, updating things, etc. Until I get around to upgrading to one of the eInk devices, I'm flipping back and forth between readers on the Palm, mainly Mobipocket and Plucker.

Mobipocket gets me familiar with the reader used on the Kindle and the Cybook. Plucker has the advantage of being open-source and having built-in conversions available on Project Gutenberg. And FontSmoother makes for more comfortable reading with both.

1) Even with FontSmoother installed, Mobipocket doesn't appear to use the real italics version of the font provided (instead does the force slant to fake italics). Plucker uses the real italics so I know it is available. Is there anyway to get Mobipocket to use the real italics rather than faking it?

2) Plucker, when paging, does a literal full screen that always leaves a couple pixels of the previous line at the top of the screen and cuts off a couple pixels at the bottom of the screen. Is there a way to get Plucker to do a full page flip by line so that a new page starts with a full line rather than the cutoff descenders of the previous page (in other words, paging in the style of Mobipocket)?

HarryT · 04-23-2008, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cerement

Been watching the news about Kindle lately and got around to digging my old Palm TX out of storage and booting it up, cleaning off the old software, updating things, etc. Until I get around to upgrading to one of the eInk devices, I'm flipping back and forth between readers on the Palm, mainly Mobipocket and Plucker.

Mobipocket gets me familiar with the reader used on the Kindle and the Cybook. Plucker has the advantage of being open-source and having built-in conversions available on Project Gutenberg. And FontSmoother makes for more comfortable reading with both.

1) Even with FontSmoother installed, Mobipocket doesn't appear to use the real italics version of the font provided (instead does the force slant to fake italics). Plucker uses the real italics so I know it is available. Is there anyway to get Mobipocket to use the real italics rather than faking it?

That's a limitation of the Palm, not of the MobiPocket format. The Windows MobiPocket reader, the Pocket PC version, and the CyBook Gen3 version of it, for example, all support font families and will use genuine bold and italic fonts if available.

Catabor · 06-03-2008, 11:30 PM

HarryT, could you please elaborate? This lack of italics has been driving me banananers!

I like my Sony Clie so much better than my Windows PDA, but I have so many html folders, rtfs, etc. with bold, and the best I can do it convert them to txt and read on the otherwise excellent PalmFiction. (Sure, you would think that psudo-italics would be better, but Mobipocket is so damn broken)

HarryT · 06-04-2008, 04:35 AM

Elaborate about what?

Catabor · 06-04-2008, 10:59 PM

Your last point, to wit:

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's a limitation of the Palm, not of the MobiPocket format.

HarryT · 06-05-2008, 04:28 AM

I simply mean that other versions of the MobiPocket Reader - the Windows desktop version, the CyBook version, and the Pocket PC version, to name but a few - do display "real" italic (and bold) fonts. If the Palm version doesn't, that's a limitation of either the Palm itself, or a shortcoming of the specific Palm implementation of the MobiPocket reader. Might be worthwhile asking about it on the MobiPocket support forums.

04-18-2008, 04:14 PM	#1
cerement Groupie Posts: 170 Karma: 2000 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: San José, CA Device: Amazon Kindle 1, Sony PRS-300, Amazon Kindle 3	One Mobipocket, One Plucker Question Been watching the news about Kindle lately and got around to digging my old Palm TX out of storage and booting it up, cleaning off the old software, updating things, etc. Until I get around to upgrading to one of the eInk devices, I'm flipping back and forth between readers on the Palm, mainly Mobipocket and Plucker. Mobipocket gets me familiar with the reader used on the Kindle and the Cybook. Plucker has the advantage of being open-source and having built-in conversions available on Project Gutenberg. And FontSmoother makes for more comfortable reading with both. 1) Even with FontSmoother installed, Mobipocket doesn't appear to use the real italics version of the font provided (instead does the force slant to fake italics). Plucker uses the real italics so I know it is available. Is there anyway to get Mobipocket to use the real italics rather than faking it? 2) Plucker, when paging, does a literal full screen that always leaves a couple pixels of the previous line at the top of the screen and cuts off a couple pixels at the bottom of the screen. Is there a way to get Plucker to do a full page flip by line so that a new page starts with a full line rather than the cutoff descenders of the previous page (in other words, paging in the style of Mobipocket)?

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06-03-2008, 11:30 PM	#3
Catabor Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2007 Device: Palm	HarryT, could you please elaborate? This lack of italics has been driving me banananers! I like my Sony Clie so much better than my Windows PDA, but I have so many html folders, rtfs, etc. with bold, and the best I can do it convert them to txt and read on the otherwise excellent PalmFiction. (Sure, you would think that psudo-italics would be better, but Mobipocket is so damn broken)

06-04-2008, 04:35 AM	#4
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Elaborate about what?

06-05-2008, 04:28 AM	#6
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	I simply mean that other versions of the MobiPocket Reader - the Windows desktop version, the CyBook version, and the Pocket PC version, to name but a few - do display "real" italic (and bold) fonts. If the Palm version doesn't, that's a limitation of either the Palm itself, or a shortcoming of the specific Palm implementation of the MobiPocket reader. Might be worthwhile asking about it on the MobiPocket support forums.

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