BIBLE for Sony Reader

[dureyes]

Originally Posted by sartori

I've just been playing around with converting a gutenberg version into pdf.

Take a look (it's only one chapter but should give you an idea).

The first page allows you to select the chapter using the joystick (only one is available so just click the joystick in)

This takes you to a verse selection page - again use the joystick to scroll up and down and click to select.

When viewing the verses you can use the next & prev page buttons or click the joystick which will take you back to the verse index.

Pressing the #1 button will take you back to the chapter index.

This would be a HUGE job to create - but it's one of things that once it's done it won't change.

Converting the gutenberg text into something usable is not too difficult (lots of seach and replace) but adding the links takes forever. It may be better to wait until sony releases the specs for the lrf file and try to create it in that.


Rob

Great job, how did you format the pdf file? It looked great on the Sony Reader, thanks.

[Hadrien]

It should be possible to create something quite good looking and with a usefull table of contents using LaTeX + hyperef.

No table of contents = useless in the case of a Bible

[Latemarch]

The best approach to navigating the Bible will be to use the buttons on the Reader.

Dividing the bible into 9 groups of books, each book next selected by another number key and then into groups of chapters in the longer books or just by selecting a chapter by number key in the shorter books.

Your only a few key strokes away from any chapter which makes navigating a breeze.

[RWood]

Now all we need is a program to provide the navigation interface and easy formatting to the Sony file standard.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Latemarch

The best approach to navigating the Bible will be to use the buttons on the Reader.

Dividing the bible into 9 groups of books, each book next selected by another number key and then into groups of chapters in the longer books or just by selecting a chapter by number key in the shorter books.

Your only a few key strokes away from any chapter which makes navigating a breeze.

Can you elaborate on how this can be achieved?

[Latemarch]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you elaborate on how this can be achieved?

It'll take a significant software kluge.
Currently the 0 thru 9 buttons only navigate by % thru a book that is currently open. They only "navigate" on the meta-menus.

The Table of Contents (a meta-menu) can be navigated with the 0-9 keys but does not appear to have multiple levels which is what's going to be required for my scheme to work. That would probably be the best place to modify the software.

Example.......

TOC first page

1key Gen Exo Lev Num Deu
2key Josh Judg Ruth 1Sam 2Sam 1Kng 2Kng
etc

Hit the 1key and you get a TOC second page

1key Gen
2key Exo
3key Lev
etc

Hit the 2key and you get a TOC third page

1key Ch 1-9
2key Ch 10-19
3key Ch 20-29
4key Ch 30-39
etc

Anyway you get the drift. Since the reader remembers keystrokes even though it hasn't updated the page you could get pretty good at getting somewhere with a 4-2-5-8 (hypothetical example) set of keystrokes taking you all the way to the chapter level.

Of course a better solution would be to have a USB keyboard and a search function

[Yaholo]

I have been working on making my own Bible for the Reader for some time. It is very tedious, but possible. If someone out there did it, I would certainly pay for it.

Here is what I have done on my own and it works very well: I use NeoOffice on my Mac (OpenOffice for PC) and then combine the section and hyperlink tools. I put a section in the document that links to a book, chapter, or verse then use create an internal hyperlink to a menu item.

In the end I fit all the books of the Bible onto one page. When you click a book, it takes you to a menu of chapters, then to a menu of verses. This makes a Bible that is completely navigable on the Sony Reader. Book -> Chapter -> Verse -> the Click eReader Bible.

The document is laid out with page 1 of each book of the bible being the chapter menu, and at the beginning of each chapter being a verse menu. The links hold up pretty well when I export to PDF. But I have only tried it on a Mac. I have used this technique on other books too like "The Imitation of Christ" to allow me to jump to each meditation.

The hard part that you basically have to make a hyperlink for each verse in the Bible.... so I will probably only go as far as Book and Chapter. However, I present this idea in the hopes that someone might just do it. Like I said, I would pay for it.

[NatCh]

It sounds like you might be interested in post #34 above, Yaholo.

[Yaholo]

Originally Posted by elf

Hi Guys,

Have completed a BBeB version of the World English Bible.

The bookname -> chapter number menu works ok, but I am not totally happy with it - navigating to Deut book 20 for example takes 5 million clicks. I have an idea on how to improve it, and will hopefully have a version 2 up soon. Try it out, and let me know if there are any broken chapters/links!

Any comments on how to improve the navigation system might help my fine tune V2.

Enjoy!
Elf

After missing this, (sorry), I will say this is very close to what I am looking for.

I have a thought... there is another free bible out there called the NET Bible at www.bible.org

On that page is a HTML frame version of the bible. Is there anything that will take that HTML version and make a PDF out of it?

[GEBSEWS]

For the past week or so I've been refomatting a KJV Bible into PDF format. The first try was too small to read.

I'm almost finished with the chapters. It will be too much work to try to make links to each verse.

These are the steps I took and the text is very easy to read in pdf format even on the smallest setting in the reader.

I opened the document in MS Word then changed the font for the entire bible to 26 points BOLD, Helsinki font. I added chapter headings. Then converted the document to pdf using Adobe Acrobat vs 8 professional.

Once converted, opened in Acrobat then added Bookmarks for each book of the Bible then "sub" bookmarks for each chapter in each book. These bookmarks will be a table of contents in the reader.

Once loaded into the reader you choose a book of the Bible in the table of contents and then choose a chapter in the "sub" table of contents. I'm not sure how many levels of table of contents you can create but the two levels here work. You still have to page over to a particular verse but is easier than a paper Bible. I've still got a few more bookmarks to add and I'll be finished. I do not mind sharing the file. I am not sure what the finished file size will be.

[Viq]

Has there been any update on this specific content? I am looking to purchase a reader almost exclusively for technical documents (pdf and in some POOR cases rtf) but would LOVE to have the bible available as well.

[EatingPie]

Bump.

Originally Posted by elf

Hi Bob,

They way i converted the bible was by writing a perl script to rip the WEB and put it back together with links to books/chapters. To change my script to output the data differently (eg for a "reading a day" format) would be fairly straightforward.

If you could define a methodology for me, I'll do the work and post a daily reading bible. What i need is a structure to work with, like maybe:

one verse from a book, a psalm, and a proverbs every day, reading straight through from front to back.

would that work? If not, give me an example of something that would and I'll see what I can do.

Elf

Can you post your Perl Script by any chance?

I'm looking for any resource in languages I know (seems like the best tool so far is python-based, and I haven't had the time yet to learn python... beyond the obvious).

Another reason for the bump... The Bible in Post #34 is great! I was actually going to do EXACTLY this as a project, but you beat me to the punch. The only issue I have is the lack of "curly-quotes." I have an incredibly simple algorithm for quote-conversion... it's not perfect but it's about 95%. I don't know of any tool that generates curly-quotes -- except my modified makelrf3.

-Pie

[mheflin]

Great Job!!!!!!!!!!

I have purchased NASB in the Microsoft Reader LIT format. Is there a way to convert it the same way you have done the conversion bible.BBeB?

Thanks

[RWood]

Try BookDesigner.

[EatingPie]

Does the NASB in LIT format have paragraphs? The few electronic NIV Bibles I've seen have line-breaks at each verse. Very annoying, and astoundingly unreadable on the Reader. Also, does CLIT work on your NASB, and where did you get it??

The post #34 bible is pretty good. It has a main TOC page listing all the books. These link to a TOC page for the specific book, and there you select which chapter you want. It has paragraphs, and super-scripted verse numbers. The biggest problem is that it lacks a header to tell you what book you're on (or what chapter, for that matter) so it's easy to get lost.

I developed my program pielrf with the target of converting a Bible. It's feature-complete for regular books (version 1.2, soon to be posted and officially announced) but needs one more addition for it to work on a Bible (a <subchapter> tag). I may break off a totally different version to do this.

-Pie