290kb limitation in Sony readers

[astra]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

But why worry about switching to ePub if you like LRF better? Granted, if you are dealing with DRM books it is not an option unless you strip the DRM, but otherwise, why not stick with what you like?

Personally, I would stick with the PRS-505

Well, who knows what ebook reader I am going to use in 2-3-5 years time? It might not be Sony after all, then all my LRF files will become redundant. Even Sony might drop LRF support in the future generations of the readers. That's why I don't create any new LRF files. If I spend my time on creating an ebook it should be future proof. Even 85 books (LRF) are far too many. It will take me 4-5 years to read.

Upgrade reasons:
1. I need a dictionary. It would be perfect if it were English-Russian, but English-English will suffice. No more dragging Ectaco Partner ER400 Pro. along with the reader
2. Battery life on my 505 is about 45% of what it used to be almost 3 years ago.

I have seen 650 and played with it a bit. It's screen is no worse than 505. Screen is one of the two most important features of ebook reader (battery life is the second). Could not trade 505 for 600/700, but 650 seems to finally get there

[astra]

Originally Posted by Pablo

I do all my editing in Book Designer (Book Title, Book Author, Titles, Subtitles, Notes and links, page breaks, etc). Then I use my HTML02HTML utility to convert to HTML with CSS and after that I import into Sigil 2.0. In Sigil I just split chapters with a single command, create the TOC and save as ePub. I don't spend more than 2 minutes inside Sigil, unless I want to embed a font, in which case it takes another 2 minutes. The resulting ePub is OK for me.
Knowledge of html/xhtml is not really necessary.

There are a few very nice features in BD such as epigraph, verse, annotation, text author, etc.
Doesn't matter what they are called though. What does matter is that they give me an opportunity to make text to look different. For example if in the middle of a story there is a letter, then I use annotation which is configured to use: Swis721 BT Roman with indent 4, shift 10%, justified, width 95%. Then for the author of the letter I use text author feature, with Dutch801 Rm BT Roman, indent 0, right justification, shift 5%, width 90%.

When you use HTML02HTML utility to convert to HTML with CSS, does it save all the settings? I tried to rename html0 to html. It lost all of these niceties that create the proper atmosphere when I read a book.

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by astra

There are a few very nice features in BD such as epigraph, verse, annotation, text author, etc.
Doesn't matter what they are called though. What does matter is that they give me an opportunity to make text to look different. For example if in the middle of a story there is a letter, then I use annotation which is configured to use: Swis721 BT Roman with indent 4, shift 10%, justified, width 95%. Then for the author of the letter I use text author feature, with Dutch801 Rm BT Roman, indent 0, right justification, shift 5%, width 90%.

When you use HTML02HTML utility to convert to HTML with CSS, does it save all the settings? I tried to rename html0 to html. It lost all of these niceties that create the proper atmosphere when I read a book.

HTML02HTML keeps all styles generated by BookDesigner. The options for each style can be configured in the style.css file, which can be edited with a text editor like notepad. For example, for "annotation", you will find the line:

.annotation {text-indent: 0; text-align: justify; font-style: normal; font-size: 1.4em;}

The easy part is changing indentation (text-indent: 4), the rest is not so easy, but can be done (you would have to do a little research, but it is worth the effort). Note that you only need to change the style.css file.
To use a specific font for a style, you will have to use font-embedding. You can embed the necessary fonts inside Sigil and after that specify the desired font in the line above. Bear in mind that ePubs in the 505 do not use the same fonts as LRF's.
This sounds more complicated than it really is. If you want to give it a try, I am willing to help.

[astra]

Ah. as I suspected. It is a lot more complicated. I don't know anything about codding at all.
I am not up to the challenge, but thanks anyway.

I will keep it mind.

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by astra

Ah. as I suspected. It is a lot more complicated. I don't know anything about codding at all.
I am not up to the challenge, but thanks anyway.

Yes.... it would be great if vvv came up with an update for BD supporting ePub, but I think that will not happen.
Though many people here find BD difficult to use and a bit weird, I think it is a great program, still the best option if you want to make a perfect book.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Pablo

Yes.... it would be great if vvv came up with an update for BD supporting ePub, but I think that will not happen.
Though many people here find BD difficult to use and a bit weird, I think it is a great program, still the best option if you want to make a perfect book.

I agree. It's what I use for all the eBooks that I create, although (other than for LRF) I use it purely as a book editor.

[BaenSidhe]

Originally Posted by etienne66

That is interesting. From what I can find those are using Adobe Mobile Edition, but Adobe has not updated their "Best Practices Guide" since 2008. It still says, "Note that Adobe Digital Editions has the following limitations when running on a mobile device. If these limits are not adhered to, EPUB files will not work on supported mobile devices including the SONY® Reader Digital Book.

Image Size: 10MB uncompressed.
XHTML/DTBook file size: 300k uncompressed/100k compressed."

Does that mean Sony uses ADE to display epubs? Even if your books have no DRM, the 300k limit still applies?

[etienne66]

Originally Posted by BaenSidhe

Does that mean Sony uses ADE to display epubs? Even if your books have no DRM, the 300k limit still applies?

Yes. Sony uses Adobe Mobile Edition to display epubs that have no DRM. Some other readers might use fbreader or similar program to display DRM free epubs, but they also normally support a lot more formats than the Sony readers.

I don't know about the current fbreader versions, but I've heard that it can be rather slow when it comes to epubs.

Etienne66