PRS-950 Thinking to buy a 950 tonight...

[anamardoll]

...but have a few more questions after seeing the Best Buy demo unit.

I'm new to the Sony forum -- please don't kill me with sheep.

1. Fonts. Can you (easily) change the fonts on the device? I would consider "easy" to be dropping new fonts into a folder and then having the option to use them embedded in the GUI somewhere. I'm not wanting to change the CSS on all 350 of my epubs.

Thanks so much to the lovely Sony Mobile Read people in advance for all answers!

[petercreasey]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Thinking to buy a 950 tonight...

A, Go for it! You won't regret it.

Originally Posted by anamardoll

...but have a few more questions after seeing the Best Buy demo unit.

I'm new to the Sony forum -- please don't kill me with sheep.

1. Fonts. Can you (easily) change the fonts on the device? I would consider "easy" to be dropping new fonts into a folder and then having the option to use them embedded in the GUI somewhere. I'm not wanting to change the CSS on all 350 of my epubs.

Can do via PRS+ firmware flash. Not sure how easy it is. I prefer the CSS method in each book along with an added /fonts folder. I think calibre can be setup to automatically convert (and thus add the necessary CSS) during the sideloading process.

2. Highlighting. I highlighted a word on the demo unit, but then could never get it to UN highlight. What's the trick to that? Also, can you highlight phrases, or just one word? ALSO also, can you export the highlights somehow to a text file? Very important.

To unselect text, close any menu box then tap anywhere on the page. Yes, hold to select then drag to highlight or select mutiple words. I'm not sure about exporting highlights.

3. Collections. I read somewhere that if you use Calibre to load the device, the Calibre tags are automatically incorporated into the Sony Collections model? Is this so? ALSO, how about SD card sideloaded stuff? Does that work the same way?

Don't know as I don't use calibre to sideload.

4. Wikipedia. I heard that the "highlight a word for dictionary" lookup could also be used as "highlight a word, have it searched for on Wikipedia", but I couldn't figure out how to do this in store. Can anyone please help me with my idiocy?

No longer have a 950 and unfortunately I cannot remember. I never used Wikipedia lookup if it did exist. This sounds like a feature you might find on the Sony for Android app as many of the Android apps have it do to their lackluster dictionaries. Sorry, I wish I could remember.

EDIT: Yes you can, see page 2 and page 87 in User Guide. "Dictionary and Wikipedia® – simply doubletap a word to read its definition or translate, learn more from Wikipedia’s website". There is a globe icon (for world wide web) in the dictionary popup window, push it to open Wikipedia in the browser.

Thanks so much to the lovely Sony Mobile Read people in advance for all answers!

The way I look at it, for $60 more than the Nook STR you get a full featured reader that is 2 or 3 times more functional, and it only ways 1 oz more, is about the same width, and only 1-1/8" longer. Plus you get a 7" screen which is better for PDFs. Oh, and it does single and double page landscape in ePubs!

[anamardoll]

I should clarify what I meant by UN highlight.

I mean that I selected a word (double-tap), pressed the little highlighter icon, and then it was highlighted forever, as though I'd used an actual yellow highlighter. Great!

But..... how do you remove that highlight? In Moon+, you long press the highlight and select "--highlight" and it goes away. With Sony, I couldn't tell.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

But..... how do you remove that highlight? In Moon+, you long press the highlight and select "--highlight" and it goes away. With Sony, I couldn't tell.

You tap the highlighter icon to highlight-- you tap the eraser icon to erase.

And now, to kill you with sheep...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQO-a...layer_embedded

BTW, to answer your question I saw on another thread: "How is it for PDF view? Zoom/pan/landscape available?"

Yes to PDF zoom, yes to PDF pan, yes to PDF landscape. (Also PDF reflow.)

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

You tap the highlighter icon to highlight-- you tap the eraser icon to erase.

And now, to kill you with sheep...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQO-a...layer_embedded

That was adorable until it became....weird.

Thank you for the answer -- I'll edit that one out of the OP.

[Leyor]

3. Collections. I read somewhere that if you use Calibre to load the device, the Calibre tags are automatically incorporated into the Sony Collections model? Is this so? ALSO, how about SD card sideloaded stuff? Does that work the same way?

As for the collections, you can either use the calibre tags, which will create an ungodly mess. Or you can use the Sony Calibre plug-in. I used it to sort all my collections after authors, since I prefer it that way . SD card works same way.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Leyor

As for the collections, you can either use the calibre tags, which will create an ungodly mess. Or you can use the Sony Calibre plug-in. I used it to sort all my collections after authors, since I prefer it that way . SD card works same way.

A mess? Really? I only have one tag per book (I use the tags for genre, and I do NOT cross-genre. ) so would that still be messy?

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I should clarify what I meant by UN highlight.

I mean that I selected a word (double-tap), pressed the little highlighter icon, and then it was highlighted forever, as though I'd used an actual yellow highlighter. Great!

But..... how do you remove that highlight? In Moon+, you long press the highlight and select "--highlight" and it goes away. With Sony, I couldn't tell.

Sorry I had a brain freeze. Check page 62-63 of UG. Press the Options button to display the Options menu, select Notes, then select Create Edit, then select the Eraser icon and stroke across the highlighting to delete it. The highlighting then disappears. Kind of kluge but it works.

[Leyor]

It wont be messy if you just have one tag pr. book, it'll look just like folders and would be done automatically for you. I had calibre import all my tags for me, and it created an unholy chaos

you also have the option of making your own column with specific tags just to have collections be sorted by that, but you won't need it the way you have it.

1. Fonts. Can you (easily) change the fonts on the device? I would consider "easy" to be dropping new fonts into a folder and then having the option to use them embedded in the GUI somewhere. I'm not wanting to change the CSS on all 350 of my epubs.

Easy as you describe it no. But there's alot of fixes to it on this forum in one of the above threads.

I'm not familiar with using the PRS+ firmware or how it allows extra fonts. But here is more detail on changing fonts per book.

To clarify, you can only change the system font styles of normal, italics, bold, and bold-italics. In other words, you can only have one custom @font-face per book. That font-face can contain one or more fonts as you can use the same font or up to four fonts to define the styles normal, italics, bold, and bold-italics, with each style using a single font file.

You can have as many fonts in the custom font folder as you desire and memory space allows, but you can only use one @font-face per book. Each book can be different though and use whatever @font-face you design. I created a pdf wherein I cover this in much more detail.

Is it complicated? Yep! Is it doable? Yep! And you only have to create the CSS once for a font-face and then save it as the default extra CSS for calibre to automatically add when it converts a book. You do have to look at the CSS for every book though to remove any font-family statements. So it is kluge but it works.

[anamardoll]

....considering that I have 350+ books that I'd have to look through and considering that I don't read CSS very fluently, that sounds AWFUL.

[lstroyan]

I just got a Sony 950 today when my Kindle died...and I'm absolutely loving it. The tradeoff for me was basically touch screen versus Text to Speech, and I went with the feature I'm planning on using every day (touch). I do miss is the lightweight feel of the Kindle a bit.

The interface is so much more intuitive and quick than the Kindle. As a former computer geek I couldn't believe how archaic the Kindle navigation was in some ways.

Wikipedia works well once you are connected to Wifi -- no 3G access, I'm pretty sure. Double click the word, click on the icon with a globe and the letter A (no idea why A).

Collections based on tags from Calibre seemed pretty automatic to me. It's true that tags can get out of hand if you download them from the web with the book info; I just prune mine regularly and it's not a problem.

Fonts and less choice of text sizes were a bit of a concern with mine too, but so far everything else far outweighs not having easily changeable fonts out of the box. Still it would be nice to have something between Small and Medium.

Lisa

[Bookworm_Girl]

Here is a quick response:

Fonts - Jack's guide is the best that I have seen and the one that I follow which is to use the extra CSS in calibre and do a file conversion. The default short-template in Jack's guide works 90% of the time for me without having to explore the EPUB file in further detail. Many people use calibre to organize their library and transfer it. You can set-up the extra CSS in your default template settings so the conversion process is automatic. Thus, you don't have to type the code every time... This approach only works on non-DRM'ed books. You seem like a tech-savvy person who would probably enjoy the PRS+ firmware which has lots of extra features and will also apply fonts to DRM'ed books as I understand it. I don't have it so I can't elaborate too much other than lots of people speak positively of it.

Export notes / highlights can be done using the Sony software. It exports to an RTF file. Some important caveats. If you have DRM'ed books, highlights are limited to only 100 characters at a time. Meaning you have to highlight smaller chunks of text or type in the extra text in your text editor. Too limited in my opinion! If your books are not DRM'ed, then the limit is 2000 characters which can cover several paragraphs of text at a time. Kindle probably has the best export options.

When you double-tap and highlight a word/passage, it opens a pop-up box on the bottom of the screen. In that box are icons to open further menus. Such as an icon for the detailed dictionary page (an A symbol), an icon to open wikipedia (a globe with an A subscript), an icon with a highlighter to save your annotation and an icon with the universal search image to find that word elsewhere in the book.

It is easy to delete highlights or notes. You can do it within the book using an option menu. There is also a Notes application which groups all of your notes from all of your books which is another way to delete items. In summary there are myriad methods.

Hope that helps!

[anamardoll]

Thank you, that was very helpful!

Ya'll have sold me -- but now I'm hearing that all the Best Buys in my area seem to be out of the $199 clearance model. Tsk.