Paperwhite Second Gen: First Impressions

[aceflor]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

What the heck is X Ray?

A unicorn..

[Bookworm_Girl]

X Ray is supposed to show you the "bones of a book" as Amazon advertised it. It is linked to Shelfari and Wikipedia information. The most useful part is that it shows you a timeline of where a character or place shows up in the book. Then you can see a list of quotes with that term.

It sounds cooler than it is in practice. You could just do a search on a term. Or, just use Wikipedia for real people and places.

Very few books actually have it although more of my recent purchases have had it. For example it is available in the MR literary book club selection for this month, A Secret River. The new PW2 will default to opening the x-ray tab now when you highlight a word in an enabled book, which I'm finding is mostly just the Wikipedia definition.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I mostly read histories and biographies, but to date I've never bought a book from Amazon with X-Ray activated. Not that it would matter as I always modify my books for darker fonts and that turns them into Personal Documents, which I don't think support X-Ray.

When you convert an eBook using Calibre, just keep the original as an addition to the copy and maybe just rename the new one with an added word.

Then go into the old one and see if X-Ray is available on the top menu. If X-ray is just links, then modification would kill the links. I don't believe any of that information resides in the eBook, itself.

Originally Posted by sirmaru

When you convert an eBook using Calibre, just keep the original as an addition to the copy and maybe just rename the new one with an added word.

Then go into the old one and see if X-Ray is available on the top menu. If X-ray is just links, then modification would kill the links. I don't believe any of that information resides in the eBook, itself.

I keep the original and the modified on my Kindle, but like I said most books don't have X-Ray and it doesn't sound like X-Ray is much good any way.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I keep the original and the modified on my Kindle, but like I said most books don't have X-Ray and it doesn't sound like X-Ray is much good any way.

I'm currently reading the three volume Manchester biography of Churchill and it has no X-Ray information. I'm also reading a book called, "Dirty Wars," and it has 533 X-Ray links in the book of which 246 are about people and 287 are about terms.

Thus, date of publication probably has something to do with inserted X-ray links. I find them very helpful if I forget something important on the page. which I may have seen earlier in the book.

Of course, a search may also provide comparable information especially if you extend it to Wikipedia which is where most X-ray links go.

[vxf]

I beg to differ. True, X-Ray is often unavailable - it seems mostly to be related to the date of publication, as above. I found it available on most newly released books - with oldies, it depends.

And sometimes it just isn't needed.

But, with the right book... it shines. Read any Tolstoj and it becomes your best friend.

A big thanks to @Barty in another thread for pointing out that the PW2 will show negative left and right margins. That is, if you modify the book to include the left-margin and right-margin CSS and use a negative number it will narrow the margins. Here is an example where I used -10px, -20px, -25px, -30px, and -40px.

.....

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by jswinden

A big thanks to @Barty in another thread for pointing out that the PW2 will show negative left and right margins. That is, if you modify the book to include the left-margin and right-margin CSS and use a negative number it will narrow the margins. Here is an example where I used -10px, -20px, -25px, -30px, and -40px.

.....

That's fun! Perhaps when they update PW1 it will be the same.

Originally Posted by tomsem

That's fun! Perhaps when they update PW1 it will be the same.

It might already work on the PW1. I don't have a PW1 so I cannot try it. The CSS doesn't seem to work if inside the body tag, but it works inside the p tag.

[ProfCrash]

OK, so I won't care about XRay.

I have finished 2 1/2 books on my PW and I love it. I like being able to read with the light off, turn off the PW, put it in its sleeve and go right to sleep. It is a great perk. Love the form factor and how easily it works. My screen is fine so I can focus on reading and I love that.

Here is hoping that I can sneak in a couple 30 minute sessions every day and get back into my good reading habit.

[FacebookVirus]

Bought first Kindle yesterday (that I've received), and it's a PW 2, and it's easily the best reader I've had. Screen lighting is great, but I'm also glad I can turn it off/down when not needed.

The differences between it and the Sony T-1 are mostly aesthetic - and the T-1 is two years older - but the lack of a cheap plastic feel with the PW is surprising. Especially considering it's probably just as cheap and plastic as the T-1, but doesn't feel it.

[ProfCrash]

I really like the back on the PW2. That is a huge improvement over the K3

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by jswinden

A big thanks to @Barty in another thread for pointing out that the PW2 will show negative left and right margins. That is, if you modify the book to include the left-margin and right-margin CSS and use a negative number it will narrow the margins. Here is an example where I used -10px, -20px, -25px, -30px, and -40px.

.....

Ok, what is the exact code you used, and does it go in the Look & Feel under extra CSS, if not, then where? This is exactly what I need!!!

Originally Posted by booklover6

Ok, what is the exact code you used, and does it go in the Look & Feel under extra CSS, if not, then where? This is exactly what I need!!!

What Works

This works fine. I haven't tried DIV tags yet. Just add this to your CSS stylesheet.

p { left-margin:-40px; right-margin:-40px; }

What Does NOT Work

Unfortunately the following CSS wouldn't work:

body { left-margin:-40px; right-margin:-40px; }

Or a class placed inside BODY tag:

.bodyMargins { left-margin:-40px; right-margin:-40px; }

Or this:

* { left-margin:-40px; right-margin:-40px; }

Summation

It would have been so much easier if it worked from inside the BODY tag. Since not all tags are P tags, we need to cover the other tags as well. Possibly DIV tags can be used, I'll have to test later.

[booklover6]

Please explain "add to your CSS stylesheet" Is this done in Calibre? Under Extra CSS?