How Do You Read Your E-Books

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ischeriad

Weasel 1.60

That's what I thought.

LionDoc, based on Bill Claggets's old CSpotRun also handles zText files.

My preference is PalmFiction, a free, open source reader for PalmOS that handles Palm doc files, zText files, and ASCII text files and RTF files stored on a card. (RTF files are displayed as plain text.)

The home page is in Russian, but there are versions of the reader in Bulgarian, English, French, German, Russian, and Ukrainian.

It looks like this on my device:

[ischeriad]

Thanks for mentioning these programs.
I've heard of PalmFiction and I think I tried it on my Clie, it was terribly slow if I remember correctly. I will give it another try.

I will also try LionDoc, haven't of this one before. Looks interesting, but I didn't like CSpotRun - though I can't remember why .

Edit: Back from trying out.
PalmFiction needs PalmOS 3.5, but I'm at my PalmV at the moment. Also, it is way too large for my taste, about 4x Weasel.

LionDoc doesn't recognize my zTxTs.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ischeriad

Thanks for mentioning these programs.
I've heard of PalmFiction and I think I tried it on my Clie, it was terribly slow if I remember correctly. I will give it another try.

PalmFiction is up to v 0.14t, and is stable on my device. Category support is broken, but since it can navigate the file system and use sub-directories, you can categorize that was instead.

I have Weasel here, and have used it since it was called GutenPalm, but I like PalmFiction's support for standard ASCII text and RTF files.

I will also try LionDoc, haven't heard of this one before. Looks interesting, but I didn't like CSpotRun - though I can't remember why .

CSpotRun was intended to be tiny and fast on older hardware, and I ran it happily on my Handspring Visor Deluxe and later Visor Pro. But it didn't support categories or bookmarks, didn't support color, and couldn't see files on a card.

LionDoc adds color, categories and bookmarks, and support for files on a card as well as support for zText. Card support is quirky, however. I use it here for fast access to stuff in RAM. For stuff on a card, PalmFiction or Weasel get the nod.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ischeriad

Edit: Back from trying out.
PalmFiction needs PalmOS 3.5, but I'm at my PalmV at the moment. Also, it is way too large for my taste, about 4x Weasel.

It will run from a card, though I don't.

LionDoc doesn't recognize my zTxTs.

LionDoc is quirky in that respect, and expects you do do zText conversions from within its interface, which it them stores to it's own directory on a card if you specify zCard as the conversion target.

You may be better served by Weasel on your devices.
______
Dennis

[BenG]

I read .lrf on the Sony Reader, but on my Ipaq I'll read any format supported by µbook: text, html, rtf and pdb, usually in a zip file.

[balok]

Originally Posted by RWood

To help me decide what formats to release books in in the future (and perhaps anyone else reading the results) how do you read your ebooks?

This poll, and the replies posted, show the different problems associated with multiple formats:
- The most popular format, BBeB, is only used by a single device
- Formats come and go, so when you get rid of your device you're stuck with books you can no longer read
- Conversion tools are far from perfect

Here's another less than ideal solution, but it may be promising. Even if conversion tools aren't perfect, there could be a way to improve them by using an xml source format specifically designed for conversion. By analogy, we could refer to Java's "compile once, run anywhere" idea. The end user would take the source text, plug it into a conversion program, and have it come out exactly the way it should look on his device, no tweaking.

I think it's a pity that all those BBeB and Mobipocket files in the Mobileread ebook listing will probably become obsolete soon enough. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony completely abandoned BBeB in favour of ePub.

[RWood]

Originally Posted by Jorgen

The iSilo format is not there! Am I the only one using that format?

Apart from technical ebooks in PDF and CHM, 95% of my ebooks are in iSilo format.

iSilo added and I recorded your 1 vote for it.

[RWood]

Originally Posted by balok

This poll, and the replies posted, show the different problems associated with multiple formats:
- The most popular format, BBeB, is only used by a single device
- Formats come and go, so when you get rid of your device you're stuck with books you can no longer read
- Conversion tools are far from perfect

Here's another less than ideal solution, but it may be promising. Even if conversion tools aren't perfect, there could be a way to improve them by using an xml source format specifically designed for conversion. By analogy, we could refer to Java's "compile once, run anywhere" idea. The end user would take the source text, plug it into a conversion program, and have it come out exactly the way it should look on his device, no tweaking.

I think it's a pity that all those BBeB and Mobipocket files in the Mobileread ebook listing will probably become obsolete soon enough. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony completely abandoned BBeB in favour of ePub.

If they do abandon BBeB/LRF (which I doubt at the moment, check back tomorrow for another view) then we will republish the ebooks in ePub.

You are correct in that the recent history of ebooks has been format-of-the-month. One year ago I did not care about BBeB/LRF, I had not even heard of it. Then all I read books in was PRC through PalmReader on my cell phone.

With the widespread support and being owned by Amazon, MobiPocket stands a great chance of being around in five years. I don't see support for that format going the way of RocketBook.

As for the tools, they get better all the time. In the BBeB area we have almost a thousand books here mostly formatted with BookDesigner and Fictionwise has over 7,000 offerings formatted with libprs500. Steve Jordan Books (www.stevejordanbooks.com) makes all of his books available in many formats.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by balok

Here's another less than ideal solution, but it may be promising. Even if conversion tools aren't perfect, there could be a way to improve them by using an xml source format specifically designed for conversion. By analogy, we could refer to Java's "compile once, run anywhere" idea. The end user would take the source text, plug it into a conversion program, and have it come out exactly the way it should look on his device, no tweaking.

Balok, what you describe there is pretty much what ePub is, and how it should work with any reader. ePub is XHTML-based, and so it should be easy for any reader to run conversion instructions to assemble the ePub files into a book.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by balok

Here's another less than ideal solution, but it may be promising. Even if conversion tools aren't perfect, there could be a way to improve them by using an xml source format specifically designed for conversion. By analogy, we could refer to Java's "compile once, run anywhere" idea. The end user would take the source text, plug it into a conversion program, and have it come out exactly the way it should look on his device, no tweaking.

That is precisely the way that "BookDesigner" - the tool that created most of the books available for download here works. It stores the book in XML and you simply choose your output format - Sony Reader, MobiPocket, LIT, or whatever.

I think it's a pity that all those BBeB and Mobipocket files in the Mobileread ebook listing will probably become obsolete soon enough. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony completely abandoned BBeB in favour of ePub.

I really don't think that MobiPocket is going to disappear any time soon. It is pretty much a de facto standard, supported on multiple hardware platforms with books sold by many different retails. Added to which it has the marketting "muscle" of Amazon behind it. It's the format in which by far the largest number of commercial eBooks are available.

[balok]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That is precisely the way that "BookDesigner" - the tool that created most of the books available for download here works. It stores the book in XML and you simply choose your output format - Sony Reader, MobiPocket, LIT, or whatever.

I don't believe bookdesigner is open source, nor multi-platform. If it were, then it would be a good idea to post ebooks in bookdesigner's XML format so people could convert as needed, regardless of their device. What I think would be great is a small fool-proof utility with two boxes, one for the input file and the other for the output file and format. You plug in the XML file downloaded from mobileread, and click "convert" and out comes the same file in LRF, PRC, LIT, whatever you want, and exactly as it should look. No tweaking. A command-line version of this utility could even be used by the site to output the source xml in whatever format the web user asks for. Fooling around with font size, margins, etc., is a job for an editing program and would be a question of personal preference.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Balok, what you describe there is pretty much what ePub is, and how it should work with any reader. ePub is XHTML-based, and so it should be easy for any reader to run conversion instructions to assemble the ePub files into a book.

Ok, so there's the right source format. Now let's hope some programmers will take advantage of it right now instead of everyone waiting for reader devices that can read ePub natively.

[balok]

Originally Posted by RWood

If they do abandon BBeB/LRF (which I doubt at the moment, check back tomorrow for another view) then we will republish the ebooks in ePub.

You are correct in that the recent history of ebooks has been format-of-the-month. One year ago I did not care about BBeB/LRF, I had not even heard of it. Then all I read books in was PRC through PalmReader on my cell phone.

In the BBeB area we have almost a thousand books here mostly formatted with BookDesigner.

I just think it's somewhat futile to convert all these books to LRF and post them in mobileread, knowing that LRF probably won't be around very long. We should be expecting that much from Sony. It's like building up a collection of Betamax videos or putting all your music on minidisc format. Sony has screwed consumers in the past, so why should we think they've changed?

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by balok

I just think it's somewhat futile to convert all these books to LRF and post them in mobileread, knowing that LRF probably won't be around very long. We should be expecting that much from Sony. It's like building up a collection of Betamax videos or putting all your music on minidisc format. Sony has screwed consumers in the past, so why should we think they've changed?

Salut balok! As-tu essayé le Sony?

Sony's format has been meant to capture a market, iTunes style and to bring DRM to ebooks. Authors have been convinced to join in this way and reassured that their works would be protected and not be pirated. It was one of the best ways to make sure of the viabilily of ebook, quite an important feature in the evolution of readers. Thanks to this, ebook readers will not fail and are garanteed to survive. Yes things will evolve for the better and BBeB might disappear but its task, whatever critics say, has been and is determinant to the world of mobile reading.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by balok

I don't believe bookdesigner is open source, nor multi-platform. If it were, then it would be a good idea to post ebooks in bookdesigner's XML format so people could convert as needed, regardless of their device. What I think would be great is a small fool-proof utility with two boxes, one for the input file and the other for the output file and format. You plug in the XML file downloaded from mobileread, and click "convert" and out comes the same file in LRF, PRC, LIT, whatever you want, and exactly as it should look. No tweaking. A command-line version of this utility could even be used by the site to output the source xml in whatever format the web user asks for. Fooling around with font size, margins, etc., is a job for an editing program and would be a question of personal preference.

Ok, so there's the right source format. Now let's hope some programmers will take advantage of it right now instead of everyone waiting for reader devices that can read ePub natively.

Book Designer uses an openly defined XML file format. There is no requirement for the tool itself to be open source but as it happens it is freely available. However an XML file format means nothing without a DTD. The nice thing about XHTML is that is is a fully defined version of XML that works fine and there is no reason to make up another XML format (there are a million of them already I believe). The Book Designer xml/html code is really very poorly done as compared to xhtml. While it can produce targeted devices they don't look as professional as I would like.

I have used the epub formatted xhtml files to produce books for my eb1150 without much effort using ebook publisher to read them in so the idea is sound and existing tools can already work with it.

Dale

[balok]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Salut balok! As-tu essayé le Sony?

Oui Yvan, un copain américain, qui s'est prévalu de l'offre de 50$, me l'a envoyé par la poste. Je suis content du produit dans l'ensemble, mais je n'aurais pas déboursé 299$ en plus des douanes, taxes, transport, etc.

Sony's format has been meant to capture a market, iTunes style and to bring DRM to ebooks. Authors have been convinced to join in this way and reassured that their works would be protected and not be pirated.

Sony could easily have adopted an existing format instead of adding another language to the tower of babel.

Sony's business practices sometimes border on dishonesty. They try to keep buyers captive to their product line, instead of letting consumers make a free choice based on the merit of the product.