I Hate Having to Return to Paperbooks!

[pilotbob]

Books on Board seems to have a bunch of Trek Books in MS Reader and Digital Editions format. What is Digital Editions format, is the ePub or PDF?

Opps... Open Secrets isn't in MS Reader format.



BOb

[DixieGal]

I'm almost certain that "Adobe Digital Editions" is PDF only. Have never seen it any other way. Harder to crack than regular PDF.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

I'm almost certain that "Adobe Digital Editions" is PDF only. Have never seen it any other way. Harder to crack than regular PDF.

Yep your right. I looked at their format help and they call ePub Adobe ePub and they call PDF Adobe Digital Editions... which makes no sense, Digital Editions can read ePUB and PDF.

BOb

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

"Secure Mobipocket/eReader" means "No Sale"

I hope fictionwise gets that message.

Why "no sale" ? Because your reader doesn't support Secure Mobipocket or Secure eReader? The OP stated "MS Lit format (the only one I know how to strip & convert)", indicating that he/she was willing to remove DRM and thus Secure Mobipocket might be a reasonable alternative. The OP also has the option of buying from Sony, but says "since the price rise I won't buy them at Sony (besides the fact I don't like their wide margins)."

I can understand that the OP wants to shop at Fictionwise: "I have lots of lovely micropay to use at Fictionwise if only Lit format would return or if Fictionwise would add (secure) ePub." But if he/she is willing to liberate secure LIT files, then it would be possible to do the same for Secure Mobipocket files.

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

But fear not, because Books on Board has it in ePub.

If your objection is because it Secure Mobipocket and Secure eReader have DRM, then that would still be the case with ePub. The only benefit in buying Secure ePub is that the OP wouldn't have to do any formatshifting or dDRMing in order to read the book on his or her Sony reader.

Originally Posted by DixieGal

Why do you prefer MS Lit? Just wondering, because ePub is so natural on the 505.

Ummm... I won't buy Secure ePub because you have to use Adobe Digital Editions on your workstation. There is no way to get a Secure ePub book and put it directly on the Sony 505. When/if they solve that problem, I'll revisit the ePub issue.

For now, I buy no DRMed books for my Sony reader. I buy all the current-release books that I want through Amazon for my Kindle, and the only DRMed books on my Sony reader are the freebies I've gotten from the Sony store. There's so much DRM-free content that I can read on my Kindle that I'm not having any problem keeping it full of books.

[MarciaCat]

Originally Posted by Elsi

Why "no sale" ? Because your reader doesn't support Secure Mobipocket or Secure eReader? The OP stated "MS Lit format (the only one I know how to strip & convert)", indicating that he/she was willing to remove DRM and thus Secure Mobipocket might be a reasonable alternative. The OP also has the option of buying from Sony, but says "since the price rise I won't buy them at Sony (besides the fact I don't like their wide margins)."

I can understand that the OP wants to shop at Fictionwise: "I have lots of lovely micropay to use at Fictionwise if only Lit format would return or if Fictionwise would add (secure) ePub." But if he/she is willing to liberate secure LIT files, then it would be possible to do the same for Secure Mobipocket files.


If your objection is because it Secure Mobipocket and Secure eReader have DRM, then that would still be the case with ePub. The only benefit in buying Secure ePub is that the OP wouldn't have to do any formatshifting or dDRMing in order to read the book on his or her Sony reader.

Elsi hit it right on the head; I'm willing to de-drm and format shift if only I could figure it out with mobi. Of course the latest Trek book is only in ereader at FW now; Diesel has mobi though and both BoB and Diesel have it in Adobe ePub but BoB is cheaper. Does anyone know if BoB takes Paypal?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by MarciaCat

Elsi hit it right on the head; I'm willing to de-drm and format shift if only I could figure it out with mobi. Of course the latest Trek book is only in ereader at FW now; Diesel has mobi though and both BoB and Diesel have it in Adobe ePub but BoB is cheaper. Does anyone know if BoB takes Paypal?

Yes, it looks like they do.

BOb

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by MarciaCat

Does anyone know if BoB takes Paypal?

Yes, they do.

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by Elsi

Ummm... I won't buy Secure ePub because you have to use Adobe Digital Editions on your workstation. There is no way to get a Secure ePub book and put it directly on the Sony 505. When/if they solve that problem, I'll revisit the ePub issue.

Surely that can't be right. Oh wait, maybe I'm misunderstaninding. I use Acrobat Pro 9, and it incorporates ADE. Do you suppose that is why I never had a problem with ePub?

[MarciaCat]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Yes, it looks like they do.

BOb

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Yes, they do.

Yipee! Looks like I'll get the newest Trek title there then; it's only $5.56 while Sony is charging $8.99. Oddly the previous two Trek (MMPB) books there are $9.03 and then the three before those are back at $5.56.

Oh well, I'm off to make my first purchase at BoB!

[pilotbob]

[quote=Elsi;515892]
Ummm... I won't buy Secure ePub because you have to use Adobe Digital Editions on your workstation. There is no way to get a Secure ePub book and put it directly on the Sony 505. When/if they solve that problem, I'll revisit the ePub issue.

Originally Posted by DixieGal

Surely that can't be right. Oh wait, maybe I'm misunderstaninding. I use Acrobat Pro 9, and it incorporates ADE. Do you suppose that is why I never had a problem with ePub?

Um... its right and it's not right. It depends on what she means. You MUST have ADE installed in order to buy/download the ePub book. So, in that case she is correct.

However, you don't NEED to use it to put the book on the Sony... you can use Explorer/Finder to do that.

BOb

[MarciaCat]

Originally Posted by MarciaCat

Yipee! Looks like I'll get the newest Trek title there then; it's only $5.56 while Sony is charging $8.99. Oddly the previous two Trek (MMPB) books there are $9.03 and then the three before those are back at $5.56.

Oh well, I'm off to make my first purchase at BoB!

That was easy; I had a cash balance of $17 at Paypal so it didn't really 'cost' me anything out of pocket. I did have to update my Digital Editions but I've got it imported to my Sony Library and ready to go. If the price goes down on the previous two titles I'll get those at BoB too and just look for something else to spend my micropay on!

I'll just have to live with the odd page numbering and the lack of full justification for the benefit of saving a few bucks.

[Teddman]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

Why do you prefer MS Lit? Just wondering, because ePub is so natural on the 505.

For my part, I wonder why everyone here champions ePub, since I think it looks like crap on the 505. Ragged right margins, page numbers on the side... No thanks.

.lit files convert very cleanly to .lrf, with full justification, cover art, etc. I think .lit is still the best pre-conversion format for the 505, even if it's not natively supported on my Mac.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Um... its right and it's not right. It depends on what she means. You MUST have ADE installed in order to buy/download the ePub book. So, in that case she is correct.

However, you don't NEED to use it to put the book on the Sony... you can use Explorer/Finder to do that.

Not only do I have to have ADE to buy the book, I must somehow authorize my Sony reader to ADE so that I can take the book out of ADE and put it on the reader. There's not a process available that I can use to identify my device to the *store* and then download lots of books without running them through ADE.

Originally Posted by Teddman

For my part, I wonder why everyone here champions ePub, since I think it looks like crap on the 505. Ragged right margins, page numbers on the side... No thanks.

I don't know about the page numbers -- I'll have to put an ePub book onto my reader -- a DRM-free one from here or Feedbooks -- and take a look. I, however, happen to be one of those who really likes ragged right margins. I know that those who prefer full justification have longed for ADE and Sony to support that, but it's not a priority for me.

[Donnageddon]

Elsi asked

Why "no sale" ? Because your reader doesn't support Secure Mobipocket or Secure eReader? The OP stated "MS Lit format (the only one I know how to strip & convert)", indicating that he/she was willing to remove DRM and thus Secure Mobipocket might be a reasonable alternative. The OP also has the option of buying from Sony, but says "since the price rise I won't buy them at Sony (besides the fact I don't like their wide margins)."

No, the OP also stated "if only Lit format would return or if Fictionwise would add (secure) ePub." I showed here it was available in ePub at BoB. The OP then clarified that she knew that was available but had micropay available @ fictionwise.

Elsi also said:

If your objection is because it Secure Mobipocket and Secure eReader have DRM, then that would still be the case with ePub. The only benefit in buying Secure ePub is that the OP wouldn't have to do any formatshifting or deDRMing in order to read the book on his or her Sony reader

That is not my objection at all. Please read above. It means "no sale" to me because I have no luck deDRMing Mobipocket, (and my preferred reader Sony does not read Mobi), and I prefer a native format for the Sony, or LIT which is trivial to strip the DRM.

Finally MarciaCat said

Yipee! Looks like I'll get the newest Trek title there then; it's only $5.56 while Sony is charging $8.99. Oddly the previous two Trek (MMPB) books there are $9.03 and then the three before those are back at $5.56.

Oh well, I'm off to make my first purchase at BoB!

I wish I had thought of that!

[Renaldo]

Originally Posted by Teddman

For my part, I wonder why everyone here champions ePub, since I think it looks like crap on the 505. Ragged right margins, page numbers on the side... No thanks.

.lit files convert very cleanly to .lrf, with full justification, cover art, etc. I think .lit is still the best pre-conversion format for the 505, even if it's not natively supported on my Mac.

These are my exact thoughts on both of these formats. Stripping the DRM off of LIT files and converting them takes seconds and gives me a much better reading experience than a raggedy ePub file.