What is BEST format to read novels in??

[orwell2k]

Caveat - all this is just my humble opinion...

The simple answer:

...to the question 'What is the BEST format to read novels in??'

FB2 is the BEST format for reading eBooks...

FB2 is pure XML, it can be zipped to save some space (but each book is generally less than 1MB unless you have heaps of pics), and describes only the content of the document/book, leaving all formatting/display control to the reader software. Luckily there are some excellent readers out there, naturally free and fully developed/supported (why can't corporations do that?) - the main ones being FBReader, CoolReader, Stanza and Haali Reader.

The details...

There may be some situations/books where you want some of the more advanced 'features' of an ePub, that's assuming they have been implemented correctly (which, adly, is often not the case).

Frankly, the ADE reader for ePub seriously sucks. As usual, the big corporations and publishers have done half a job in their frantic rush to get your eBook $$$. The format has lots of potential, but the preparation of the books themselves is often inconsistent and riddled with errors, and the reader tools (ADE only for DRM) are inadequate at this time. And whilst FBReader can handle non-DRM ePub it is not quite up to the task for formatting them well (I have no doubt it soon will be).

I come from 6 years of reading FB2 on various devices with various reader programs. It has always been the superior combination for a stable, pleasurable reading experience. Primarily because it allows full user control over how the book looks on your device.

On my old Acer n10 PDA/PocketPC I used Haali Reader with FB2 books I created from Mobi, MS Lit, HTML, DOC, RTF, etc. Always way better than reading the native Mobi or Lit.

On my BeBook (Hanlin V3 clone) I read FB2 on their CoolReader implementation, and converted again from sources such as ePub, Mobi, Lit, DOC, RTF, HTML, etc.

On my PB360 again I use FB2 via FBReader, and convert from ePub, Mobi, Lit, DOC, RTF, HTML, etc.

I cannot read ePub or Mobi in their native readers, not after using FB2. They are just too inflexible, and their formatting generally sucks. I guess I could force myself to get used to it, but there is no comparison (to me).

Frimware updates to the PB360 apparently have improved the ADE features (e.g. more font size choices), and there are hacks to circumvent the CSS styles (similar to the Sony workarounds). But whether you're hacking the CSS styles or hacking the source to convert to another (better) format like FB2, the poor user still has to do some work to get a decent end product. This is really unacceptable.

So I buy Mobi, ePub, Lit, whatever, then use BookDesigner to convert to FB2 (OOoFBTools for OpenOffice also does good FB2 creation).

[crangirl]

And if you want to convert a PDF.. Epub or FB2? Or leave it as a PDF?

[kgn]

Originally Posted by orwell2k

FB2 is the BEST format for reading eBooks...

Very good to know. As I am getting a PB302, I guess I am on the right path then!!

[mtravellerh]

The fb2 format is quite good, but it has a few shortcomings:
1. No pagebreaks before chapters
2. No commercial books available in fb2 except russian ones. This means you have to strip and convert every single book that you are buying.

[acanthicus]

Originally Posted by orwell2k

So I buy Mobi, ePub, Lit, whatever, then use BookDesigner to convert to FB2 (OOoFBTools for OpenOffice also does good FB2 creation).

Hello orwell2k,

sorry if it is a silly question, but how do you import epub in BookDesigner? I tried it, but it opened only one html-file at once.
Second question: is fbreader capable of showing page breaks, empty paragraphs or basic styles, like italic, or centered paragraphs in fb2?
FBReader is not capable to show these in epub or mobi, so for me this program is unusable and I got back to using ADE , which is frustrating, too.

[orwell2k]

Originally Posted by crangirl

And if you want to convert a PDF.. Epub or FB2? Or leave it as a PDF?

Depends on the PDF:

(1) If it is formated for an eReader (e.g. smaller page size, like 15 x 10 cm pages rather than A4) it may be OK on the reader as is, assuming the pages have been created properly and not just shrunk to a smaller size (this means the font is also shrunk and will be difficult to read).

(2) With a 'normal' PDF with A4 size pages it is often better to convert, but conversion is not always easy.

Often the PDF has header and footer text (page numbers, book title, chapter, etc.). Often when you export from Adobe Acrobat these header/footer pieces of text get interspersed amongst the normal text, requiring a lot of clean-up.

What I have done in the past is to 'trim' the PDF - in Acrobat I set page cropping to remove the header/footer space, then save a new PDF then export from that to HTML in Acrobat. This often solves the header/footer problem. You need Acrobat Pro and I think it is under 'Tools > Print Production > Crop Pages'

I did notice recently that when I exported a PDF to HTML it seems to lose the header/footer info automatically, so maybe later versions of Acrobat do a better job?

Even once you solve the header/footer issue, if needed, the export often causes some problem - character recognition and styles. Sometimes things like italics are lost - perhaps not a big deal but I like to keep the intended styles.

Of more concern is character recognition - there are some common errors that seem to crop up in Adobe's export process (again, maybe later Acrobat versions do a better job?).

Often I have seen things like 'cl' interpreted as 'd' (so closed becomes dosed, which passes spell-checking), and 'fl' or 'if' or 'fi' often get seen as a single charcter of those letter - there must be some valid pairing in the character set or something - anyway, a global search/replace can fix it, but you have to know about it!

There are probably others, and some PDFs have more errors than others - I have had some clean PDFs almost error-free in conversion/export to HTML from Acrobat. Others are strewn with errors.

Once you have a clean source file (HTML, DOC, whatever) then it's your choice as to whether you go ePub (using something like Sigil) or FB2 (using BookDesigner, OOoFBTools, Any2FB2, or another FB2 conversion tool).

[orwell2k]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

The fb2 format is quite good, but it has a few shortcomings:
1. No pagebreaks before chapters
2. No commercial books available in fb2 except russian ones. This means you have to strip and convert every single book that you are buying.

I think pagebreaks before chapters depends on styles, yes? If you have an fb2.css that has page breaks before chapters, then it's not an issue (i.e. your 'title' style entry). Also, BookDesigner does by default insert pagebreaks before the 'Title' style.

I have never worried about this issue - CoolReader on my BeBook just did it, and FBReader for the PB360 has been set to do it also. That's the beauty of the format - total user control. It's also a weakness, because you have to adjust all style settings to suit your needs.

[orwell2k]

Originally Posted by acanthicus

Hello orwell2k,

sorry if it is a silly question, but how do you import epub in BookDesigner? I tried it, but it opened only one html-file at once.
Second question: is fbreader capable of showing page breaks, empty paragraphs or basic styles, like italic, or centered paragraphs in fb2?
FBReader is not capable to show these in epub or mobi, so for me this program is unusable and I got back to using ADE , which is frustrating, too.

There's no stupid questions, only stupid people!... just kidding

But this is how I do it, and it did take a little effort to find a way that works.

(1) Extract your ePub (after 'liberating' it of DRM, if needed) to a folder using WinRAR, WinZIP, etc.

Inside you will have folders like OPS and META-INF, and probably in the OPS folder you will find a bunch of .xhtml files (probably one per chapter) and some other files like stylesheet.css and package.opf (the names may change, but the extensions will be the same: .opf, .css, .xhtml, etc.).

(2) Next join the xhtml files together using a tool like Multi HTML Converter (attached here).

The tool is self-explanatory, but basically:

(a) Click 'select the name of the first book's file' - I use the .opf file, which details what's in the ePub package, so you need to change the file type in the search window from '.html' to '.opf' then browse to either the ePub folder or the OPS folder (usually there).

(b) Once selected, enter the Author Name and Book Title

(c) Choose 'Save File As...' and the program will propose a file name based on the Book Author/Title you entered, located in the folder of the .opf file you chose. This is usually the best place for it. Choose 'Save'.

(d) Then choose 'Convert selected book from multi-html to html format'. You will get a message after a few seconds saying 'Successful conversion...' and that's it!

The combined HTML file will be in the folder you selected. It will expect to find a stylesheet.css file, so if the ePub uses another name for the css files you need to make a copy and rename it to stylesheet.css - that way when you open the file it will be styled.

The new joined HTML file probably still can't be opened directly by Book Designer, so I open it in an editor like MS Word and clean up any of the formatting (often all the text is bolded, or maybe centred, so I fix that). I don't like the Book Cleaner files in Book Designer, so I do some simple find/replace work, like em- or en-dashes with ' - ' (space-hyphen-space) - that way I can then open the file in Book Designer and do a global replace for all ' - ' with spaced en-dashes. Do a 'Save As...' and give a new file name (I add a '1' to the end - this keeps your original single-html file intact so you can revert if needed).

This new 'clean' html file can now be opened in Book Designer.

FB2 Styles:

FB2 uses some basice style types - Title, SubTitle, Para, Bold, Italics, Picture, and some others. These are defined by the FB2 schema.

Each reader handles FB2 styles in it's own way - remember, FB2 says what the files contains (text plus a style tag) not how it is displayed - that is up to your reader. But most readers allow styles to be defined by the user.

On the BeBook, there is a standard fb2.css file that 'defines' how CoolReader shows different types of text. A 'Title' will be centred, bold, font size X, and so on. Similarly for FBReader, you can define the styles you as a user want to use.

As I understand it, FBReader does not insert page breaks before chapters ('Title' style) but I believe you can detail this in a css file on your reader. Each reader and device is different, so I can't give a global 'howto' here.

I have attached two examples of fb2.css files here (fb2.css1.txt and fb2.css2.txt) - they are .txt files because .css is not allowed in an attachment. I used the fb2.css1.txt example on my BeBook with CoolReader, but both work. Just rename the file to fb2.css and place it in the appropriate place (e.g. /crengine folder on your SD card for BeBook)

But basically, I have never had a complaint about displaying FB2 books - the opposite in fact, they display in a much more reader-friendly manner than any other format, in my experience and humble opinion...

[acanthicus]

@ orwell2k
thanks for the detailed information - I will try that.