Becoming a format snob

[DiapDealer]

I buy whatever format offers the best deal on the book I want and convert it to whatever format I need for my reading device. Easy-peasy.

I'm mostly format agnostic: I know there's a format out there that may offer slight advantages over the other, but I just can't bring myself to care at all. They're all just word delivery systems; I'd rather be snobbish about those words themselves, not the limo they drive up to the party in.

[vishcompany]

I am a content snob. The format calibre will handle, the result always has been good enough for me, so maybe I am a format slob? (I try to avoid pdf though, it's a pain to convert)

[PaulineDesigns]

Originally Posted by vishcompany

I am a content snob. The format calibre will handle, the result always has been good enough for me, so maybe I am a format slob? (I try to avoid pdf though, it's a pain to convert)

I love it!! That's me too--format slob.

"Just the text, ma'am"

[RichL]

I must be the only one here that converts everything to txt (thank you Calibre for simplifying the task). It gives me sentences, it gives me paragraphs and I can read it on any computer using any os... what more do I need?

[DiapDealer]

what more do I need?

A few indents and italics can be nice at times. That's just in my experience, though.

[TedJ]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I buy whatever format offers the best deal on the book I want and convert it to whatever format I need for my reading device. Easy-peasy.

Exactly. With all the Sony/Nook vs. Kindle sniping and the endless discussions about the virtues of epub vs. mobi it's easy to lose sight of the fact that it's the message not the medium that's important.

[kdf9511]

It was the whole format thing that lead me to buy an Astak Pocket Pro as a dedicated ereader. I have a big library of books that I have been collecting since 1998 that I used to read on a pocket pc running uReader or MS Reader. So most all of my books are either .lit, .txt or .rtf. Since I got the Astak I started picking up epubs witch are nice.

My bigest issue will almost all the new reader and especally the Sonys, Kindles, and Nooks is the way they orignize the librarys. I like being able to just drag and drop the books I want to read on an SD card and go. I have already spent a lot of time sorting my extreamly large library into folders based on author, subject, and series. It also makes it a lot easier for me to find what I'm looking for. Calabre is nice but I find it slow and a pain in the buttocks and don't like the fact that it takes up more and more disk space as it copies files into new folders.

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by kdf9511

It was the whole format thing that lead me to buy an Astak Pocket Pro as a dedicated ereader. I have a big library of books that I have been collecting since 1998 that I used to read on a pocket pc running uReader or MS Reader. So most all of my books are either .lit, .txt or .rtf. Since I got the Astak I started picking up epubs witch are nice.

My bigest issue will almost all the new reader and especally the Sonys, Kindles, and Nooks is the way they orignize the librarys. I like being able to just drag and drop the books I want to read on an SD card and go. I have already spent a lot of time sorting my extreamly large library into folders based on author, subject, and series. It also makes it a lot easier for me to find what I'm looking for. Calabre is nice but I find it slow and a pain in the buttocks and don't like the fact that it takes up more and more disk space as it copies files into new folders.

OT reply; It sounds like your Astar lets you use a normal file directory/folder
structure, like my Jetbook Lite. What works great for me is to create a
directory on my PC with the same folders and sub-folders that I want on
my SD card, then I use the free MS "SyncToy" to insure that the SD card
matches any additions or changes that I apply to the directory on my PC.

With the "Master copy" of the SD card on the PC I can use all kinds of file
handling tools to maintain my library. Then it is a quick process to pop the
SD card out of my ereader and slide it into my PC's media card reader, start
SyncToy and then preview and run the sync process, making the SD card
match the PC directory.

Luck;
Ken

[vishcompany]

Originally Posted by kdf9511

It was the whole format thing that lead me to buy an Astak Pocket Pro as a dedicated ereader. I have a big library of books that I have been collecting since 1998 that I used to read on a pocket pc running uReader or MS Reader. So most all of my books are either .lit, .txt or .rtf. Since I got the Astak I started picking up epubs witch are nice.

My bigest issue will almost all the new reader and especally the Sonys, Kindles, and Nooks is the way they orignize the librarys. I like being able to just drag and drop the books I want to read on an SD card and go. I have already spent a lot of time sorting my extreamly large library into folders based on author, subject, and series. It also makes it a lot easier for me to find what I'm looking for. Calabre is nice but I find it slow and a pain in the buttocks and don't like the fact that it takes up more and more disk space as it copies files into new folders.

I thought very similar, when I first tried calibre. I even dismissed it for a while.
But you can set calibre to load the files onto your reader exactly the way you want it to (folder structure), plus: if you ever tried a reader, which also presents you collections (equvalent to calibre tags), you probably will never want to miss this feature again. Folders are nice, but collections give you so many more possibilities.
I usually download a book onto the desktop, import it and delete it from desktop right away.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by vishcompany

Folders are nice, but collections give you so many more possibilities.
I usually download a book onto the desktop, import it and delete it from desktop right away.

Do collections give you subcollections and sub-subcollections?

That is essential for periodicals. That is one advantage for true directory support.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by vishcompany

I thought very similar, when I first tried calibre. I even dismissed it for a while.
But you can set calibre to load the files onto your reader exactly the way you want it to (folder structure), plus: if you ever tried a reader, which also presents you collections (equvalent to calibre tags), you probably will never want to miss this feature again. Folders are nice, but collections give you so many more possibilities.
I usually download a book onto the desktop, import it and delete it from desktop right away.

Also, disk space is cheap and books are small. You'd have to have a very large library of ebooks in order to use more than a couple of GB of storage space. There are more important things to worry about than wasting a couple of extra MB duplicating books.

[Frida Fantastic]

I'm a Kindle 3 user that doesn't like converting stuff, so .mobi/.azw for me. Most authors have books in .mobi/.azw compared to those who only have it in .epub, so I haven't been met with that many problems. I still think authors/publishers should offer books in both .mobi/.azw and .epub with some DRM free options, there's really no reason not to.

[vishcompany]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Do collections give you subcollections and sub-subcollections?

That is essential for periodicals. That is one advantage for true directory support.

Honestly, I don't know.

UPDATE: http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/sub_groups.html

To me it's a different approach anyway. You can assign different tags in calibre (not only one subject), like "Science Fiction", but also more general, like "Fiction", or even "English". The book will be shown in each collection (though being the same file). It's just very flexible.

But actually, we are

[Eisengoth]

Originally Posted by TedJ

Exactly. With all the Sony/Nook vs. Kindle sniping and the endless discussions about the virtues of epub vs. mobi it's easy to lose sight of the fact that it's the message not the medium that's important.

This is an exceedingly good point, and I'd like to thank you for making it. When it comes right down to it, the books are (usually) being made equally available in all formats. I haven't yet run into a time where I wanted a book and it didn't come in the format that I wanted, and even if I did, it's a simple enough process to convert it.

Perhaps in all our format snobbery, we've lost sight of the bigger picture.

[darknessangel]

I only read pdfs covered in white-gold and blood diamonds...