BIBLE for Sony Reader

[cjschmidt]

I purchased the NIV Bible from the Connect Store a few days ago and I'm pretty angry. The real TOC just links to another TOC that must be navigated with the d-pad/joystick. Footnotes and font size can take a few minutes to access/adjust. Everything is unbearably slow. The thing is useless.

I had hoped for something like the Sony Reader manual - choose a section, sub-section, etc with the numbered buttons to the side.

Is this just a problem with books this large or are the publishers (whoever mastered the Reader file) lazy?

Don't buy it! I want my money back!

[JSWolf]

I can't speak for all Connect books, but the one's I've purchased have the external ToC linking to an internal ToC inside the book with an external entry of Table of Contents. As for it being slow to change font sizes, it could be that because the reader has to do the work and the bible is so large, that it's just slow. But once you get the size you want, you need not worry about that. As for why footnotes as slow, I cannot guess.

[cjschmidt]

The Sony Connect Store now carries a NIV translation, but it's a joke.
The Reader TOC just points you to the "Table of Contents" which is a long (and slow loading) list of links that must be (slowly) navigated with the d-pad/joystick. Chapters are listed on the first page of each book and must be navigated the same way. Footnotes lock up the device for almost 5 minutes just to display a single sentence.

Even if the book is so huge that it can't load quickly, I don't understand why the TOC isn't using the built in system. The Reader manual even features sub-categories, which would be perfect for this use.

Don't buy it!

[kovidgoyal]

The LRF format doesn't have support for multi-level TOCs (an inexplicable oversight on SONY's part). The SONY OG is a PDF.

[cottonball]

Originally Posted by cjschmidt

I purchased the NIV Bible from the Connect Store a few days ago and I'm pretty angry. The real TOC just links to another TOC that must be navigated with the d-pad/joystick. Footnotes and font size can take a few minutes to access/adjust. Everything is unbearably slow. The thing is useless.

How does one navigate the footnotes? I can't for the life of me figure it out (and the Reader documentation was no help)...

Thanks!

[cjschmidt]

The reference will be "highlighted" - just click the button/joystick and press left/right.

[cottonball]

That works for the TOC (including the mini-TOC's preceding each book in the Bible), but not the teeny footnotes embedded in the text itself - at least not for me...

[ctennenh]

Has anyone had any luck converting a commercial electronic bible (NIV or The Message) to something usable on the reader? I'd be willing to buy something in html or pdf if I could convert it with something like pdflrf or Kovid's tools in libprs500.

[Deputy-Dawg]

As a Latin Rite Roman Catholic Deacon I have long been disappointed in the lack of an authorized translation of the bible in ebook format. Yes, Olivetree has the NAB for palm devices and some other pda type devices but there is no generally available ebook format of the bible available. That is with two notable exceptions. Both the NCCB and the Vatican maintain on the web the NAB. This is all well and good if you have access to the Web when you need to study the bible but this is obviously a limited solution. Add into that the fact that I spend three 5 hour mornings each week on hemodialysis an the ability to study then would be a blessing.

Reading while on hemo is difficult in that most of us have our "access" in one of our arms and that severally limits the use of that arm (some of us more than others, I, for example, can do nothing with that arm - hold a book - turn pages - the like). So I was hoping that the NIV in ebook format would prove to be a useful book. It is a very competent translation and if it had the deuterocanonical books it would be at least adequate to my needs). In any event I was prepared to live with it until I found just how bad the navigation in it was.

Necessity being the mother of invention I downloaded all of the files that made up the NAB on the Vatican website. I edited out the rather strange background that they used. I set all of the links in the documents to point to the text pages (rather than the ones for the concordance as including the concordance would simply made the final document to large - or at least so I think) and I reformatted the text into a text format more consistent with the display characteristics of the Sony PRS 505 (I got one a week ago last Wed). I then used Adobe Acrobat to convert the HTML files into one large PDF document. I finally created a book mark for every chapter in the bible. These book marks were organized by books and the books by sections of the bible. For example i have "The Pentateuch" which contains "Genesis", Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy; and I have "The Gospels" which contains "Matthew", "Mark", "Luke" and "John". The document was created on a "sheet" that was set up as 4.5 X 6.0 inches. Each chapter has at is beginning and end two buttons labeled "Previous" and "Next" which link to the preceding and following chapters - or document in the bible.

Finally there are links from numbered entries the the bible to corresponding foot notes and back. There are also links for scripture references to the refered scripture. Surprisingly enough at all works. and the better news is that all of the book and chapter bookmarks link in a hierarchical fashion to the numbered buttons on the PRS505 making it fairly easy to navigate the bible. Finally the access time to the volume (which is about 43 Mb) is reasonably quick after an initial 30 second loading time when it is first accessed. The menus are quite responsive so long as you limit their size to some 50 to 60 entries (Psalms had to be broken up into 3 groups (1 - 50; 51 - 100 and 100 -150).

I have prepared a skeletonized version of the bible that shows how the books and chapters are accessed. I have included Genesis Chapter 21; Numbers Chapters 23 and 24 and the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 2 to demonstrate the various internal linking of the files. To try them out you have to navigate to the foot notes of Numbers Chapter 24. Finally there appears to be limitation to the resolution of links in the PDF reader on the PRS505 that limits the links of foot notes within a given chapter to the page on which the footnote occurs and intra chapter links to the chapter in which the subject verse occurs.

The skeletonized file is 29 mb in size (those dead links I guess) and do contain the afore mentioned chapters which are subject to copy right. But if the moderators agree that "fair use" would permit the posting of such limited amounts of a copyrighted text and the 29Mb does not bother them, and if you would like I will upload it.

[DoctorBri]

Originally Posted by ctennenh

Has anyone had any luck converting a commercial electronic bible (NIV or The Message) to something usable on the reader? I'd be willing to buy something in html or pdf if I could convert it with something like pdflrf or Kovid's tools in libprs500.

I'm post-call and wiped out, so read my thread on converting the ESV to pdf. I've got a 2 week break now, so I'm hoping to work on this some more.

[Finn Kerr]

I don't know if this has been suggested yet or not but for getting quickly to verses, chapters, etc. the table of contents can be several layers deep like first there's two options New or Old Testament, then the different books, then chapters, then topics ("Feeding the Five Thousand (Verses X to Y)", "The Lukewarm Church (Verses A to B)", etc.) and from there you would be able to pick which verse in specific

[VikingDave]

How? ... for that matter, can someone give me clarification on how to set up TOC versus just links within the document (via html tags)?

[Finn Kerr]

The User Guide that comes with the Reader is an example of how it looks. I don't know exactly how it's done but maybe by studying the User Guide someone can figure out how to do this...

[VikingDave]

In the meantime, I have been as frustrated as everyone else in getting a Bible that one can quickly navigate in church. Using this in church, for sermons and Bible studies is an important aspect of having the Bible on the Reader.

So I spent a good part of this week creating a KJV solution. It's not perfect, but certainly has proven to be an improvement when it comes to navigating Scriptures in church. I've separated it into 9 separate books in the same collection. That way, there is another layer to the TOC (really just collection choices). Plus, the smaller size of the individual books makes for faster formatting (provided the preacher doesn't jump around passages too much). With the Collection giving nine choices and then the TOC giving up to 10 books of the Bible as needed, I've then added normal links for grouped chapter jumping and then individual chapter jumps. In the end, it makes for a pretty quick navigation if you just use the joystick & button without waiting for the screen to refresh.

I'm posting here as I know someone else will find this useful. Try it out and let me know what you think.

[Lilly]

It looks great; you did a good job. I was able to navigate quickly through it on my computer. I will try it on the reader tomorrow ad give you more feedback!