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Old 10-21-2011, 11:03 AM   #1
Zim
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Question tables, math formulas & different fonts in a .mobi file?
Hallo,

I am studying computer sience and bought the kindle also for studying. The Problem is to find scientific papers in a format the kindle can consume. So I decided to convert .pdfs to the mobi format. I've tried using calibre for this purpose. The conversion product is unreadable, because of three reasons:
  • no picture is placed beside a text and text is not wrapped around pictures. (I could live with placing each picture in its own line however this is not a solution for images used instead of dots in a list like this one)
  • calibre does not place different font styles even if the source is html and formatted with different font tags. (when you read a programmer's book you will notice that example code is written in a different font than normal text. While normal text is best read when each Character has its own specific space, code is best read in mono type fonts. That means each character is exactly as wide as every other charakter. It also helps determining which parts are explanation text and which are example code.)
  • tables are not converted or in a way that cannot be read
Is it in general possible to make text wrap an image and format text with different font styles? How about tables and math formulas? Is there a way to display them (except the method of placing them as an image)?

Greetings Zim =)

-- edit 4 the discoveries =)
Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer View Post
No. Text wrapping is not an option (unless the wrapped text is part of the image).
This is true for the amozon kindle 3. The .mobi format itself supports text wrapping. Howerver I would not recommend it for publications, because you cannot be shure how it will be displayed on various platforms.

Tables can be used and are displayed by the kindle 3. Try converting the following code.
Spoiler:
Code:
<html>
<head>
<title>Aufbau einer Tabelle</title>
</head>
<body>

<h1>Tabelle mit Gitternetzlinien</h1>

<table border="1">
  <tr>
    <th>Berlin</th>
    <th>Hamburg</th>
    <th>M&uuml;nchen</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Milj&ouml;h</td>
    <td>Kiez</td>
    <td>Bierdampf</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Buletten</td>
    <td>Frikadellen</td>
    <td>Fleischpflanzerl</td>
  </tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

Authors can mark text to be displayed by the kindle3 using a monospace-font by either using the <tt> or <pre> tag (the last one is especially useful for displaying code blocks). You can also use cascading style sheets to mark text to be displayed using a monospace-font. Try the following code for a reference:
Spoiler:
Code:
<html>
  <head>
<!-- you might find ".smallmono" also useful, because unwanted line wraps are awkward in code blocks and monotype-fonts with small hight can be read easily. -->
    <style type="text/css">
      .mono {font-family: monospace;}
      .smallmono {
        font-family: monospace;
        font-size: smaller;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>test 123 Hello World!</p>
    <p class="mono">test 123 Hello World!</p>
    <p class="smallmono">test 123 Hello World!</p>
  </body>
</html>
Last edited by Zim; 10-22-2011 at 08:26 PM.
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Old 10-21-2011, 12:02 PM   #2
DiapDealer
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zim View Post
Is it in general possible to make text wrap an image and format text with different font styles?
No. Text wrapping is not an option (unless the wrapped text is part of the image). And with the exception of the <tt> tag—which will cause the Kindle to render text with its built-in mono-space font—different font styles are not possible either.

Quote:
How about tables and math formulas? Is there a way to display them (except the method of placing them as an image)?
Unfortunately, no.

That may all be changing with the announcement of the new Kindle format, but it's unclear which devices will be updated to be able to render that new format.
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Old 10-21-2011, 12:03 PM   #3
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Read: http://www.mobipocket.com/dev/articl...eFolder=prcgen.

You can use a different font by using the <pre> tag, I believe. .mobi does not have very fancy formatting, but it can do pretty well, witness the O'Reilly books in .mobi format.
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Old 10-22-2011, 07:10 PM   #4
Zim
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Thankyou for all the replys. I'll edit the top thread to what I discovered =)
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