Please Test: Final (?) Art of War custom PDF eBooks

[ahi]

I apologize for starting a separate thread for this, but given that I have (unless I get some good suggestions) finished work on 8 custom PDF eBooks, I think they appropriately belong in a new thread.

Please test the appropriate files on the appropriate devices. The PDF files are named by the screen size they are meant for and the font size they use.

Sony Readers, Cybooks, HanLin eBooks, Kindle 2, and other 6 inch screen eBook readers:

taowde_6in_10pt.pdf (6 inch screen / 10 pt font size)
taowde_6in_12pt.pdf (6 inch screen / 12 pt font size)

iRex iLiad and other 8 inch screen eBook readers:

taowde_8in_10pt.pdf (8 inch screen / 10 pt font size)
taowde_8in_12pt.pdf (8 inch screen / 12 pt font size)

iRex Digital Reader, Amazon Kindle DX, Astak Mentor, and other 10 inch screen eBook readers:

taowde_10in_10pt.pdf (10 inch screen / 10 pt font size)
taowde_10in_10pt_ls.pdf (10 inch screen / 10 pt font size / 2 col. landscape)
taowde_10in_12pt.pdf (10 inch screen / 12 pt font size)
taowde_10in_12pt_ls.pdf (10 inch screen / 12 pt font size / 2 col. landscape)

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For the 10 inch screen devices, I recommend trying the landscape versions. You might have to explicitly orientate your device to view the PDF landscape. Or, if the landscape PDFs should automatically appear "sideways", let me know and I will fix them accordingly.

Any other suggestions for any other files/editions would be greatly welcome. I promise this will be my last "please test" thread for the foreseeable future.

Thanks everyone, and enjoy what may be the only free online version of this translation of Sun Tzu's Art of War that does not insinuate aquatic training to be a necessity for spies. (The Project Gutenberg edition, along with seemingly anything and everything that used the same as its source material [including quite a few great selling paperback books], have a long-standing mistake in the very last sentence of the book: "Spies are a most important element in water, because on them depends an army's ability to move." Needless to say, the correct version of the bolded text is "in war".)

- Ahi

[ahi]

Also, please note, as stated in a previous thread, ePub and Mobipocket (and probably also LRF) files will be released in addition to these PDFs for this eBook.

So let's not get into the suitability of PDF to be an eBook's sole provided format, because it won't be.

[gwynevans]

taowde_6in_10pt looks very nice & both ToCs (internal & external) seem to work correctly on the 505.

[DDHarriman]

Hi

Tested the two 6” versions on the Cybook.

Both look outstanding, with 2 situations:
1 - the front page is cut out,the word War, the R is almost missing;
2 - one can see the TOC, but there is no “jumping” to the chapter from the TOC as it does do in the 505 (from gwynevens) post. Probably this is a Cybook PDF handling restriction.

Best regards,

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by DDHarriman

1 - the front page is cut out,the word War, the R is almost missing;
2 - one can see the TOC, but there is no “jumping” to the chapter from the TOC as it does do in the 505 (from gwynevens) post. Probably this is a Cybook PDF handling restriction.

I haven't tested it, but:

1 - I have seen the Cybook dropping some elements of a page too. It was in the covers of PDFs created by me, and the dropped elements were just black rectangles (which maybe bleed a little bit out of the page). This didn't happen with the first firmware versions, but it does with the latest 1 or 2 public releases.

2 - The Cybook does not support hyperlinks or bookmarks in PDFs, indeed.

[ahi]

Thanks for the feedback so far!

Jellby, regarding the dropping of page elements on the Cybook, I am not sure I entirely understand what is happening and what I could do to prevent it.

Is the cover being arbitrarily trimmed of "empty margins", and the software is ovezealous and cuts off some of the content too?

Do you have a recommendation as to how I could alter the cover page of the relevant PDFs, to not trigger this behavior in Cybooks? Ought I leave a white border outside of the black rectangle of the cover?

- Ahi

Ps.: Any chance, DDHarriman, that you could post a picture of the cover issues you are experiencing?

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by ahi

Is the cover being arbitrarily trimmed of "empty margins", and the software is ovezealous and cuts off some of the content too?

No, it does not trim the page, but it seems like some elements are just not displayed. I seem to remember this didn't happen with some zoom options, but I can't tell now.

Do you have a recommendation as to how I could alter the cover page of the relevant PDFs, to not trigger this behavior in Cybooks? Ought I leave a white border outside of the black rectangle of the cover?

No, unfortunately I'm not sure what triggers this bug, but I'm sure it didn't happen (to me) with the first firmware versions, and I think I informed Bookeen of this bug. I expect it to be fixed in the next firmware (especially since the PDF support seems to be totally changed to ADE), maybe it is already fixed in the 8xx and Weltbild builds.

[ahi]

Is it fair to consider it a firmware bug then, and do nothing about it, with the expectation it will soon be fixed? Although if anybody has some suggestions as to how to try to get around the issue, I would be happy to make the attempt.

I am particularly interested in finding out how people find the 10 inch landscape documents.

[DDHarriman]

Hi

It’s for sure a problem with the Cybook way of rendering pdf files in today’s incarnation of the firmware.
I have just checked the same file with my Sony 505 and it renders perfectly including the front page.
So my advice is, leave it as it is, it’s a Cybook problem, not yours and luckily it will be repaired in the next firmware - we are hoping it’s very similar to the Sony one concerning rendering pdf’s, so… it should behave very similar as the 505 now does.

Here are the photos you requested:

1 - it’s the front page with page zoom. As you can see it’s a part cut and this is made by the Cybook. Interesting enough, all the rest of the file renders perfectly without any cut or strange thing, besides not having “jump to” toc when the 505 as it working (its own external toc);
2 - the same front page zoomed at 80%. One can see the white margin around the image, and still it cuts it.

Best reagards,

[ahi]

DDHarriman, actually I do have an idea as to how it might be fixed. I haven't figured out the specifics of it yet.

Can I ask you to check back to this thread sometime this weekend? I will post an update that I anticipate should not have this issue on the Cybook. Your expert judgment as to whether said attempt is a success or a failure would be greatly valued!

- Ahi

[=X=]

Ahi can I ask for a favor. I really like quality of your book and plan to buy it when it goes on sale but it looks like you settled on 10/12pts. Would you be willing to make an 8pt book for me now or later when you do put the book up for sale?

=X=

[taosaur]

I tried out all the 10" files on my netbook and the most readable was the 12pt landscape in two columns, which I kept

The two-column layout works well for the numbered lists that make up the bulk of the text, but it's a bit laborious for the larger blocks of text in the introduction. I might have done a single offset column half again as wide as your split-page columns for the introduction only.

While I generally find portrait preferable, in these portrait editions I found the lines too long for comfortable scanning. While I appreciate the effort to put my screen real-estate to use, half-inch or one inch margins might produce a more readable text.

I do like the presentation of the main text in the landscape copy, and will keep it on hand for reference. On brief perusal, the translation seems more accessible than my print edition.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by =X=

Ahi can I ask for a favor. I really like quality of your book and plan to buy it when it goes on sale but it looks like you settled on 10/12pts. Would you be willing to make an 8pt book for me know or later when you do put the book up for sale?

=X=

Certainly. Doing smaller font-sizes is easier... it's going larger that can be problematic because then things start to look like crap on the smaller screen-sizes.

I'll let you know the details by this weekend.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by taosaur

I tried out all the 10" files on my netbook and the most readable was the 12pt landscape in two columns, which I kept

The two-column layout works well for the numbered lists that make up the bulk of the text, but it's a bit laborious for the larger blocks of text in the introduction. I might have done a single offset column half again as wide as your split-page columns for the introduction only.

While I generally find portrait preferable, in these portrait editions I found the lines too long for comfortable scanning. While I appreciate the effort to put my screen real-estate to use, half-inch or one inch margins might produce a more readable text.

I do like the presentation of the main text in the landscape copy, and will keep it on hand for reference. On brief perusal, the translation seems more accessible than my print edition.

Thanks for the feedback! ;-) Glad you like it for the most part.

I will (probably tomorrow or on Saturday) upload a version that implements your suggestion in the introduction. If possible, please check it when it is up. My gut feeling is that you won't like it.

Regarding the margins... do you think it's sensible to go a route where smaller display size editions aim to minimize the margin, while the 10 inch display editions do margins comparable to actual paper books? The 10 inch display, after all, is almost around the size of a small to medium size paperback page.

Thanks again, and I'll post the file tomorrow or the day after!

- Ahi

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by ahi

Regarding the margins... do you think it's sensible to go a route where smaller display size editions aim to minimize the margin, while the 10 inch display editions do margins comparable to actual paper books? The 10 inch display, after all, is almost around the size of a small to medium size paperback page.

Actually, a 10" widescreen in portrait is about as wide and a bit taller than a typical hardcover. Most PDFs from print works will be comfortably readable and book-like without tweaking, and paperbacks will be blown up to about 150%. In FBReader, I read everything (xhtml formats) portrait with margins set to approximate the line-length of a hardcover. My preferences for line-length might not be universal, but it's at least as important as font size for comfortable reading.

The problem with PDFs--especially DRMed PDFs--on a laptop is the display software. ADE is considerably less functional than Adobe Reader, and neither launches ready-to-read.