Free on oprah.com - Heroic Meaures

[Thrasymachus]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Oprah says the Kindle is her new favorite toy. So she pushes it on her show. Now we know that is total BS as she's giving away PDF.

I can't agree. Surely the reason she's giving away the PDF is that almost every computer can open that file format. And would it be better if she gave away an ebook formatted for Kindle alone?

Of course PDF is an annoying format, but I bet 95% of Oprah's audience would be baffled and annoyed if it was in any other format.

Geez, I can't believe I'm defending Ophrah!

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Oprah says the Kindle is her new favorite toy. So she pushes it on her show. Now we know that is total BS as she's giving away PDF.

She's also giving away Sony 700s in her Summer Give-Away but I don't think the chosen format has anything to do with the Kindle being her favorite thing. She would know that Kindle owners can convert the pdf for use on their Kindles, people who win a Sony can read the PDF, and those without Kindles or Sonys can read the PDF on their computers. She's hitting all the bases.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

She's also giving away Sony 700s in her Summer Give-Away but I don't think the chosen format has anything to do with the Kindle being her favorite thing. She would know that Kindle owners can convert the pdf for use on their Kindles, people who win a Sony can read the PDF, and those without Kindles or Sonys can read the PDF on their computers. She's hitting all the bases.

She's still alienating her fan base by being eBook clueless.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

She's still alienating her fan base by being eBook clueless.

No. She isn't.

Originally Posted by Thrasymachus

Surely the reason she's giving away the PDF is that almost every computer can open that file format.

...

Of course PDF is an annoying format, but I bet 95% of Oprah's audience would be baffled and annoyed if it was in any other format.

- Ahi

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

She's still alienating her fan base by being eBook clueless.

That's just your opinion. You have no idea about her fan base or how savvy they are about ebooks or anything. If they are savvy they will understand why she chose PDF (as I've described above). If they aren't they are just moving along with their lives and focusing on other things.

[kelly1010]

Originally Posted by koland

This also ends up with a long tag inserted every couple of paragraphs, after converting to epub or mobi. Looks like about an hour of cleanup (search/replace doesn't find them all due to line breaks and various numbers added after the main info, plus date/time changes on them as you go thru the book).

I left it as pdf and while some of the page breaks are choppy when I switch it to larger fonts, it's nothing that I can't deal with since it is, in fact, FREE.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Oprah says the Kindle is her new favorite toy. So she pushes it on her show. Now we know that is total BS as she's giving away PDF.

So what if the Kindle is her new favorite toy. All I care about is that I can read the FREE ebook she's giving away. If it was a Kindle only format, I wouldn't be able to do that. I honestly don't care what reader she prefers, I care which reader I prefer and getting books I want on my reader is what matters to me.

[Abecedary]

Originally Posted by Thrasymachus

I can't agree. Surely the reason she's giving away the PDF is that almost every computer can open that file format. And would it be better if she gave away an ebook formatted for Kindle alone?

Of course PDF is an annoying format, but I bet 95% of Oprah's audience would be baffled and annoyed if it was in any other format.

Geez, I can't believe I'm defending Ophrah!

Also if you'll notice, the last page of the book has been added in with direct links for people to buy a hardcopy version. Basically, they're offering the full PDF book as a teaser with the hopes that a percentage of the readers will start reading the PDF, then buy the hardcopy version to finish it. And I can guarantee that from a marketing perspective, that strategy will work.

[bookratt]

Originally Posted by Faenad

Thanks! This book seems interesting.

I don't have ADE and directly saved the PDF on my computer instead of opening it in a Adobe's browser plugin. It was saved as a regular PDF that convert flawlessly to others formats.
BTW here is the direct link to the book :
http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazi...ook-download-1

Appreciate the direct website link!

Also a big karma thanks to Spankypoo and his link for the password site: For the registration impaired. I didn't want to sign up for her website - no way!

[Faenad]

Originally Posted by Thrasymachus

How did you convert it? I used calibre, and both LRF and MOBI added the file info to each page, as described by several posters earlier.

I used Mobipocket Creator to convert the PDF to a HTML file.
The file info appears only once, in the title of the HTML page.

I checked the conversion, it's almost perfect. Though a few pages numbers have tagged along, so if you want a perfect conversion you should crop the margin of the PDF first with a software like PDFill PDF Tools (to remove the page numbers).

My guess is that other converters like ConvertDoc would works quite correctly too ; as alas the PDF conversion feature of Calibre is not as good as the rest of the software.
As a rule I tend to convert first Pdf to doc or html before putting it through Calibre to generate my custom LRF.

Here the links to these software (they are both free) :

Mobipocket Creator

PDFill PDF Tools

[Thrasymachus]

Originally Posted by Faenad

I used Mobipocket Creator to convert the PDF to a HTML file.
The file info appears only once, in the title of the HTML page.

I checked the conversion, it's almost perfect. Though a few pages numbers have tagged along, so if you want a perfect conversion you should crop the margin of the PDF first with a software like PDFill PDF Tools (to remove the page numbers).

My guess is that other converters like ConvertDoc would works quite correctly too ; as alas the PDF conversion feature of Calibre is not as good as the rest of the software.
As a rule I tend to convert first Pdf to doc or html before putting it through Calibre to generate my custom LRF.

Here the links to these software (they are both free) :

Mobipocket Creator

PDFill PDF Tools

This is VERY much appreciated; thanks!

[new]

Originally Posted by Faenad

I used Mobipocket Creator to convert the PDF to a HTML file.
The file info appears only once, in the title of the HTML page.

I checked the conversion, it's almost perfect. Though a few pages numbers have tagged along, so if you want a perfect conversion you should crop the margin of the PDF first with a software like PDFill PDF Tools (to remove the page numbers).

My guess is that other converters like ConvertDoc would works quite correctly too ; as alas the PDF conversion feature of Calibre is not as good as the rest of the software.
As a rule I tend to convert first Pdf to doc or html before putting it through Calibre to generate my custom LRF.

Here the links to these software (they are both free) :

Mobipocket Creator

PDFill PDF Tools

Bummer it is only for Windows
Anything for Apple users to convert?

[Wetdogeared]

I get...

The free offer to download ill Ciment's irresistable new novel, Heroic Measures has expired, but you can start reading the first chapter of the book today.

...I guess I missed it.

[Skydog]

Darn... I missed it too.

[koland]

Mac users can use Calibre - but the PDF conversion is not very good. I tried it and the book was nearly unreadable, as every couple of paragraphs there was info about the header: title name, conversion info, page numbers every other page, etc. Too bad, as it's other conversion generally are fine.

The mobi conversion looked good (and it was easy to edit the html, add a TOC and create a book, in a matter of minutes). Perhaps you could run it in a windows emulator on your mac?

[new]

Originally Posted by koland

Mac users can use Calibre - but the PDF conversion is not very good. I tried it and the book was nearly unreadable, as every couple of paragraphs there was info about the header: title name, conversion info, page numbers every other page, etc. Too bad, as it's other conversion generally are fine.

The mobi conversion looked good (and it was easy to edit the html, add a TOC and create a book, in a matter of minutes). Perhaps you could run it in a windows emulator on your mac?

Cringe, I would never want windows to touch my mac

Doesn't anyone use software on a mac that converts?

I guess I could sit at my windows computer, which I only do when I HAVE TO. What is the fastest and easiest software to use.

I agree the book is a mess using Calibre.

Thanks.