.pdf versus .lrf

[popa]

Hello everybody! I'm interested in putting some of my writing up on the ScripD site. So I bought a PRS-505 with the idea of testing this idea by first creating .pdf files on my Mac and uploading them to my PRS-505. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending how you look at it) this experiment worked all right, but my .pdf files don't format as slick as .lrf files. A couple of examples:

(1) The [i] Info screen for .lrf contains information that I don't know how to give the PRS-505 with a .pdf . Perhaps there's some PDF info I don't know about? This information is important because ... you know .. it's about me!

(2) The name of the work dependably shows up in the upper-right corner in the .lrf format on all pages. With a .pdf file, it's hard to predict what's going to happen.

Any ideas or comments would be appreciated! Perhaps there is a conversion manual I don't know about??

Cheers!

Henry

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by popa

Hello everybody! I'm interested in putting some of my writing up on the ScripD site. So I bought a PRS-505 with the idea of testing this idea by first creating .pdf files on my Mac and uploading them to my PRS-505. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending how you look at it) this experiment worked all right, but my .pdf files don't format as slick as .lrf files. A couple of examples:

(1) The [i] Info screen for .lrf contains information that I don't know how to give the PRS-505 with a .pdf . Perhaps there's some PDF info I don't know about? This information is important because ... you know .. it's about me!

(2) The name of the work dependably shows up in the upper-right corner in the .lrf format on all pages. With a .pdf file, it's hard to predict what's going to happen.

Any ideas or comments would be appreciated! Perhaps there is a conversion manual I don't know about??

Cheers!

Henry

If it's writing you wish to sell then Smashwords is probably your best bet http://www.smashwords.com they cater for all devices and have an 20/80% revenue split in favour of the author.

If its just to get your work out there or make it available you can't do any better than Feedbooks IMHO http://www.feedbooks.com excellent creation tools, brilliant layout, easy to use, I have my writing posted there

One thing; PDF is a rubbish format for almost any kind of e-device reading, it doesn't reflow properly and, well, it's just a headache all around. LRF is the unencrypted version of Sony's proprietory LRX format, and I don't have much truck with it, because I prefer ePub (the industry ebook standad) which you can learn heaps about here at MR.

I hope that I've been some help

Oh, and welcome to MobileRead before I forget

[Verencat]

Welcome to Mobile Read Popa!

[MickeyC]

Hi popa and welcome to MobileRead

[kazbates]

Welcome to MobileRead, Henry!

Since MoeJoe, one of our resident terrific authors, has give some great advice, I will just add that you should check out the Writer's Corner forum and the Workshop forum. They might be able to help give you information about creating ebooks. Enjoy your reader, I love my 700 , and Happy Reading!

[Lady Blue]

Hello Henry, and to Mobileread.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by popa

(1) The [i] Info screen for .lrf contains information that I don't know how to give the PRS-505 with a .pdf . Perhaps there's some PDF info I don't know about? This information is important because ... you know .. it's about me!

The name for that info is "metadata"--information about a digital file, often included within it. Creating the title/author/etc metadata for PDFs depends on what program you use to create them. (I use Microsoft Word; in the dropdown under File/Properties, there's spots for title & author and other categories I generally ignore.)

There are also free programs that can edit PDF metadata, like BeCyPDFMetaEdit, if you can't figure out how to set the info in the source file.

(2) The name of the work dependably shows up in the upper-right corner in the .lrf format on all pages. With a .pdf file, it's hard to predict what's going to happen.

To fix that, you'd need to make sure your PDF is formatted for Reader-sized pages: 3.46" x 4.6" pages, with very tiny margins. (I use 10 point fonts and .1" margins all around, but some people like larger text and a bit more white space.)

To make the headers/footers show up correctly (without too much extra space around them), you'll probably have to adjust the default settings on those as well; word-processing programs assume letter-sized or A4 pages.

However, for commercial distribution of ebooks, PDFs are troublesome. Perfect settings for one person are a nuisance for others, and they're not easily adjustable for reader convenience.

For commercial works, I second the recommendation for Smashwords, which offers several ebook formats, and allows authors to set the amount of free preview, if any, they want to allow. For noncommercial, Feedbooks is a great resource, and Smashwords is still available--you can allow books to be free, or set them to "you set the price," so the readers can download for free, or pay something if they wish.