'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' adapted E-Readers

[KindleFan1]

They went through a lot of effort.

Judith Jones, the recently retired editor at Knopf who acquired “Mastering” in 1961, was one of the people who objected, arguing that the publisher should abandon the effort until an e-book could faithfully reproduce the original.

When Knopf tried again this summer, the production staff had the entire book retyped by hand, since no electronic file of the book existed. The illustrations throughout the cookbook — tiny sketches of sauté pans and freshly julienned carrots — were scanned at a high resolution so they could be transferred to the e-book. And the publisher managed to recreate the two-column format, just like the original version of “Mastering.”

the book is better experienced on tablets than on dedicated e-readers. While it is possible to read it on a black-and-white Kindle or Nook, many of the design elements cannot be viewed on those devices.

Still, eager food writers have hailed the release as “a milestone of sorts,” as the blogger Cookbook Man noted this week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/bo...evolution.html