Newbie PRS-505 User: Critical Software?

Hamza · 01-11-2008, 08:12 PM

Hi everyone:

Longtime lurker, third time poster here. I'm jubilantly awaiting my new Sony PRS-505: it'll be my first eReader. I was turned on to eReaders by a close friend (and coworker) who, noticing my abject boredom one slow day, dropped his PRS-500 on my desk. Needless to say, one "Burmese Days" and half a "Wigan's Peer" later, I was hooked. I picked the Sony over the Kindle since, despite its wifi capability etc., the Kindle was just embarrassing to carry around. I want a sexy eReader, not the one that couldn't get a date to prom -- and if you've ever seen the Kindle in person, then you know the Kindle dances alone.

So here's my question: What are the critical softwares and l33t haxxs I need on my PRS-505? My mate is able to download the entire New York Times on his 500. How do I do that? How do I get other newspapers, etc.? What other cool programs will I need on my new unit? Any critical things I need to know?

Flood me with advice and linkage, please.

kovidgoyal · 01-11-2008, 08:18 PM

https://libprs500.kovidgoyal.net/

dhbailey · 01-12-2008, 07:42 AM

I am a user (and have paid, as I urge others to do) of libprs500 and think that it is a fantastic program and agree with Kovid that it is the most important to get.

However, PDFLRS is also a great program to get and I have found that it works wonders with the entirely-graphics googlebooks files. This is especially important for books which include graphics such as music books (song books, theory/harmony/counterpoint books). But all googlebooks are merely graphical scans of books, as opposed to Project Gutenberg files which are all available as plain text files, with many also being available as html files which include the graphics.

Also useful are web2book and BookDesigner. If you download BookDesigner, be sure to read the sticky messages under Reader Content forum and be sure to download Harry T's wonderful tutorial on using BookDesigner.

The only other things to get, possibly, are the Word macro which easily strips the unnecessary hard returns from the PG plain text files to make the text flow more nicely for files you don't want to bother with any of the conversion programs with, or the Librie Text Assistant which does the same thing independently of any word processor. This is easy -- Click on OPEN and navigate to the text file, click PROCESS then click SAVE and the book is rewritten still as a plain text file but with the hard returns at the end of each line removed, while keeping the double hard-returns intact for paragraph separation.

01-11-2008, 08:12 PM	#1
Hamza Member Posts: 22 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2007 Device: None Yet	Newbie PRS-505 User: Critical Software? Hi everyone: Longtime lurker, third time poster here. I'm jubilantly awaiting my new Sony PRS-505: it'll be my first eReader. I was turned on to eReaders by a close friend (and coworker) who, noticing my abject boredom one slow day, dropped his PRS-500 on my desk. Needless to say, one "Burmese Days" and half a "Wigan's Peer" later, I was hooked. I picked the Sony over the Kindle since, despite its wifi capability etc., the Kindle was just embarrassing to carry around. I want a sexy eReader, not the one that couldn't get a date to prom -- and if you've ever seen the Kindle in person, then you know the Kindle dances alone. So here's my question: What are the critical softwares and l33t haxxs I need on my PRS-505? My mate is able to download the entire New York Times on his 500. How do I do that? How do I get other newspapers, etc.? What other cool programs will I need on my new unit? Any critical things I need to know? Flood me with advice and linkage, please. Last edited by Hamza; 01-11-2008 at 08:14 PM.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Hi, a new PRS-505 user here!	craj999	Introduce Yourself	6	01-19-2010 08:47 PM
One more PRS-505 user	mszklano	Introduce Yourself	8	10-11-2009 03:28 PM
PRS 700 review from a K1 and PRS 505 user	Donnageddon	Sony Reader	10	04-09-2009 10:38 PM
New PRS-505 User	tauras	Introduce Yourself	8	01-02-2009 02:23 AM
PRS-505 new user	haoc	Sony Reader Dev Corner	0	11-08-2007 09:06 AM

01-11-2008, 08:18 PM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,168 Karma: 27110894 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	https://libprs500.kovidgoyal.net/

01-12-2008, 07:42 AM	#3
dhbailey Guru Posts: 604 Karma: 733 Join Date: Mar 2007 Device: HP iPAQ211 / PRS 500, 700 and 505	I am a user (and have paid, as I urge others to do) of libprs500 and think that it is a fantastic program and agree with Kovid that it is the most important to get. However, PDFLRS is also a great program to get and I have found that it works wonders with the entirely-graphics googlebooks files. This is especially important for books which include graphics such as music books (song books, theory/harmony/counterpoint books). But all googlebooks are merely graphical scans of books, as opposed to Project Gutenberg files which are all available as plain text files, with many also being available as html files which include the graphics. Also useful are web2book and BookDesigner. If you download BookDesigner, be sure to read the sticky messages under Reader Content forum and be sure to download Harry T's wonderful tutorial on using BookDesigner. The only other things to get, possibly, are the Word macro which easily strips the unnecessary hard returns from the PG plain text files to make the text flow more nicely for files you don't want to bother with any of the conversion programs with, or the Librie Text Assistant which does the same thing independently of any word processor. This is easy -- Click on OPEN and navigate to the text file, click PROCESS then click SAVE and the book is rewritten still as a plain text file but with the hard returns at the end of each line removed, while keeping the double hard-returns intact for paragraph separation.

Advert