Text formatting for .txt files

[motorhead]

Most of my books are in txt format and I get some weird cut-off lines. One line will go all the way to the end, next line will be a word or two. Not all of my books are like that, so I assume it has something to do with the formatting. I tried getting the wolf printer and simply reformatting the books and saving them as txt again, but this doesn't work because it doesn't change the actual text, it just makes some margins. So does anyone have any idea how I can reformat my books to be legible? I don't want to have to convert them to a different format.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by motorhead

Most of my books are in txt format and I get some weird cut-off lines. One line will go all the way to the end, next line will be a word or two. Not all of my books are like that, so I assume it has something to do with the formatting. I tried getting the wolf printer and simply reformatting the books and saving them as txt again, but this doesn't work because it doesn't change the actual text, it just makes some margins. So does anyone have any idea how I can reformat my books to be legible? I don't want to have to convert them to a different format.

The problem is that you have the cr/lf characters at the end of the line in the file. Look at the file in Notepad on your pc and turn off wrap and you will see what is going on. What is happening is that your txt files were built assuming an 80 character line, roughly 800 pixels or so depending on the font size. Since your screen is smaller the reader wraps the line at the width of the screen but then the line end character(s) get reached and and they force the line end to happen. This is why you see a long line followed by a short line. Read TXT in the wiki for more details on what is going on. Project Gutenberg is the major cause of this problem and they put in line end characters at the end of every line based on the length of the line in a paper book.

Now that you understand the problem there are some fixes that can be applied. The fix is to remove all these line ends but still maintain the paragraph boundaries. Typically a paragraph in your files is likely to be defined by a blank line so it can be detected. There are some utilities you can find to help with the task. One way is to read your file into Word and allow it to get rid of all the line ends and then resave it as text again. The wiki also has a page of utilities that can convert and fix problems of this sort.

Dale

[motorhead]

I feel retarded after spending a day with Word and finally ending up with the same thing I had at the beginning, but I did find a way to read my book...I converted it to fb2, that fixed everything.
Is there any alternative software for the V3 that reformats the text while reading? The Lreader for the V8 could do that.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by motorhead

I feel retarded after spending a day with Word and finally ending up with the same thing I had at the beginning, but I did find a way to read my book...I converted it to fb2, that fixed everything.
Is there any alternative software for the V3 that reformats the text while reading? The Lreader for the V8 could do that.

I am glad you found a solution. Currently I am not aware that you can load your own software on a Hanlin V3 so no, you are stuck with what you have. I have suggest to the folks at EZ Reader that they should add the ability to reflow text in the TXT format but they are not far enough along to do any custom stuff yet. They do have Jinke's ear so perhaps something will come from Jinke to do this. It would be a great feature I believe. There are some simple things like this that could make TXT a viable format for reading.

Dale

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by motorhead

Is there any alternative software for the V3 that reformats the text while reading?

FBReader typically handles badly formatted TXT well (you can check your files using the Desktop version of FBReader). It is available via OpenInkPot, which is an alternative firmware for the V3 but can also be run on top of the existing firmware using OI-on-SD.

[motorhead]

So far only the conversion to fb2 worked. I even tried installing OI, but it still didn't fix it. Thank you very much for your help DaleDe and wallcraft.

[Gudy]

Originally Posted by motorhead

Is there any alternative software for the V3 that reformats the text while reading?

Which firmware (date and producer) are you running right now? I know that older lBook firmwares, e.g. 1.23-20080129, were configured to use crengine for .txt files, which dealt with PG-formatted files like yours just fine, while the Jinke firmware used their own txt reader, which displayed the problem you describe.

I haven't read a txt file in a while, so I don't know the current state of affairs, sadly.

[motorhead]

Originally Posted by Gudy

Which firmware (date and producer) are you running right now? I know that older lBook firmwares, e.g. 1.23-20080129, were configured to use crengine for .txt files, which dealt with PG-formatted files like yours just fine, while the Jinke firmware used their own txt reader, which displayed the problem you describe.

I haven't read a txt file in a while, so I don't know the current state of affairs, sadly.

I've tried the latest Bebook, Jinke and OI firmwares and I've tried reformatting the text in word with thousands of options, I tried the Hanlin printer thing, tried adjusting margins,font sizes, line breaks,paragraphs. Should be at least 10 more things i've tried,but I just can't remember.
Anyway I got this
http://www.the-ebook.org/rus/?dl_id=1
and i just converted the book by pushing a button accidentally...and it pretty much fixed everything. I'll just stick to using other people's things. My solutions suck.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by motorhead

Anyway I got this
http://www.the-ebook.org/rus/?dl_id=1
and i just converted the book by pushing a button accidentally.

You may want to upgrade to the latest version, see Wiki: Book Designer.

[DaleDe]

for help in dealing with TXT files I have updated the Gutenberg wiki entry and collected all the assumptions and conventions used by PG into a simple list. hope it will be helpful.

Dale