Oy the joys of new technology

[nadinbrzezinski]

Last edited Tue Dec 27, 2011, 02:46 AM - Edit history (1)

Working on an essay on OWS and working on the kinks now. It will need a once more, but also I need to learn how to convert to different ebook files. So right now got the thing converted to EPUB, and learned a few things... THE NAME of the file is the name of the book... so... will need to rename the FINAL file to the tittle of the Essay. #OCCUPY: Guide to the Perplexed. Simple, yes. But I also used some of my own photos, so will go though this draft to see layout and other issues... ah the joy of learning new tech.

It will give me a week or so to also mark MAJOR editing issues... as well as stupid layout ones. Why I exported the thing.

Ah the joy of new formats.

Will have it for sale for a nominal fee at both Kindle and Nook, and Ibook... and I mean the nominal part. Most people charge a lot more, but hell, this is needed. I might even put it on Lulu, have an account after all, for whatever we need for a slight profit... I know some people need hard paper copies.

Oh and one last thing I used Calibre, it will play well with PDF, not other formats. Oh and Pages will not export to EPUB, but just text.

As I said, all the joys of this... I figured using some of my photos was a good idea. I mean I have but a few.



Ah first issue... where did them footnotes go to? Will have to make them endnote and see if that works...

Why you never, ever release something like this before a dry run or two. (For the record I much prefer footnotes, but the format will simply NOT do it)

[HopeHoops]

1. Give it time. I started with HTML 1.0 and it was dirt simple.

I hand code all of my HTML and CSS files because I don't like all the bullshit the "layout" tools insert and they don't use returns or indentation in the files. It makes them a bitch to hand edit. I can toss together a Notepad web site in a fraction of the time. The eBook format changes a lot. Don't bother with a TOC with links. Doesn't work (as far as I've been able to tell). It isn't up to speed for referenced material yet.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Scivener does the best compilation to both EPUB and Mobi

oh the joys... at least I had it already... now to make a whole new file so it names it correctly or rename the file... oh and yes editing, lovely editing.

[HopeHoops]

3. It's a tough thing to do. Not from a technical perspective but from a device aspect.

They've got client machines that are everything from a smart phone to a huge HDMI monitor. To be fair, it does work on those and everything in between (wrt size). It's just an immature technology but just like HTML, it will get better. The original HTML wasn't intended to be anything like it is now - it was written to be a mark-up language, not a use interface in the manner that it has become. I was resistant to even try it when it came out. I was happy with gopher and FTP. Things have certainly changed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. That it is... now edit the file a couple more times

and test the export files on both the IPAD and the MAC... I know I should also do the WIN machine.

After that, ready to go.

Calibre does an ok job, but Scriv uses an internal engine that is far better.

[HopeHoops]

5. Well that's part of the problem. How many people have one of everything?

I've got a MAC and various versions of M$ Win, but I don't own a Kindle or an iPad or iPhone. Even HTML is a problem that way. IE STILL hasn't caught up to other browsers in the CSS department. Pages will render perfectly on everything else and IE looks like shit. There are some hoops to jump through that work most of the time, but you would think M$ would have figured it out by now. They just don't have much interest in improving IE. They're too focused on fee-for-service like their cloud thing. Would YOU trust M$ with your data on network servers?

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Well at least Kindle got ahead of the curve

I just downloaded the emulator...

I can run it as win, mac, pad, pod, android... that helps.

And you and I are talking way too much inside baseball!

I found out that I will need to find how to do the damn cover.

Ah the joys... Lulu you just upload the damn thing...

[HopeHoops]

7. But not Linux. Whaaaa!

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. I am sure it can, if they have kindle for it

I'm not sure if they do. As is Apple is a cousin.

[HopeHoops]

9. There isn't a free reader for Linux. Damn near everything else, just not that.

My mini is a SSD Linux box (HP shipped it that way) and I love the machine - on almost as soon as you open the lid, light weight, great for keeping by the bed. No eReader yet.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Yes there is

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/fbreader-e-book-reader-for-linux-desktops.html

And I am sure it does either mobi or the other format.

[hunter]

11. fbreader is plain vanilla and ugly.

It will render most ebooks in a readable manner, but neglects some of the very pretty things one can do with the epub format.

Books that look great on my kobo reader don't look so good on fbreader.

The windows version of Adobe Digital Editions works fine for me in linux using wine, but that's not something I'd promise since I'm always tweaking wine and I don't always remember what I've done.