Um, hi?

Dec. 19th, 2009 06:10 pm
[identity profile] silvercat63.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] fanfic_ebooks
Hello, oh wonderful people who can hopefully answer my burning questions! (Is the flattery working?) I'm really interested in Barnes & Noble's new eBook called the nook. The nook just came out about a month ago so it's very new, but it's already back ordered to February 11! I've been keeping an eye on it because I like what I see.The Kindle and Sony eReader just look weird to me, and I don't like the way they operate. But then, I've only ever seen the much abused Sony eReader at my local Best Buy store and the info about the Kindle on Amazon so I could very well be mistaken. The nook is the only ebook/ereader that I've actually gotten to play with and explore much so I may very well be prejudiced. If I am, please set me straight. I'd love to learn more about other devices from people who actually know about them! Anyway, the purpose of this post is to ask if anyone has tried out PDF files converted in NeoOffice on the nook. I have a Mac and use NeoOffice as my main word processor. My plan is to beg for a nook for Christmas and be able to read all my favorite fanfiction when ever and where ever I want. So, do you experts think my plan will work? I don't wanna get the nook only to be disappointed, not that I'd mind having access to B&N's new ebook library and all the other great features, but I really want to read my sl-ah fanfic on the go (and keep it safe - I tend to loose stuff). Thanks! Meg =) P.S. I don't think LiveJournal likes me right now. This post may be a bit confusing because of some format errors - sorry!

Date: 2009-12-19 11:29 pm (UTC)
ext_2410: (Everything Else Blurs)
From: [identity profile] kimberlyfdr.livejournal.com
Honestly? I still say the Sony E-Reader is the best one out of all three. We got one for our office and I subsequently took it home and have used it every single day since October to read slash. The files are non-proprietary, which is a big plus for fanfiction reading, and the navigation couldn't be simpler. Also the files are drag and drop, no conversion necessary.

Date: 2009-12-19 11:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aranel-took.livejournal.com
Once you create a PDF, it should work anywhere. I don't think the source of the original matters once it's converted. I haven't used NeoOffice in years, but I've used Pages for creating PDFs and never had any problems with the results. PDF creation is done through OSX's "Print As..." so it should be similar results no matter what word processor you use.

Date: 2009-12-20 12:06 am (UTC)
amalthia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] amalthia
I'm a big advocate against PDF for any of the devices unless the PDF is made for a specific screen size it never looks good and then if you ever decide to get a device with a smaller or larger screen you'd have to recreate the file.

Right now at Mobile Read forums people are posting their experiences with the Nook I highly recommend reading the posts and seeing how it actually works. Based on what I read it still has a ways to go before becoming a better device. However, I have a Sony PRS-505 and I love it so I'm a bit biased.

Date: 2009-12-20 12:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sineala.livejournal.com
I have a Kindle, and I love it to pieces. I can confirm that PDFs (printed from OSX Print to PDF dialogue) work on the Kindle 2, but unless you've moved the fonts up in size specifically for it, the things are pretty hard to read without any zoom. (I don't know if the nook zooms.) Kindle's rotate-screen feature helps a lot, but honestly, I'd much rather read in .TXT or .MOBI/.PRC on the Kindle, so it can read aloud, adjust fonts, etc. (As far as I know, nook doesn't read .txt.) If you're reading a lot of text without fancy formatting (columns, diagrams, etc), really PDF isn't gonna be needed on the Kindle.

Both the Kindle and nook can read their own proprietary locked formats (mobi/prc/azw versus epub), and they can each read the unlocked version of their own format (but not the other's). If you're looking for free public-domain books (like from Project Gutenberg), most places will generally provide both formats. And as far as I know, the pay bookstore sites have roughly comparable selection. You can also read (mobi) library ebooks on the Kindle with a little finagling; I don't know about the nook. I am also a fan of the kindle's web access -- I can google/wiki something as I read it.

Keep in mind that you can use Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/) to convert pretty much any format to whatever the reader you pick will read. So if you're just gonna read slash, really, any reader you like will work.

Date: 2009-12-20 09:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] josieb1.livejournal.com
I agree with using Calibre, whatever machine you end up with make sure you use Calibre as well,its a fabulous piece of software and completly free. You should be able to run ebook librarys and upload from both Calibre and the software that comes with the machine, I can with the Sony

Date: 2009-12-20 12:53 am (UTC)
elf: Quote: She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain (Fond of Books)
From: [personal profile] elf
First: The Ebook Comparison Chart of DOOOOOMMM, with far more technical info than any human being is interested in.

Real notes:
The Nook, Kindle, Sony series, Astak readers, and IRex readers are all using the same screen technology. The newer versions have more shades of grayscale, but that doesn't matter for text reading, only for images.

For the 6" readers, which is most of them, the basic reading experience is the same. The differences are in:
1) Where the page turn buttons are and how they work,
2) How the books are sorted on the device,
3) What extra features it offers (search, annotations, wireless, music player, etc.)

The majority of people who have ebook readers, love the one they have--because they're all *terrific* at reading books. And because the people who have ebook readers are mostly the kind who read LOTS AND LOTS OF BOOKS, so anything that can carry 150 books at a time is so wonderful that they ignore any pesky little drawbacks like "takes three minutes to boot up, dammit." (Hypothetical. Don't know any reader that takes 3min to boot up normally.)

Other features that matter are:
1) Where can you get books for it? (This is strongly dependent on "what filetypes does it read, and which of them can have DRM?")
2) How does it connect to the computer? What software does it need?
3) How long does the battery last? How long does it take to recharge?
4) Is it prone to breaking through normal use? If so, will the seller repair/replace it?

Commentary:
All the e-ink readers now being sold read PDFs. All of them are mediocre at it, because PDF generally *sucks* as an ebook format. What makes it suck less, is PDFs designed for exactly the screen size you'll be reading on. PDFs built for letter-sized pages either shrink to show in the e-ink screen (so: show up at about 1/4 normal size), or zoom in so you have to scroll around, or reflow the text and reformat the page.

The Sony PRS-505 (which I have) uses reflow. The Sony 700 zooms. I don't know which the Nook does. Reflow is generally more readable, but can have problems, depending on how the PDF was made.

I don't know enough about NeoOffice to say specifically, but--if it's got options for "tags" or "accessibility", use that option. It helps with reflow.

90x120mm pages is suggested for the 6" readers. That's not exactly right, but it's close enough to work. Almost no margin is necessary; many people make PDFs for the Readers with no margin at all; I use .1" margins 'cos I don't like the shadow of the reader-edge running onto the words.

See if you can make 90x120mm (or 3.46x4.6") pages with NeoOffice and convert them to PDF. Put the fanfic into those pages. I use 10pt type; I believe [personal profile] amalthia favors 12pt font size. I use indented paragraphs (.35") and no space between paragraphs; some people prefer the "web-style" no indents & extra line return between.

If you're *mostly* going to read your own stuff, not purchased books from an ebook store, look for a reader that doesn't have (and charge extra for) wireless access. Wireless costs, and it eats battery.

I'm fond of the Astak readers; that's what I'd want if I were buying one today. They read an insane number of filetypes, and they're selling readers, not store access--so they're invested in providing good hardware, not locking customers to their company for a series of future purchases.

My thoughts on the Nook are that the first release was rushed and the software is still buggy, and the sales people don't actually know how it works & can't troubleshoot worth a damn. No way to tell if it's a good device beyond that.

Date: 2009-12-20 01:43 am (UTC)
amalthia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] amalthia
well said. :) I still think PDF should not be used for ebooks mostly because it's hard to switch devices with different screen sizes.

For me it's going to be hard in the future to move to another device maker because I'm noticing neither the Kindle nor the Nook seem to support RTF.

astak I think does for the 6 inch device but I"m not positive about that.

Date: 2009-12-20 02:46 pm (UTC)
elf: Quote: She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain (Fond of Books)
From: [personal profile] elf
Astak claims to support both .doc and .rtf, and weird things like Powerpoint. (Who reads ppt on an ebook reader?)

I use PDF because I can make them basically in my sleep, complete with pictures and bookmarks and fonts I like. For a lot of things, I just use RTFs (base font set to 17 pts), but if I want a bookcover, or a TOC, I make a PDF.

For anyone who doesn't *like* doc formatting and conversion, PDFs are not a good format. They take too much tweaking to work well. There are some nice free programs (*cough* Calibre) that convert just as well, and have customizable options for people who care about them.

Thing is, I speak .doc formatting *really really well*, and know how to fine-tune PDFs. I don't speak CSS at all, and am very lost with Calibre's custom settings. I can't get chapters to work, most of the time.

Date: 2009-12-20 09:21 pm (UTC)
amalthia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] amalthia
I'm at the point where I can create LRF docs in my sleep. :) And mobi and epub. (though with epub I have to increase the font size by 2 points for it to not look super tiny on the screen and adjust the right margin to make room for the stupid numbers Adobe thought would be a great idea to add.) :( So at the moment LRF is my favorite format however it only works on Sony devices which annoys me quite a bit when I think about it.

But yeah, most word programs do have a convert to PDF option, it's just most people have no clue how to create bookmarks and have them turn into a table of contents when converted. So 99% of the pdfs I'm seeing authors share look great on screen but there is no way to navigate by chapter or anything else. I think your PDFs would be good because you know what you're doing and care about the details.

Also, I don't think all authors know how to change the page size, they don't even know where to change the metadata for the file and I'm still seeing author's real names listed next to the title of their story because they converted to PDF and didn't edit the metadata/File Property fields.

Creating nice ebooks from fan fiction appears to have a learning curve.

Oh! I finally started using macros, I was planning on making a brief tutorial post at [livejournal.com profile] fanfic_ebooks sometime this week. But yeah the macros are a lifesaver and I'm wondering why I'm just now learning how to use them myself!

Date: 2009-12-20 12:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] marashapeshfter.livejournal.com
Thank you for the link! I hadn't seen it before and it's very useful.

Date: 2009-12-20 02:40 pm (UTC)
elf: Quote: She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain (Fond of Books)
From: [personal profile] elf
Other potentially useful links:

Mobileread's Which One Should I Buy? forum, which does comparisons and pros and cons, and while a lot of people have strong opinions, the overall board attitude is "you should buy the one that works best for you, 'cos none of them are perfect, and the tech is changing too fast for anything to stand out as the eventual leader."

Basic intro to ebook filetypes at the ebooks comm at Dreamwidth. Predates both the Nook (which makes eReader PDB a much stronger format) and Kindle's PC program.

Date: 2009-12-20 03:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] asperityq.livejournal.com
Good commentary above, and be sure to check out the info on Mobileread (http://www.mobileread.com) as well, they've got tons of great stuff on the wiki and in the forums there.

About the Nook: I like the look, and I think the hardware's got very good potential. The firmware that the display models are running is pretty crap. I have to believe BN will be getting a firmware update for the things out soon, since IMO the display model was nearly unusable due to weird user-interface problems. Once they've got the software worked out, it's worth considering.

I agree with Amothea on the PDF issue: PDF's designed for straight-to-print work and doesn't handle different screen sizes gracefully. If your preferred method of dealing with fanfiction is NeoOffice-to-PDF, though, it'll work best if you go with a smaller-than-8.5x11" page size. But that comes after picking a device anyway. :)

I've had a Sony 505 for a bit over a year and am very happy with it, but much of what makes me happy about it can be found on the other e-ink readers. They all have essentially the same screen anyway, so most of the differences are in the smaller things like button placement and material the case is made out of. I think the metal the Sonys are made out of looks cool and holds up well (I've never bothered protecting mine with anything at the beach, and it hasn't been bothered when I've dropped it a few times.) The metal sucks heat out of your hands, though. The plastic ones like the Nook and Kindle are probably a little less cold-feeling in winter, but then they show smudges more (especially what with being white.)

Anyway. All the readers should work fine for us fanfic readers, and I think we can all agree that the single most obnoxious thing about fanfic reading on the go is people who only post their novel-length stories to about thirty separate LiveJournal entries. ;)

!

Date: 2009-12-20 09:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] josieb1.livejournal.com
Yeah, as a Sony ebook reader I agree with your last statement, Copy and paste is the most used comand on my pc! Have you joined

http://community.livejournal.com/j2_spn_ebooks/

as all the stories on here are in one document, also Garvaldmains has all her stories read in one doc once they are completed, you can find hers here

http://community.livejournal.com/slip_it_in_j2/92124.html

Their are few more ready to download stories dotted about LJ, if you wnat any more links just pm me


Re: !

Date: 2009-12-21 05:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] asperityq.livejournal.com
I'd seen the first community before and forgotten about it. Thanks!

Date: 2009-12-20 09:25 pm (UTC)
amalthia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] amalthia
Actually the one major difference I don't see often listed between the Sony and other devices is the ability to create your own collections. The Kindle is limited to basic author/title sort and recent and from what I hear the Nook is the same.

For anyone that wants to have more than 500 stories on their device the ability to create your own collections is rather important. :)

And YES a thousand times YES to the annoyance of LJ and 30 chapter postings! That will never not be annoying. Though for authors that at least post the links in a single master post I found a way to use the Firefox Add-on DownloadThemAll to download all the chapters without having to open 30 tabs.

Date: 2009-12-21 05:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] asperityq.livejournal.com
I am going to have to try that last trick. And hope that as ebook readers get more of a following more authors will realize we'd like to read their work outside of a browser window. :)

Date: 2009-12-21 05:48 am (UTC)
amalthia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] amalthia
I think the hard part is that some fandoms are really LJ only and there aren't any big archives for the fandom. Wraithbait for SGA fandom is kind of a rare exception for newer fandoms. I can't even think of one big Merlin efiction based archive. Star Trek at least has the Kirk/Spock efiction archive but there are a lot of Kirk/McCoy fics out there and I have no clue if people are archiving those somewhere else.

I think my main focus has been to try and let more people know why PDF isn't the best ebook format. That and trying to convince more authors to also post a single file version somewhere.

Date: 2009-12-20 03:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aranel-took.livejournal.com
A previous comment reminded me that the nook uses eReader's epub format. I have eReader's eBook Studio (http://www.ereader.com/ereader/software/browse.htm) and it works pretty well. (I use eReader to read fic on my iPod Touch). It's not free ($30) but if you're going to be converting a lot of fanfic, it might be worth it for you for making a format that is more readable than PDFs.

Date: 2009-12-20 05:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aranel-took.livejournal.com
Sorry, that should be PDB format from eReader, not epub. *facepalms at too many formats to remember* But the nook will use both of those.

Date: 2009-12-20 09:27 pm (UTC)
amalthia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] amalthia
Word of warning, last time I looked the Nook will not allow you to create your own collections or tags/folders so you're stuck with the default search methods which is author/title/recent. As long as you plan to read and delete you should be fine but I would not recommend adding more than 200 stories to your Nook. I have over 1000 stories on my Sony and the collections are vital to finding what I want to read.



Date: 2009-12-20 09:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] josieb1.livejournal.com
I have two ebooks, both Sony, the PRS-505 and the new touch screen PRS-600 (an early xmas present). I love them both and would never be without at least one ebook. Both machines take PDF's but the 600 goes to a bigger font size than the 505 so that one is better, you need the option to enlarge the font size as PDF's load with a default size of the whole page fitting on the screen, which is unreadable, so the ability to enlarge as much as possible is a must. To be honest 99% of my stories loaded (and I have over 600 converted for the ebook, all fanfiction) are in RTF (Rich Text Font) format, I avoid PDF as much as I can as RTF's load much better. The only original stories I buy are in EPUB format. I haven't looked at the other makes as in the UK Sony is the market leader, and woulnd't change from Sony evern, if more makes sold over here. Here is a very good You Tub review of the Sony PRS600 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWl60GNcQIw

Date: 2009-12-20 04:30 pm (UTC)
ext_2410: (DS Sings)
From: [identity profile] kimberlyfdr.livejournal.com
I love the touchscreen format. I couldn't use an ebook reader that doesn't have that now. Saves on button wear, too.

Date: 2009-12-21 11:42 pm (UTC)
ext_1951: (Default)
From: [identity profile] mremre.livejournal.com
does the 600 have the old glare problem of the 700? I grabbed the 505 cause the glare was so objectionable, but if it works now.... ::contemplates::

Date: 2009-12-22 12:05 am (UTC)
ext_2410: (Engaged)
From: [identity profile] kimberlyfdr.livejournal.com
I've never noticed a glare problem. Works great!

Date: 2009-12-20 09:28 pm (UTC)
amalthia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] amalthia
I'm so tempted to get the 600 but I still love my 505 and my husband would have a cow if I got another device.

Date: 2009-12-20 10:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] josieb1.livejournal.com
I got the 600 as I have a problem with my right arm (a combination of tennis elbow and rsi) and find pressing the buttons on the 505 too hard, It is an extravagence I know, but oh so worth it.

Date: 2009-12-20 10:34 pm (UTC)
amalthia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] amalthia
I sadly don't have a good enough excuse and it looks like I'll have to pry my husband's PRS-500 out of his cold dead hands, he refuses to upgrade! I was hoping to get the 600 for myself and give him my 505 but he's not at all tempted by the sharper contrast!

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