fanfic_ebooks | Formatting considerations

I'm hoping the community can help me decide something.

I'm giving a lot of thought to discontinuing LRF as a format that the Ebook Library would host. I've been noticing some problems. For example, I found that after the end of italics there's an extra space. (it took me about 2 years to notice this so I'm not sure how important it is?) But it's most noticeable when there is an italicized word followed by a comma. I was getting sentences like "Hello , this is a test."

I must add that this does not happen in RTF, epub, or the mobipocket files.

There are other reasons I've considered discontinuing the format.

Calibre no longer supports LRF so if there are any bugs they won't be fixed. Sony has switched over to epub, LRF is slowly but surely getting phased out.

The other advantage of epub is that all the new ebook devices coming out, including the Ipad, support epub. (now if Kindle would get on board...)

Reasons I have not switched over to epub myself.

A) I like the font and chapter headings better.
B) No side page margins (like what you see with epub on the Sony PRS-300/500/505/600)
C) Almost all my files are LRF switching over would be a pain.
D) I like the full text justification.

I'm not sure what to do?

In the meantime, I've stopped converting any more files until I have a chance to learn more about epub. I've spent some time on that this week and I have fixed the parts that I didn't like. But I'm not sure I"m used to the different default font style.

I've learned a lot since I've started converting and each format has it's own quirks and exceptions and I sometimes feel like my brain is going to explode, though that could be grad school stuff...

I'd love to hear people's opinions. I'm hoping most people following and participating in this community use the Ebook Library and have thoughts and opinions on the files I'm creating and how they work on your devices???

And in happy news, there are now officially over 1000 stories hosted at the Ebook Library. :)

EDIT: I forgot to add that I am in the process of re-editing the HTML source files to switch the order of the italics with punctuation so the extra space isn't as noticeable, but it may take a while even using Notepad++ because I'm spending every weekend at the library doing homework and that leaves a limited amount of time to edit files, or reupload them to calibre to re-convert.

I did find out why it's happening and it's a LRF limitation because Sony didn't create full font support so there are no bold or italic fonts for LRF. Instead it simulates something close enough and that's why it adds the space.

I may be a little bit compulsive but I don't like the idea of anyone's works hosted on the archive not being as correct as possible and it's better to fix it now while there are only about 100 LRF files...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Personally, I tend to use mobi and rtf, and occasionally pdf. I find mobi to be very easy. What I like about the rtf format is that no matter the font size of the original file it is always easily read on a reader, unlike a pdf, which needs to be done in a particular font size to avoid having to magnify. On the other hand, rtf doesn't seem to cope well with hyphens - it will drop them and join the words before and after the hyphen into one word. I have only tried epub once, and the file - although supported by my reader - won't actually open. It tries and tries, but I end up having to cancel out. I've not tried LRF (not sure if my HanLin supports it).

I must say, though, that I appreciate the thought and time you put into the Library. Thanks heaps!

I also really like the RTF format. The only reasons I can see to use epub or lrf is for the images, table of contents, and they are smaller so you can fit more on your device.

The RTF format isn't going anywhere. :) It's also rather universal though I found it odd that none of the American brand of readers supports RTF except for the Sony. If all devices supported RTF I'm not sure I would have bothered with the other formats.

I can't think of a single person that likes PDF on a 6 inch screen...

It works fine on a Sony PRS 600 but not the 505, the base font size is just too small.

I use RTF in my sony ebook as much as possible, I do use EPUB but tbh if a RFT is available I will take that first, as the ability to remove the graphics means less space taken up on the ebook hard drive, plus you can increase the base font size before it goes on the ebook, which makes it easier to enlarge if required. I also use PDF's, I have two Sony ebooks but only one takes PDF's properly, so RTF is always my format of choice. I have never used LRF

And thanks again for the ebook library, its a wonderful resource.

I think most people I talk to prefer RTF. I'm now thinking I should try and make a poll...just not sure how to accomplish this. The hard part is I can see when people visit the story link but I can't tell what format people are downloading.

Thanks for responding! :) And you're welcome.

I guess I'm at that point where I'd like to evaluate how the archive is working so I can make changes and spend time on creating something people will use.

When I want to read a story ASAP RTF is my format of choice too. :) the main reason I started looking into the other formats was because I really love being able to see artwork and using the table of contents to navigate within a story.

Do you have a preferred font and size for RTF? The default font and size I've been uploading to the archive is Arial 20. I picked it because it looked okay on my Sony so I figured it would work on everyone else's. I'm not sure why at font size 12 the text is so tiny but I hated having to magnify.

One thing is for sure RTF is flexible and easy to change. :)

Font size 20 is a perfect size, I always amend my own RFT documents to that size as well.

I like epub as my next choice and only use PDF's if nothing else is available. Like you i just hope everyone goes down the epub route eventually. I use Calibre as my ebook library as that is just so versatile.

I will admit though being interested in what the new ipad books software is going to be like, what it will take, and if one day it will be avaialable to download like itunes. I would have liked an Apple ebook but the ipad is just too big. Interesting times ahead

I like the potential of the Ipad but I'm hearing the functionality isn't as good as it could be?

What I like about the Ipad is the potential to send my friends ebooks from my device and sharing more easily. However, there is so much DRM stuffed in there I'm hearing reports that DRM free epubs have trouble displaying properly.

I also read that the Ipad kind of hurts to hold for very long. Though today and I can't remember where I read it but I read that Apple is looking at making a 5-7 inch screen Ipad which I think would work better as an ebook reader.

I've pretty much read the same thing. My biggest turn off is the size, its just far too big for anything other than sofa surfing. You can't take it out, its too bulky and too heavy

I'm looking forward to the Star Trek sized padds. :) Though strangely I think the Ipad is about that size...

I prefer LRF or ePub to RTF for my own use, but it seems like RTF makes more sense for the archive as a default format. Size 20 seems fine to me, I've been happy with how they've been displaying and haven't bothered to change them myself. I like serif fonts better but I don't care enough about it to take ten seconds to change that. :)

I'm still using LRF pretty often; I'm too lazy to change the radio button on FLAG (http://flag.erayd.net/) when I download ff.net stories. (I've been reading BioWare fanfic lately. Apparently video game fandom uses ff.net heavily. Who knew?) When I do conversions with Calibre it's usually to ePub.

I haven't been able to get FLAG to work the way I"d like so I've been using FanFiction Downloader more often than not. :) Since then ff.net is a lot more appealing. :)

I like with LRF/epub it's easier to use smaller fonts and indent (which takes less pages for the story) So it's good to know someone is using LRF. :)

RTF is the default because originally when Sony came out it supported RTF and I had hoped future devices would too. (plus it was really easy to create) Then the other devices came out...and I kept RTF because it was the one format everyone could convert themselves. At the time it wasn't possible with Calibre to convert LRF to another format and Epub hadn't come out yet. And Sony didn't support Mobi...

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