AO3 Archive New Feature!
Sep. 13th, 2010 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amalthia posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fanfic_ebooksThe Archive of Our Own has released new code for the archive that'll allow users to export stories into epub, mobipocket, html, and pdf.
I've done some testing and I love what they've accomplished. The stories retain the correct metadata, such as author and title, there is a working Table of Contents, and based on your user preferences, the user can select how the file is named when it downloads. (which I thought was awesome.) :)
The only downside at the moment is that I don't think there is any way to customize how the epub will look before the story is exported onto your computer. Though I'm confident in time there may be options to pick your preferred font, font-size, and whether or not you want spaces between your paragraphs or indents. Based on how responsive the coders and the A03 team have been before I think it's possible customization features may already be in the works.
I'm very excited about this new feature because it opens the door to reading a lot more fan fiction without having to go through a lot of effort.
I've done some testing and I love what they've accomplished. The stories retain the correct metadata, such as author and title, there is a working Table of Contents, and based on your user preferences, the user can select how the file is named when it downloads. (which I thought was awesome.) :)
The only downside at the moment is that I don't think there is any way to customize how the epub will look before the story is exported onto your computer. Though I'm confident in time there may be options to pick your preferred font, font-size, and whether or not you want spaces between your paragraphs or indents. Based on how responsive the coders and the A03 team have been before I think it's possible customization features may already be in the works.
I'm very excited about this new feature because it opens the door to reading a lot more fan fiction without having to go through a lot of effort.
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Date: 2010-09-15 02:41 am (UTC)repost - for repeating sentence...
Date: 2010-09-15 04:10 am (UTC)if you like Sans-serif fonts and don't mind the space between each paragraph then it looks great. :) The font choice is a reasonable size, the margins aren't huge (which is great on smaller screens), and the chapters all start on a fresh page and there is space between the chapter and the start of the paragraph.
I have a few nitpicks but that's because I'm probably a bit obsessive when it comes to formatting. But I honestly think for 99% of the readers it'll be a-okay. :)
If the paragraphs were indented instead of using a blank space I'd be over the moon with joy over this. As it is I'm happy and anticipating future code pushes that'll give users more control over preferences. But it's kind of like complaining you got vanilla ice cream when you wanted chocolate. There is no bad in ice cream it's just a preference for a different flavor.
The only other thing I'm not sure if people would mind or not is that the Chapters are all underlined becuase they are links. I'm not sure if anyone will notice on an e-ink screen that the Chapter headers are blue but I notice that kind of thing because I've formatted over 1000 stories.
Re: repost - for repeating sentence...
Date: 2010-09-15 04:52 pm (UTC)I've dealt with the underlined chapters thing before and can say honestly that it doesn't bother me overly much. It might on another device, though.
Re: repost - for repeating sentence...
Date: 2010-09-16 03:55 am (UTC)For some reason I thought the fonts on the 300 would seem too big?
Re: repost - for repeating sentence...
Date: 2010-09-18 04:06 am (UTC)The standard font on the 300 is essentially the same as the font of a standard paperback book (perhaps a wee bit smaller), which works because the 300 is about the size of a paperback. The problem (for me) is that unless I format an e-book myself (or download it from the E-Lib), the font will be smaller (roughly around 8pt) and that's really not workable on a small screen.
It might be the downloader I use, though. I recently switched to Graffer and haven't run into that problem as much as I used to, even if I still find it extremely annoying when I do. Damn bad eyesight... *grumbles*
Re: repost - for repeating sentence...
Date: 2010-09-18 04:16 am (UTC)body { margin: 0; }
a {text-decoration: none; color: black;}
a [href] {text-decoration: none; color: black;}
p {margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; padding: 0pt; text-indent: 15pt; text-align: justify;}
h1 { text-align: center;}
h2 {text-align: center; }
h3 { text-align: center;}
I was going to make a post about. I'm not sure if you use Calibre to convert stories or not. But I think I'll be doing this.
I'm also happy that Calibre will now automatically convert smartquotes and em-dashes and ellipses to non-smart quote versions. :)
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Date: 2010-09-15 06:27 am (UTC)It sometimes takes me a bit to realize there's a useful tool that I should share with the class. :)
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