X-Files stories from Gossamer on Nook...

[hamrensel.livejournal.com]

For the past couple of week I have downloaded all of the favorites fics and put them on my Nook.  I have had to use Sigil on about a 1/3 of them to look right.  The ones that I'm having the most trouble with is all of my old X-Files stories that I love from Grossamer.org.  I tired to download them in txt formart but that didn't look right.  Then I tired saved them in HTML formart and just removed the background.  Again it doesn't look right.  A lot of the time the text runs too wide for my screen.  I was wondering if any one else has tired to put their old X-files fanfic on their e-reader and what they did to make it look right.

Comments

[amalthia]

I've tried to add old txt files to Word and then clean them up but if there are no paragraph breaks it's nearly impossible if the story is too long. But assuming it's a regular text file what you can do is open the txt Microsoft Word, hit the button to view hidden formatting marks add a space between paragraphs. I think I'd try and manually add paragraph html tags. There are steps to cleaning up TXT that are sort of specific if you want to do it faster. I'd have to refresh my memory at Mobile Read. I know a lot of people have gone there to ask for help converting TXT files to ebook formats.

I've only tried this with a few text files because it's A LOT of work to get them to look okay. but some of those stories I realize aren't anywhere else online. It sorts of sucks that back when everyone was using 56k modems that txt was the primary format for sharing fic online.

If you are able to save the file as html it sounds like you may have to go into the code and figure out why it's going off the page. Um not having seen the file it's hard to say what could be wrong. Can you send me the link at amalthia at gmail.com? Tomorrow when I'm home from work I can check it out and see if there is a simple fix for the problem.

[mremre.livejournal.com]

Some tricks for find-and-replace editing of TXT files if you have Word:
1- copy the complete text into Word and turn on the formatting marks view
2- search for ^l^l or ^c^c (case is important) and replace with ^p -- usually it's ^l (linebreak) but sometimes it's ^c (carriage return; that's the really old formatting =). This should turn the TXT linebreak "paragraph" into Word paragraphs.
3- search for ^l or ^c and replace with a blank space -- this will make the super long lines wrap properly. NOTE: do this AFTER you do the ^p, because switching steps will give you a GIANT paragraph with a space between the original paragraphs
4- add the usual formatting you prefer (chapter headings, etc) save as RTF and try converting with your converter again.

If it is already in HTML, open the file in Notepad or other text editor. If each line ends with a < br > (nospaces) and each paragraph with a double < br > (nospaces), replace the double BRs with a single < p > and the single BR with a blank space.

Good luck!

[fides.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth - my normal scheme is to check if the author is also on AO3 (occasionally they are and my life is made much easier) and when that fails to copy and paste the text from the webpage into OpenOffice, save it as RTF and then get Calibre to do the transform (and then periodically re-check AO3 in case). I do have to go and put formatting back in where it hasn't copied across but it isn't too bad unless there is a lot of messing around with Italics etc.

I don't know if that works for the Nook (I have a Sony eReader) but

[haikitteh.livejournal.com]

I'm having some real trouble with older archived fanfiction too. Primarily that I can't figure out how to deal with the forced returns, so that the lines don't fill out all the way
and end up looking
like this
on my kindle. So annoying.

I don't use Sigil, though I've visited the site and considered trying it. And I have a Mac, curse me, so no Word (though I do use Google docs sometimes). I have calibre but can't figure out how to address this problem on their site. Like fides, I mostly try to find the story somewhere else like AO3, but there's a lot of older stuff that isn't available anywhere else.

If anyone knows how to deal with this, I'd love a hint.