Hi Dilwyn,
Having got myself a little Android tablet computer (ancient v2.2 or so, was
only really bought because of low price) I started playing with eBooks on it.
It’s crossed my mind that as these things have reasonable screens, one of the
things I’d like to try to do is to port QL documentation (e.g. QL manual) as
eBooks so that I can keep them all to hand, so that (i) the bookshelf can be
cleared out and (ii) I don’t have to keep flicking between the QPC screen and
reference PDFs on the PC all the time while programming (having the Android
tablet propped up by the PC would be helfpul).
I don’t know much about eBook formats, but a quick use of google did suggest
that it’s possible to convert between PDFs and the various eBook formats.
Anyone got experience in this area, so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel?
If this works, it might be an idea for the medium term to then try to get these
ebooks on ebook websites to make QL documentation more widely available for
those returning to the QL, for example?
You need a nice little ebook library manager called Calibre. It's
written mostly in Python but is available for Windows as well.
You can then import all your ebooks into it, categorise them etc etc -
similar to many Photo Organisers on the go at the moment.
It will sync with a number of eBook readers when you plug them in.
I use it on my work laptop to catalogue all my work books in various
formats - ePub, Mobi, PDF, txt etc etc.
Part of what it does is convert from one format to another. It does it
quite well, but as with many "semi-automagic" systems, it doesn't always
get things 100% - but better than nothing.
For example, I have a number of eBook in *.mobi format that my iRiver
doesn't read, so I converted them to ePub which it does. Most worked
fine. Then my colleagues at work bought me a Kindle when I left - and
that does read mobi format - so I use that instead!
http://calibre-ebook.com/ is where you need to be.
Happy to help if you have problems.
Cheers,
Norm.
--
Norman Dunbar
Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd
Registered address:
Thorpe House
61 Richardshaw Lane
Pudsey
West Yorkshire
United Kingdom
LS28 7EL
Company Number: 05132767
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