Printer-friendly versionI'm trying an experiment on the web site. One of the site's users converted Julie O's Coeds 3 into a file in the PRC format used with small portable reading deices. She offered a copy to post here and I've uploaded it as an attachment to the Coeds 3 story.
If there is enough interest I may consider carrying the longer stories submitted to the site in this format for easy downloading for those of you with portable readers.
Please let me know if this file works for you and if more files of this type are of use to you. I can't promise anything solid on this, only that I'm considering this as an option for the site.
Bob Arnold
I read almost everything on an ipaq
I use mobipocket or ubook for a reader. Both do a nice job with text or prc files. I read coeds 3 on my ipaq on two airplane flights. Worked great. I'm happy just being able to download full text files that I don't have to assemble myself from the individual chapters.
I like the idea
I just don't have anything that reads that file type. I use Microsoft Reader for all my E-books. I do think it's a great idea though.
Sincerely,
Scott
Calvin: You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
Hobbes: What mood is that?
Calvin: Last-minute panic.
Sincerely,
Scott
Calvin: You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
Hobbes: What mood is that?
Calvin: Last-minute panic.
PRC files...
PRC is the generic file extension for PalmOS devices. So, a PRC file can in principle be anything -- even a program.
However, in this context it's almost certainly an AportisDoc file, sometimes known as a "PalmDoc." This is a compressed plaintext format, but it's readable by just about any Palm or non-Palm portable reader out there.
I would advice whoever does the conversion to treat this as a TXT file -- so, any formatting will have to be replaced by Usenet-style pseudo-formatting (*bold*, /italic/, _underline_ and such).
(Personally, I don't use AportisDoc exactly because of its lack of formatting. For my personal use, I prefer iSilo or Plucker. iSilo is proprietary, but very good. Plucker lacks some of the features of iSilo but it's free (both as beer and as speech). Both are multi-platform. However, they need their own special readers, so they aren't as good as a mainstream distribution format)
Mobipocket
All,
I created the file Bob's talking about using Mobipocket Creator which, along with their reader, is available as a free download at the Mobipocket.com website. I use the reader on my laptop as well as on my Samsung i760. While the reader can load files in a number of formats, Creator lets you add a table of contents and a cover, which I did for this. In the source html I added a couple of 'BR' (line break) tags between paragraphs and a page-break before Chapter heading. This makes it easier to read - for me anyway.
Generating the contents requires a tag that is unique to the chapter heading - I used H2-/H2.
With gvim and a couple regular-expression search/edits, it takes a couple of minutes of prep and you get a much more readable file.
Another nice thing about Mobipocket (and other e-book readers I'm sure) is that it remembers were you were when you start reading again - particularly handy with some stories if you can't read them all in one shot.
Jamie
Thanks Jamie!
I just download Mobipocket Reader and it works just fine.
Sincerely,
Scott
Calvin: You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
Hobbes: What mood is that?
Calvin: Last-minute panic.
Sincerely,
Scott
Calvin: You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
Hobbes: What mood is that?
Calvin: Last-minute panic.
Cool!
Just checked, and it looks as if a Mobipocket reader is available for my Blackjack II running Windows Mobile 6. I'll have to check this out. Up until now I would save a story as a Word .doc file and email it to my phone. Then I could save it to the storage card and use Office Mobile to read it. But this may have advantages.
Thanks to Bob and Jamie!
Karen J.
"Being a girl is wonderful and to torture someone into that would be like the exact opposite of what it's like. I don’t know how anyone could act that way." College Girl - poetheather
Followup - Quite nice!
I played a bit with Mobireader and Coeds 3 today, and I found it to be quite nice based on that limited experience. It certainly is easier to read on my Blackjack than the .doc file was. I would be pleased if the longer stories were available this way. And when I get time and a chance I'll download the free creator software and maybe play around with it a bit.
FYI: there are free books available on the Mobipocket website, most seem to be stories and such in the public domain. But that includes some gems like the Oz stories by L. Frank Baum, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars stories, and some early Tom Swift. Okay, I'm a sci-fi nut, so sue me! But it's worth taking a look at what is available.
Thanks again to Jamie for the conversion, and to Bob for putting it on his site.
Karen J.
"Being a girl is wonderful and to torture someone into that would be like the exact opposite of what it's like. I don’t know how anyone could act that way." College Girl - poetheather
I stand corrected. I wasn't
I stand corrected. I wasn't aware that Mobipocket authoring software is free. I'll have to check it to see how it compares to the formats I'm currently using....