Re: [NTLK] [NTLK]

Hi,
Yes I have quite a few regarding NewtonBooks. First, you can't create
ebooks for the Newt unless they are in a unencrypted (protected) format.
 So if it is not in a plain text format or something you can convert to
either plain text or RTF format you can't view it on the newton.
eReader books are all encrypted if I remember right. I recently posted
a bunch of sites that have non-encrypted ebooks available or are
NewtonBooks already.

There are basically two types of ebooks for the Newton. NewtonBook and
Paperback. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Newton books
can be made in different screen sizes, however a landscape book can't be
read in portrait mode for example. Or a book made for the 2x00 can't be
viewed on a 130 due to the screen size. There are two programs to make
NewtonBooks: Bookmaker and Press. Press tends to be more buggy and
since it does not have a search feature, slower to enter a table of
contents. Though you don't need to create one if you don't want to.
But Press can create Newtonbooks in every screen size easily. Bookmaker
while it can only make books in the Classic format easily (120, 130 etc)
it is faster to enter a table of contents since you use a original text
file and enter tags that Bookmaker converts into a table of contents or
special formatting. You can do "fancier" things with Bookmaker but it
has a little more of a learning curve to it. Also you can't change the
fonts or type size in Newton Book. But you can make annotations if you
wish for your own notes (or even beam them to other newtons).

Paperback is a bit different. It very fast to create a book with (you
just drop the text file on the Paperback exe and a book file is
created), and while it does create a table of contents on the fly it is
often not very accurate. Also if you rest your Newt, Paperback will
forget your position and there are not "pages" per se that allow you to
get right back to where you were. The best method is to use find and
search for a sentence on the page you were on. Newtonbooks (made with
Press or Bookmaker) will hold your position even between resets and will
allow you to bookmark several locations. Press books are also usually a
little bigger in size since they need to contain the reader software
(the original NewtonBook format is already installed on the ROM of all
Newts). One big advantage Paperback has is that it can render the
screen size on the fly so one book will work on all Newts in every
orientation. You can also change the font and size at any time. The
Paperback maker is available in both Mac (classic only I believe) and
Windows. However you can create a book without them using the tool on
the UNNA site. I don't have the URL handy but it is under tools on the
main page. There you can upload a text file (or have it grabbed from
some website) then the book is downloadable once.

There are many Newton owners that prefer Paperback but I prefer
Newtonbook since I don't have to worry about loosing my place. But as
they say to each their own.

I also wrote a tutorial on bookmaking which is on UNNA:
http://www.unna.org/view.php?/windows/NewtonBookmaking101
I am currently updating it and hope to have a new version available
soon, but it is a good starting point and you might wish to take a look.

And finally there are already a LOT of Newton books ready to install on
your Newt. Here are a few links:
UNNA (I don't have the exact link handy but it is in the archive under
"books"
http://www.stillnewt.org/library
http://www.newtonslibrary.org/ This site also has a extension for
Firefox that will allow you to read the Newtonbook files on your Desktop
(most of them, it is still beta software).

I hope this answers a few questions.

Oh and finally some other sites that have ebooks in a format that you
can convert to the Newton (usually plain text or PlamDOC which can be
converted to plain text).

*Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.net/)
*Memoware (http://www.memoware.com/)
*Free Ebook Library of University of Virginia
(http//*etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/)
*Alex Cataloge (http://www.informations.com/alex)

Or if you want to purchase books
*Bean.com (http://www.baen.com/)
*Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com)
*Alexlit.com (http://www.alexlit.com)

-Dan

On 4/26/2007 10:25 AM, Huxley Dunsany wrote:
> Hi gang!
> I (finally!) got my Newton 2100 syncing with my new 17" MacBook Pro
> tonight (it's now 4:27am - once I got started, it was hard to
> stop...), and I'm just starting to figure it all out. I just
> finished downloading the entire UNNA archive (via BitTorrent), and
> there's a lot of fun stuff in there (along with a ton of stuff that I
> totally don't understand yet). One question that popped up very soon
> after I got the Newt to sync for the first time: how do I make my
> own books for the 2100? eReader is probably my most heavily-used
> program on my Palm TX - I love reading ebooks! - and I'd like to be
> able to make my own book files for the Newt. Any tips?
>

-- 
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