Entries tagged with “ebook readers” from Tools of Change for Publishing
How to Read any Type of Document on the Kindle (Almost)
Liza Daly
August 26, 2008
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There are a few options for readers who want to convert PDFs or other non-supported files to the Kindle's AZW format. Amazon's recommended method is to email the file to your personal Kindle email address. It's also possible for users to convert PDFs and other document types themselves using Mobipocket Creator or Stanza.
All of the above methods have the same flaw: AZW does not support the kind of advanced layout available in formats like PDF, and non-Latin fonts aren't easy to convert. What if you need to review a complex legal form, or read a graphic novel, or one in Chinese? A hidden feature can help.
The Kindle has an undocumented picture-viewing mode that was first uncovered by Igor Skochinsky. Although the black and white E Ink screen is not especially good at displaying actual photographs, it is quite good at rendering line art and text.
Here's how to do it, using PDF as an example. Note that unofficial features may be buggy and could damage your Kindle; proceed at your own risk.
- Convert the PDF to a series of images. Commercial versions of Acrobat should be able to do this in batch, but users of free readers may have to convert a page at a time. The Kindle can read JPEG, PNG and GIF; the latter two will work best. Because the picture-viewing application doesn't support a table of contents, you'll need to name the image files in ascending alphabetical or numeric order (e.g. "0001.jpg," "0002.jpg," etc.) For best results, resize the image to 600 x 800, the resolution of the Kindle screen.
- Connect the Kindle to your computer using the USB cable. Once connected, browse to the Kindle's drive. If you have an SD card installed that will appear on your computer as well. The following procedure works on either the Kindle or the SD card. I prefer to do everything on the SD card -- it feels safer.
- Create a folder called "pictures," and a folder inside of that with the name of your "document." Put the images in the document folder. Disconnect the Kindle from the PC. When you go to the Kindle's home screen, nothing will have changed. This is where the secret feature comes in:
- Press Alt-Z from the home screen. Your book title should appear in the list.
- Click on the book title. It will open the first image. Use the normal Kindle next/previous buttons to page through the "book." The picture viewer has menu options of its own to control the size of the image and how it's rendered.
Credit: octopus pie
Of course because the "PDF" is really an image it's not possible to search the document or rescale the fonts. Text-heavy PDFs should be converted in one of the recommended ways.
This same technique can be used to load image-based documents directly, such as comics. (Peeking inside the "pictures" folder after it's been read by the Kindle reveals a file with the extension manga, suggesting that the picture viewer was intended to be used for this purpose).
It's also possible to convert documents in Russian, Chinese or other non-Latin scripts this way. The Kindle does have support for embedded non-Latin fonts as part of its "Topaz" file format, but there are no tools for end-users that output Topaz.
(Screenshots courtesy the undocumented Alt-Shift-G feature, which saves to the root of the SD card.)
Open Question: Have You Seen a Kindle in Public?
Mac Slocum
August 19, 2008
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A flurry of new Kindle guesstimates and analyst predictions has reignited the Kindle number debate (something I'm not fond of). One of the oft-cited arguments is: "How can the Kindle be so popular if I've never seen one in public?"
There are big holes in this line of inquiry, but since it gets raised so often I figured a few device-spotting questions were worth posing to the TOC community:
- Have you seen a Kindle in public? If so, where did you see it?
- Have you seen a Sony Reader or other standalone e-reading device?
- Have you seen more than one e-reader?
- When did you first see an iPod in public? How about a cell phone?
- When did iPods and cell phones transition from public novelties to commonplace items?
Please share your thoughts in the comments area.
Optimizing Web Content for the Kindle Browser
Liza Daly
August 13, 2008
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Amazon's Kindle store is convenient, easy-to-use and stocked with thousands of titles.
But what about publishers and content distributors who want to reach the
estimated 240,000 Kindle users without going through Amazon's program? And what about content formats that the Kindle does not directly support?
One selling point of the device is its free, ubiquitous Internet service and Web browser. Amazon has filed the browser under "Experimental" but it's quite usable as-is. With a few simple changes to a Web site's HTML code, it's even possible to specially cater to Kindle users.
The screenshots used in this article are from the mobile version of Bookworm, my Web application for reading ebooks in the EPUB format. Although what's being displayed is ebook content, it's being delivered by the Kindle's browser, not the Kindle ebook technology, which does not yet support EPUB.
Because the mobile Web version is already heavily optimized for small devices, the layout is simpler than a traditional Web site. What works for an iPhone or other wireless device will also be a good starting point for the Kindle, although we'll see there are some special considerations that don't apply to any other device.
Default or Advanced Mode?
When the Kindle ships, its Web browser is in "default mode." It will not load images or CSS styles, but it does render basic HTML tags like the italic tag <i>. Personally, I prefer "advanced mode," which displays Web pages more like a traditional browser, but some sites can be unreadable in this mode.
When optimizing for the Kindle it's best to consider that most users will not change from "default mode," or even realize that the option exists.
How different are these modes? Here is a comparison shot of the same screen from Bookworm in both modes:
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| My list of books in Advanced mode, showing tabular layout and more advanced font styles | My list of books in Default mode |
In Default mode, all the information about the books runs together. It would be better to present this as a simple vertical list, the way the Amazon Kindle store does, rather than as a table.
Font Size Considerations
You can choose from six font sizes in the Kindle browser. As a content creator, you can provide a wider range of font sizes in your Kindle-formatted Web page, but take care that they aren't too small. The device doesn't clearly display fonts that are smaller than its default six sizes.
In this screenshot, the table of contents for a Bookworm book is not readable, even though this page has already been tailored for the small display of mobile phones:
This problem is only likely to occur in Advanced mode where stylesheets are activated.
Usability
The Kindle's method of selecting and traversing hyperlinks is unique. The user activates links by selecting along the vertical, or Y-axis, using the scroll wheel. When multiple links fall on the same line, the Kindle will open a dialog box so the user can clarify which link is the target.
In Bookworm, users move to the next or previous chapter by selecting navigation links lined up horizontally (see the top row of the first image). In the Kindle, this presentation forces the user to click a second time to select the appropriate one:
For commonly-used navigational items like this, line up the links in a vertical row:
- Next
- Contents
- Previous
Now no second click (and accompanying page refresh) is necessary.
It's also important to remember that the Kindle is a black-and-white device. If your site uses text color to convey any useful information (such as what is or is not a hyperlink), re-work the design to accommodate a grayscale display.
Finally, keep pages short. The Kindle cannot scroll; long Web pages are paginated like books. Pagination with E Ink devices is slow relative to scrolling on a computer screen. If possible, keep all your content on the first Kindle "page" when viewed at the default font size.
Targeting the Kindle
Web browsers are identified using their "user-agent" string. The current
version of the Kindle is broadcasting this user-agent:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Linux 2.6.10) NetFront/3.3 Kindle/1.0
(screen 600x800).
It's beyond the scope of this article to describe how to set up your
Web site to deliver different kinds of content to different browsers,
a process that varies considerably with your site's technology.
How do you test your layout if you don't have a Kindle? There's no substitute for having the real device (tell your boss it's for "research"), and currently Amazon does not offer any kind of browser emulator. Some possibilities:
- Disable stylesheets on your browser and look at the output. Does it still make sense? (Instructions for disabling stylesheets; Firefox users should install the Web Developer add-on)
- Use a text-only browser like Lynx
Some Last Advice
Don't spend too much time on this process. The next version of the Kindle is expected soon, no doubt with an improved browser. Indeed, Amazon could offer a new version of the existing browser at any time. Most of the changes recommended above should take little time and money to implement, and can make a great difference in user experience.
In addition, optimizing your site for small-screen browsers can have other benefits: they allow an increasing number of mobile users to get quick access to your content, and aid accessibility for screen-readers and other non-standard browser types.
Tech Publisher Asks "Are Ebooks Ready for Technical Content?"
Andrew Savikas
July 29, 2008
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Dave Thomas from the Pragmatic Programmers is mulling whether to make their books available on the Kindle, and encountering many of the same issues we faced here at O'Reilly regarding technical content and the limitations of current ebook devices:
In fact, we've had a prototype form of that capability for a while now, but we've always held back. Frankly, we didn't think the devices worked well with our kind of content. Basically, the
.mobiformat used by the Kindle is optimized for books that contain just galleys of text with the occasional heading. Throw in tables, monospaced code listings, sidebars and the like, and things start to get messy.
Dave's post has sparked a great conversation within the comments, including one from Shelly Powers, whose book Painting the Web was among those included in our pilot program:
I think that providing the package deal that O'Reilly does (with PDF, epub, and mobi), in addition to downloadable code is the way to go. If you sell Kindle books, you definitely need to make both your figures and your source available, separately. For instance, I have my Painting the Web figures in an online gallery and the examples are available at O'Reilly--takes care of a lot of issues related to Kindle. Another approach could be to make available (for no additional cost) a PDF of just the figures, or the figures and code.
Preparing a book for the ebook market may seem like a lot of work, but you have the potential to reach a new audience of book buyers. Buyers used to the internet and having access to immediate information; who may not want to order a book and wait a week for it to arrive, but who will buy a book if it means they can have access to it now. I wouldn't have considered myself an "impulse buyer" when it comes to books, but I have probably at least a dozen books I bought because the ebook format was cheaper (that's a key element), and I could get the book _right now_.
On one hand, merely working to replicate a print experience isn't the right way to exploit the benefits of the new platform; on the other hand, publishers (and as usual, I use that term quite loosely) should be able to expect at least minimal rendering of common elements like tables, along with support for at least the same core 14 fonts available in Acrobat (speaking of fonts, if you're looking for a laugh check out this mock "font conference").
News Roundup: Sony Reader Now Supports EPUB, Esquire Using E Ink on September Cover, What Authors Can Learn from Silicon Valley
Mac Slocum
July 25, 2008
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Sony Reader Now Supports EPUB and Digital Editions
The new firmware for the Sony Reader (model PRS-505) supports EPUB and Adobe Digital Editions. From MobileRead:
I can now confirm that this particular speculation seems to have proved out: the new firmware (available sometime today, July 24th) will include support for both epub and Adobe's Digital Editions. It will also include support for PDF reflow, which is something we've long been looking for. As an extra added bonus, the new firmware will support DE's DRM system for both epub and PDF. However you may feel about DRM, this support for it, along with PDF reflow, means that all those PDF e-books available from many public libraries are now in play on the Reader for the first time, so dust off those library cards, folks!
First E Ink Magazine Cover Coming in September
Esquire will use E Ink technology to declare "the 21st Century Begins Now" on 100,000 flashing copies of its September issue. David Granger, Esquire's editor in chief, discusses the first E Ink-driven magazine cover with the New York Times:
... on its own, the magazine will run out of juice after 90 days. Mr.Granger knows some will see the cover as a gimmick -- but he says he thinks the technology behind it, which has been used for supermarket displays but never embedded in a magazine, speaks to the possibilities of print. (Continue reading)
What Authors Can Learn from Silicon Valley
Sramana Mitra of Forbes.com sees parallels between author Elle Newmark's grassroots audience development and Silicon Valley's software process:
In Silicon Valley, we do alpha and beta products -- small prototypes of our vision -- and recruit a small number of customers to gain early validation of the products' viability. These alpha and beta products, along with early customer validation, help us sell our ventures to investors and raise millions of dollars in venture money.
In Newmark's case, she spent less than $10,000 of her own money to "bootstrap" her self-publishing effort, she found customers online, and then she recruited William Morris agent Dorian Karchmar as her "investment banker," who then got her Simon & Schuster as a "venture investor." Newmark's deal with Simon & Schuster is widely rumored to include a seven-figure advance.
Sony Reader Now Supports EPUB and Digital Editions
Peter Brantley
July 24, 2008
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The new firmware for the Sony Reader (model PRS-505) supports EPUB and Adobe Digital Editions. From MobileRead:
I can now confirm that this particular speculation seems to have proved out: the new firmware (available sometime today, July 24th) will include support for both epub and Adobe's Digital Editions. It will also include support for PDF reflow, which is something we've long been looking for. As an extra added bonus, the new firmware will support DE's DRM system for both epub and PDF. However you may feel about DRM, this support for it, along with PDF reflow, means that all those PDF e-books available from many public libraries are now in play on the Reader for the first time, so dust off those library cards, folks!
News Roundup: Dual-Display E-Reader Prototype, Content Tracking Not Just for Takedowns Anymore, Indiana "Explicit" Law Struck Down
Mac Slocum
July 3, 2008
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Researchers Develop Dual-Display E-Reader
Researchers from Berkeley and the University of Maryland have built a dual-display e-reader prototype that uses traditional book-reading navigation (i.e. page turns, flipping the cover under, etc.). From the New Scientist:
The two leaves can be opened and closed to simulate turning pages, or even separated to pass round or compare documents. When the two leaves are folded back, the device shows one display on each side. Simply turning it over reveals a new page. (See video of prototype)
Content Tracking Tools: Control for Some, Distribution for Others
An article in BusinessWeek looks at various uses for content tracking systems, from command-and-control monitoring to partnership opportunities via broad distribution:
Just ask Sarah Chubb, president of CondéNet.com, owner of sites ranging from the Epicurious.com cooking site to fashion site Style.com to WiredDigital, the online arm of Wired magazine. A few years ago, Chub enlisted a team of people to scour the Web for unlicensed content use. Now she has a team that does the opposite -- figuring out how to get CondéNet's recipes, fashion photos, and other content onto up-and-coming blogs and social networking sites. Her team is using Attributor's [content tracking] system not to issue takedown notices but to spot new targets. (Continue reading | Related commentary)
Indiana's "Explicit" Law Struck Down
An Indiana law requiring retailers who sell explicit material to register with the state was struck down by a U.S. Federal Court on First Amendment grounds. From the Indianapolis Star:
The law would have required anyone who intended to sell sexually explicit materials -- which plaintiffs say could have included classic literature, as well as pornography -- to register with Indiana's secretary of state, pay a $250 fee and submit a statement with details about the materials. It would have applied to new businesses and existing ones that relocated or began selling the materials after June 30. (Continue reading)
Researchers Develop Dual-Display E-Reader
Mac Slocum
June 27, 2008
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Researchers from Berkeley and the University of Maryland have built a dual-display e-reader prototype that uses traditional book-reading navigation (i.e. page turns, flipping the cover under, etc.). From the New Scientist:
The two leaves can be opened and closed to simulate turning pages, or even separated to pass round or compare documents. When the two leaves are folded back, the device shows one display on each side. Simply turning it over reveals a new page.
The following video shows the e-reader in action:
Future Electronic Paper Display Devices
Peter Brantley
June 10, 2008
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Nice overview of electronic paper display (EPD) technologies at Computerworld:
[Fujitsu's] Fabric PC looks like a soft trifolded portfolio. Opened, it reveals a flat keyboard on one panel and a display on the other -- a display that wraps under the keyboard. Unfold the keyboard as well and the entire inner surface of the device is an EPD screen as big as a desktop display.
The Fabric PC isn't a product prototype, stresses Paul Moore, senior director of mobile product marketing at Fujitsu, but an indication of the direction the company sees the market taking. A Fujitsu subsidiary, Fujitsu Frontech, is one of the companies working on EPD technology, and it has produced sample quantities of color e-reader devices and sign panels.
The Pitfalls of Publishing's E-Reader Guessing Game
Mac Slocum
June 3, 2008
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A parlor game is working its way through the publishing industry: "Guess E-Reader Sales."
Neither Amazon nor Sony will reveal sales figures for Kindles or Readers, so publishing professionals and prognosticators are relying on ambiguous data -- e.g. financial line items, or the amount and tone of user comments on the Kindle's Amazon listing -- to squeak out guesstimates.
Parlor games are generally innocuous, but two short paragraphs in the New York Times' BEA roundup touch on the competitive disadvantages stemming from e-reader ambiguity:
But neither Amazon nor Sony will say how many of their products they have sold, making it impossible for publishers to assess the size of the market or for bookstore owners to evaluate the threat.
One publisher estimated that Amazon had sold roughly 10,000 Kindles, while another estimated that as many as 50,000 electronic-book readers of all types are in general circulation. But both publishers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that those figures were little more than educated guesses. [Emphasis added.]
Again, this guessing game may seem harmless on first blush, but closer inspection reveals three business pitfalls bubbling beneath the surface:
1. False response through vapor messages: Amazon's two recent Kindle "announcements" (here and here) are intricately developed statements, each of which requires second and third looks to realize there's no "there," there. Combine these official announcements with customer comments and sales guesses already in circulation, and soon we're all amplifying messages that don't actually exist. Meanwhile, Amazon receives attention without ever showing its hand.
2. As the Times notes, ambiguous threats are impossible to evaluate: The default response to closely guarded sales figures is to assume those figures are low. But the longer the e-reader guessing game goes on, the easier it becomes for imagination and fear to creep into the equation. These emotional responses, if taken to an extreme, may actually hinder publishers from developing their own digital gameplans.
But there's a flip side to extended ambiguity: If/when Amazon and Sony ever reveal reliable information, publishers might breath a sign of relief because they finally know what they're dealing with. The anxious shuffling we're currently witnessing could finally turn into definitive business strategies -- and this is a prime reason why we may never see hard data from either of these companies.
3. The distraction component: All this talk about Kindles and Readers and the impending doom heralded by electronic formats distracts everyone from the larger digital issue: It's not the device that matters, it's the platform.
Making books available in digital formats ("the platform") is vital to sustained and future growth because digital is both a way to take advantage of current devices like the Kindle and the Reader, and it's a way around hardware lock-in. Popularity defines the power of a content device (this is why the iPod is infinitely more powerful than the Zune), but if a content provider cannot accurately gauge popularity, then the focus needs to elevate to a broader level of analysis: How can my company take advantage of digital as a whole? How can we best position ourselves to adapt if/when the electronic book tipping point emerges? How do we make the platform work for us?
Distraction from these core questions makes it easier for a third party to swoop in and grab the platform itself, which, as we've seen on the music side, is where the real power lies.
Iliad Book Edition E-Reader Coming to UK
Liza Daly
May 8, 2008
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Just in time for our discussion on the ideal e-book reader comes a new product that will be the first e-reader sold in the United Kingdom.
Trading Wi-Fi for increased storage and an overall price drop, the iLiad Book Edition is a successor to the iLiad 2. Both use the same iRex e-ink technology and feature a tablet-based touch screen. There is no bundled online service or book store, but both iLiads have support for open formats such as PDF. 50 public domain books are preloaded.
Borders UK will sell the device in a small number of stores, and will launch an online ebook store shortly thereafter.
Unfortunately, even this "reduced" price of £399/€499 is unlikely to win over e-reader skeptics, especially without network connectivity. Buying books will always require tethering the device to a computer and completing the purchase over the Web.
Other iLiad Book Edition technical specs:
- 8.1-inch (diagonal) Electronic Paper Display
- 8.5 inch high x 6.1 inch wide, weight 15.3 ounces
- 768 x 1024 pixels resolution, 160 DPI, 16 levels of grey-scale
- File formats supported: PDF, HTML, TXT, JPG, BMP, PNG, PRC (Mobipocket)
- 128MB accessible flash memory; storage expandable via USB, MMC or CF cards
- Built-in stereo speakers and mini-headphone jack
- USB Connectivity to PC
- Optional external 10/100MB Ethernet networking via Travel hub
Ease of Use as Anti-Piracy Tool
Mac Slocum
April 23, 2008
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Simon Juden, CEO of the Publishers Association, says uniform ebook standards -- and the resulting ease of use -- can deter piracy. From The Bookseller:
Licensing must be intuitive, simple and straightforward at the user level or the user will look for ways to circumvent them.
On a related note: Itunes, noted in the past for its ease of use, recently claimed the top spot among U.S. music retailers.
Speculation on Kindle 2.0
Peter Brantley
April 22, 2008
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Ars Technica speculates on what the Kindle 2.0 might provide:
... the general hardware configuration appears to be here for a while. The fact that they're still selling the current version also suggests that they have committed to this design in all its white-plastic glory. In the long term, there's still the option of moving some of the awkwardly-placed controls and of improving the E Ink screen (color and improved contrast or faster response times, seem inevitable) ... All of this leaves changes to the software as the most likely candidates for 2.0 improvements. Realistically, we could only infer what Amazon considered to an acceptable interface based on what was released as 1.0. If this doesn't reflect what they "wanted to release in the first place," then all bets on what may change are off.
[LBF] This Way to the Egress, er, Ebooks
Andrew Savikas
April 16, 2008
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Along with my registration materials for the London Book Fair (sent to me by mail -- a sign of how traditional most of the publishing industry remains) was a ticket to something called the "London eBook Show at the London Book Fair."
At first glance, I was excited to see that ebooks would be featured so prominently at the Fair, but a closer look showed it was actually just a (brilliant) tactic from the folks at DNAML, ebooks to get bodies to their booth. The "show" was a presentation from DNAML's US GM Peter Kent about DNL's take on the future of ebooks (a future that unsurprisingly prominently features their software ...). If anyone's looking for a case study on effective trade show booth promotion, talk to these guys. It was quite impressive to see folks lined queued (I am in London) up with tickets in hand for the "show." While the overall message was right on target, there were several points of the presentation that don't quite mesh with the future of publishing as we've been seeing it:
- DRM. Peter talked quite a bit about DRM, and at one point even mentioned that their research discovered O'Reilly titles on file sharing sites. But that implies that we believe that's a bad thing, when in fact, we feel quite the opposite -- that "piracy" can be a valuable promotional tool (and we're not the only ones)
- The future of devices. I certainly don't fault someone who's selling PC-based ebook software for downplaying the future of dedicated reading devices like the Kindle and Sony Reader. And Peter's right that laptops are becoming cheaper and smaller, and I wouldn't be surprised if a considerable amount of ebook reading happens on laptops. But connecting a few dots (half of Japan's top 10 books last year were written on mobile phones; the iPhone has proven a game-changer for user expectations on a mobile device; Kindle results for at least some publishers have been quite strong) suggests that reading away from a PC will be at least as big, if not bigger, than reading on one.
- Open formats. I'll admit that DNL's software does some pretty impressive stuff with content. But I disagree that keeping that format proprietary is the best choice. The history of proprietary data formats is not a rosy one, and it would be great to instead see work contributed to the emerging .epub standard to improve features there -- if their reader is that good, they haven't got much to fear from sharing.
Those points aside, it really was great to see so much interest in ebooks among the publishers at their "show." And I thought Peter was spot-on in making parallels between ebooks and software: software used to be sold in boxes in retail stores (and later from online retailers, but still in boxes); now most software is downloaded and often includes a trial period. It certainly makes sense that ebooks will eventually follow a similar model, which does mean some serious re-evaluation of existing sales and distribution channels. We've said before that the tools and techniques for developing content are becoming very much like those used to develop software, and it was useful to hear this other analogy raised.
Although there are still standards squabbles, pricing questions, and distribution methods to be worked out, the money to be made is too attractive not to motivate resolution, and 2008 is going to be a very big year for ebooks. Perhaps next year there really will be an "ebook show" at the Fair.
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