Re: [NTLK] Newton Book or Newton Paperback, which is better

From: DJ Vollkasko (DJ_Vollkasko_at_gmx.net)
Date: Thu Apr 22 2004 - 00:35:36 PDT


>on 4/21/04 7:22 PM, DJ Vollkasko at
<mailto:DJ_Vollkasko_at_gmx.net?Subject=Re:%20%5BNTLK%5D%20Newton%20Book%20or%20Newton%20Paperback,%20which%20is%20better&In-Reply-To=%2526lt;BCAC95CA.B9C1%25jonglass_at_usa.net%3E>DJ_Vollkasko_at_gmx.net
wrote:
>
>> On the down side, Paperbacks are mostly pretty artless documents (which
>> sometimes appalls me - somebody put years of their lives into a book,
so why
>> not treat the book with some respect - but that's just my personal
bibliomanic
>> itch, I guess), they have no table of contents, no links, no
illustrations, no
>> bookmarks, after a reset Paperbacks forget where you stopped reading...
>
>This isn't exactly true. Paperback books _can_ have a table of contents of
>chapters. You give it the text you use for Chapter headings, and it
>generates them when making the package. Unfortunately, as was already
>mentioned, there is no bookmark feature which it needs.

Jon, my man, I stand corrected on the table of contents-issue.

As for the artlessness of Paperbacks, this is no fault of the format,
either, but lazyness on the part of the book's newtifyers who didn't remove
surplus tabs and space. With paying some respect to the work and a little
effort, this may be remedied.

And as soon as somebody persuades Mr. Fedor to get back to his code and
introduce XNewtBook-compatible bookmarking and lets the Paperback remember
the selected font and size, I'll rest my case against Paperbacks for
text-only ebooks. A well-done Paperback is good to read, and if it had a
page-picker like the ebooks and bookmarks, it'd be the reader of choice for
all non-illustrated stuff that can live without internal links and stuff.

Alternatively, I wonder if it weren't possible to splice something like the
flexible font and size selection of Paperbacks into the Newton Book reader.
XNewtBook nicely intergrates, maybe there could be a font-changing
extension, too...? (But honestly, just doing books in 12 pt. does the job -
the medium isn't as eye-pleasing to read as paper, where 10 pt. or even
9pt. are totally satisfying; to prevent unneccesary strain on the eye, it
pays to step up the font size to 12 pt.)

DJV. (former print-media publisher)

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