[NTLK] Making Newton Books on an Intel Mac

[Smith Woody]

This issue is not unique to the Windows version of Newton Press.
I will reprint here an earlier post of mine that may be useful to you.
Additional content related to book creation, font and page sizing is  
included.



"While it is true that the screen size and font cannot be changed
within the Newton book reader itself, the text can be extracted and
the newton book recreated to meet your needs.

Early on in my use of the Newton, my greatest frustration was not
being able to read some books because the font was too small for my
aging eyes to see comfortably.  This lead to making books for myself
using Project Gutenberg text or text files of books posted on peoples
personal sites.  Both of these sources required a great deal of
editing due to OCR errors, missing spaces and extra returns but I had
books with large bold font that I could read.
I also found that MS Word on the Mac (or TextEdit) can extract the  
text from a
Newton Book Package and with just a little clean up a new Newton Book
can be created with Newton Press.  Much easier than scratch though  
table of contents is lost."


*Following relates to your problem.

"A second frustration was a quirky error that occurs in the newton
book reader where some lines are truncated with a series of ......s
and the text seems to be lost, it is actually there you just cannot
see it.
With Newtscape and HTMList installed I found that I could save a
specified page range to Newtonworks and read the book in the word
processor with any font I had installed.  This was certainly quicker
than making a new Newton book and solved both of my frustrations."

*Keep curser near where you are reading.

"But an even better approach is to save the page range, including all,
to works as html. Then in Works change the isdn#, keeps the original
book safe from the next step.  Until you have some experience don't
change anything else.
In Newtscape preferences 'appearance' set your preferred font, size
etc. for text and headings and select or specify book size such as
280 x 302 for 1x0 newts or 298 x 388 for the 2x00 or even a little
bigger to eliminate the frame.
Now in Newtscape tap file and choose open Newtworks, select your book
and it will open in Newtscape with your preferred font (even those
not offered in Newton Press) I like Casual. Now save as package and
you will have a new Newton book. If the table of contents was setup
in the original it will remain in this new copy though additional
items may be included such as all headings and items set as bold in
the html code.
Until you get used to how long it takes stick to smaller books, and
freeze ups in works due to insufficient heap can corrupt a storage
device so use a card with nothing valuable on it, make sure no notes,
names or dates are there by using the appropriate applications.  With
everything frozen that you don't need I think the upper end is about
500 newton pages.

Images can be saved to Newtonworks but be careful as your chances of
crashing is enhanced, and it can and will corrupt the memory device.

Have fun with your newton as a book reader and maker.

Woody


On Oct 24, 2010, at 10:22 PM, Noah Leon wrote:

>
> Hey all,
> I've been trying for a week or so now to make text documents into  
> newton books using the Windows version of Newton Press (downloaded  
> from unna.org) running under DarWine for OSX, and have had some  
> success.
> The problem is that when I export the book to a pkg file and load it  
> up on my newt, there is a portion of text missing from the bottom of  
> each page. About a small paragraph's worth--at the end of each page  
> where the text is cut off there is a "..." and it doesn't continue  
> on the next page.
> After opening up the Press file I was working on, I noticed that on  
> each page of the project, the text is there. However, the dimensions  
> of the document look a little screwy. I tried all the different  
> modes, Universal, 2x00 portrait and lanscape, they seem a little  
> long in the vertical dimension. I thought maybe this was a font  
> problem, so tried all the different fonts. Still exported books have  
> text missing.
> Has anyone had any success with the Windows version? I noticed that  
> there is an update for the mac version, not sure if there is  
> something available for Windows one too. Besides the rather large  
> glitch it works really well.
> (Oh, and BTW I like poutine too (living in French Canada), and it is  
> pronounced POO-tin, as was mentioned in an earlier digest!)
> Thanks in advance.noah 		 	   		
>
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