Into the Digital Age

[BentonGrey]

Howdy guys, I've got a question for the many tech savvy folks who frequent these forums.  It seems I'm being drug into the 21st century, as I received a Kindle Fire for Christmas.  I have gotten some use out of it, but I imagine I'll always prefer having an actual book in my hands.  However, I have found it useful for reading my digital comics.  I've got a bunch of .cbr format comics, and thanks to a cheap app, I'm able to read them easily enough.  However, I've also got my Marvel comics on DVD that I bought like crazy a few years back.  I love these things, but I do hate having to read them at my desktop.  So, I put some on my Kindle, and I am very sad to learn that, not only does the Adobe PDF reader stink, but the comics display with a giant Marvel watermark as well.  Does anyone know about a better way to go about this?  These comics are my property, bought and paid for, and I want to be able to read them on this device...but at the moment, that doesn't seem terribly likely.

[GogglesPizanno]

I still dont even own anything with a touch screen... However helping friends with theirs, I would recommend trying Calibre (there is even a portable non-installer version you can carry around on a thumb drive).

http://calibre-ebook.com

It really is the current free swiss army knife of ebooks. It can do various conversions of multiple formats into each other and and is good for organization. You still are tied to various copy protections and other issues of that nature, but if you cant solve your problems with this, chances are good you wont be able to. Here is the manual specifically talking about PDF (and potential issues).

http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conversion.html#pdfconversion

As an aside their handling of cbr/cbz files and being able to convert batches of them into a "ebook" with issues as chapters is kinda cool.

[thalaw2]

Yeah.  Calibre is good stuff! And it's free!

[BlueBard]

Yeah, I'm trying to get up to speed with "eBook" technologies myself, but I'm more interested in the writing/publishing end.

[BentonGrey]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, but it looks like Calibre doesn't like PDF conversions very much.  I did finally find a nice PDF reader in EZPDFReader, though it cost me a few dollars, and I've started using Sugarsync to put the comics on my Kindle without me having to sideload them.  So, that's working okay.

[GogglesPizanno]

This is why I hate the modern digital commerce as it stands now. The convenience is marred by locked proprietary formats, obtrusive DRM, and the idea everything is a service we arer paying to use as opposed to a product we paid money to own. Much like my rant about Steam and games a while back, this is why Im not too quick to jump on the digital product revolution unless I can get a totally unlocked product to use as I wish (ala places like GOG) or else I can get a legit copy and find "other" ways to unlock it -- unethical? perhaps, but I paid the money for the product, I dont wanna have to jump through hoops and validate myself 27 different ways online just to use. My DVD's and CD's and graphic novels dont give a crap what I do with them and noone can remove or ban access to them, and I dont have to have an internet connection to use them.

Now get off my lawn ya damn kids with yer facebooks and yer iScreens!

Interesting e-book sidenote, TOR books apparently has announced that their e-books are going to start being sold DRM free.

[BlueBard]

On the other hand, eBooks purchased through eBooksellers like Amazon and ePublishers like O'Reilly Media are kept available for re-download 'forever' once you've bought one on your account.  Conversion mechanisms do exist for most of the eBook formats.

O'Reilly is one of the best, if you're into tech publications.  They give you discounts on eBooks for print titles you already own and they include all of the major ePublication formats for every eBook they sell... Mobi, ePUB, PDF, etc.  And they're all DRM-free.  I wish every ePublisher took their view.

[Tawodi Osdi]

I went with Nook, and I love it; though, it stinks on ice when it comes to PDF also.  I haven't tried it with CBR.  I would probably need an app for that.

[Lionheart]

On the other hand, eBooks purchased through eBooksellers like Amazon and ePublishers like O'Reilly Media are kept available for re-download 'forever' once you've bought one on your account.  Conversion mechanisms do exist for most of the eBook formats.

O'Reilly is one of the best, if you're into tech publications.  They give you discounts on eBooks for print titles you already own and they include all of the major ePublication formats for every eBook they sell... Mobi, ePUB, PDF, etc.  And they're all DRM-free.  I wish every ePublisher took their view.

It's a difficult call on DRM from an author's standpoint. One author noted that someone bought an electronic copy of his book, converted it and put it up on a "free" website. It had already been downloaded over 400 times before they put a stop to it. That's 400 pirated copies of his book that he received no compensation for. That's a pretty big theft.

So while I'd love to be able to use the epub files on any reader devices, I do fully understand the reason behind DRM when dealing with digital files that are so easy to copy and mass distribute.

With regard to Calibre, it is a very good tool, but the developer admits that PDF files are the most difficult to convert. Never assume the conversion will be totally clean. There will be some manual corrections that need to be made. Sigil is a good free editing tool for working on epubs.