Project Gutenberg

[levi_john]

When I download books from Project Gutenberg onto my Sony PRS505 the text often does not fill the full width of the page. For example one line may be the full width ,whilst the next line down might only have one word on it and then the next line down will again be the full width. I can read it like this but clearly it is not right. Can anyone help

[pdurrant]

The Project Gutenberg texts are formatted with fixed line lengths, rather than as logical paragraphs. You'll need to do a little reformatting to get them to read well on your Sony.

First - check the ebook forums here to see if someone has already done a good conversion.

If not - check to see if there's an HTML version at Projewct Gutenberg - this will almost certainly work better than plain text

If you must - open the text up in a text editor, and do a few global search and replaces:

(1) search for two new line characters in a row, and replace with "[paraend]"
(2) search for any new line character, and replace with a space
(3) search for [paraend] and replace with a new line character
(4) search for two spaces in a row and replace with a single space.

That should make your reading experience a lot better.

Originally Posted by levi_john

When I download books from Project Gutenberg onto my Sony PRS505 the text often does not fill the full width of the page. For example one line may be the full width ,whilst the next line down might only have one word on it and then the next line down will again be the full width. I can read it like this but clearly it is not right. Can anyone help

[BookishDreamer]

Welcome to MobileRead, levi_john! Bad line formating can make reading a miserable experience. As pdurrant mentioned, be sure to check out the Ebooks here. Our members are very conscientious about uploading properly formatted books for the reading pleasure of others.

Dreamer

[Patricia]

There are several ways round this problem.
1. Paste the text file into a doc and run stingo's word macro, which you can find here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8793
2. Try putting the text into BookCreator and tidying it there very quickly. It is here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28313
3. Run it through Gutenmark (google to find it).

3. Or do a search and replace as pdurrant describes. I do a similar process:
I paste the text file into a word doc, then click on "edit" and open "Find and Replace."

1. search for ^p^p. (Click on "more" and "special" to find the paragraph symbols.)Replace with ## or @@ or . (This is a placeholder for the paragraph breaks. You want to strip out the single linebreaks but leave the genuine paragraphs.)
2. Search for ^p. Replace with a line space.
3. Search for ##. Replace with paragraph mark.
This should sort the text out. Save as an rtf, or just leave as a doc. The reader will convert it automatically.

[Elsi]

I use a clever program that I downloaded which will take care of most of the PG text problems. It's called "GutenMark" and comes from http://www.sandroid.org/GutenMark

GutenMark outputs HTML or LaTeX. After converting the text file to HTML with GutenMark, I then follow HarryT's directions for using BookDesigner and then MobiPocket creator to create MobiPocket books. Next, I use Calibre to create the Sony BBeB format and ePub. Lastly, I feed the MobiPocket book into Mobi2IMP and create the .imp formats.

If I'm going to be converting a book for my own purposes, I go ahead and create all the formats and upload here. I figure someone else might be interested.

Update: I missed Patricia's mention of GutenMark. Sorry.

[MickeyC]

Hi levi_john amnd welcome to the Forum

[levi_john]

Originally Posted by levi_john

When I download books from Project Gutenberg onto my Sony PRS505 the text often does not fill the full width of the page. For example one line may be the full width ,whilst the next line down might only have one word on it and then the next line down will again be the full width. I can read it like this but clearly it is not right. Can anyone help

Thanks for all of the responses on sorting out the text on my Sony Reader.

I have just tried the HTML approach and it works well and will shortly be trying out the others. Thanks. John

[coolbooks]

I have created a site that takes books from Gutenberg and creates lrf format books on the fly. You can also set margins and font size.

This is provided free of charge at www.coolfreebooks.com

Regards,

Trevor

[Andybaby]

Originally Posted by Elsi

I use a clever program that I downloaded which will take care of most of the PG text problems. It's called "GutenMark" and comes from http://www.sandroid.org/GutenMark

GutenMark outputs HTML or LaTeX. After converting the text file to HTML with GutenMark, I then follow HarryT's directions for using BookDesigner and then MobiPocket creator to create MobiPocket books. Next, I use Calibre to create the Sony BBeB format and ePub. Lastly, I feed the MobiPocket book into Mobi2IMP and create the .imp formats.

If I'm going to be converting a book for my own purposes, I go ahead and create all the formats and upload here. I figure someone else might be interested.

Update: I missed Patricia's mention of GutenMark. Sorry.

for anyone having similar problems. this is probably the easiest way

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by Patricia

There are several ways round this problem.
1. Paste the text file into a doc and run stingo's word macro, which you can find here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8793
2. Try putting the text into BookCreator and tidying it there very quickly. It is here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28313
3. Run it through Gutenmark (google to find it).

3. Or do a search and replace as pdurrant describes. I do a similar process:
I paste the text file into a word doc, then click on "edit" and open "Find and Replace."

1. search for ^p^p. (Click on "more" and "special" to find the paragraph symbols.)Replace with ## or @@ or . (This is a placeholder for the paragraph breaks. You want to strip out the single linebreaks but leave the genuine paragraphs.)
2. Search for ^p. Replace with a line space.
3. Search for ##. Replace with paragraph mark.
This should sort the text out. Save as an rtf, or just leave as a doc. The reader will convert it automatically.

Thank you! This is what I've been trying to ask about and wasn't smart enough to phrase it so y'all knew what I was talking about. I'm 20 pages into re-formatting a book in Word now - this should make the remaining 277 pages a LOT easier.

[Patricia]

I hope that it helps, shel.
Don't hesitate to ask about this sort of problem: that's precisely what the workshop section of the forum is for.

[jimad]

Examples of the "Gutenmark" approach abound at http://www.freekindlebooks.org -- which also has the start of a "mirror" of project gutenberg in MOBI format at http://www.freekindlebooks.org/MobiM...obimirror.html

The approach I would recommend for the "casual" user -- ie the personal reader of Project Gutenberg texts rather than someone who wants to republish those PG texts -- is to get the EPUB version of the book from PG and then run the Calibre "any2mobi" command line tool on that file. It takes me literally about two minutes to pick out a book from PG and do this conversion.

For Kindle I wrote a little command line batch file to call any2mobi with Kindle-centric parameters:

"c:\program files\calibre\any2mobi.exe" --no-justification --cover ..\pg.jpg --dest-profile Kindle %1

where "pg.jpg" is a little dummy cover I insert because I do not like how any2mobi tries to gin up a dummy cover.

[Patricia]

I just use a handful of macros and a lot of find+replace. Then I proofread. If the source is The Internet Archive or Google Books then a close proofreading is essential. With new PG texts, this can be abbreviated considerably.

Currently, I'm doing some Laura Ingalls Wilder. In my source file for "On the Banks of Plum Creek", "Creek" usually appears as "Greek." This is weird, but quickly replaced.

[roger64]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The Project Gutenberg texts are formatted with fixed line lengths, rather than as logical paragraphs. You'll need to do a little reformatting to get them to read well on your Sony.

First - check the ebook forums here to see if someone has already done a good conversion.

If not - check to see if there's an HTML version at Projewct Gutenberg - this will almost certainly work better than plain text

If you must - open the text up in a text editor, and do a few global search and replaces:

(1) search for two new line characters in a row, and replace with "[paraend]"
(2) search for any new line character, and replace with a space
(3) search for [paraend] and replace with a new line character
(4) search for two spaces in a row and replace with a single space.

That should make your reading experience a lot better.

Thanks for a crystal clear explanation (OK I am a little late).

May I add that it is easy enough to wrap together all these four points above in a plain macro and that'it.

[jimad]

Project Gutenberg is now directly supporting (on an "Experimental" meaning sometimes buggy basis) two E-Book formats: EPUB and MOBI [and HTML if you want to include that one too]

And/or use Calibre especially its command line tools to turn these three formats into other E-Book formats if need be.