QUALITY ETEXTS FOR FREE DOWNLOAD

Building Books

LimpidSoft now announces the release of a set of updated Lexxia scripts for creation of quality PDF and HTML documents from the same marked-up text. They are provided under the GNU Public License, which means that they are free for non-commercial use.

To date, the Lexxia scripts were written in Tcl (tool control language), and feedback suggests that this was somewhat intimidating for some users. Tcl is a seriously useful language, but I have made the decision to use Python for the present and future releases. In porting the code to Python, I have incorporated new features, but always with backwards compatibility for the marked-up text files.

The instructions for use are now split between two file groups, usinglexxia.txt, usinglexxia.pdf, usinglexxia.html and stylinglexxia.txt, stylinglexxia.pdf and stylinglexxia.html. A full installation kit is designed to be used in any environment (Linux, Mac OS X or Windows), which also contain these instructions to illustrate the formats.

The Lexxia kit contains full instructions. If you wish to concentrate on building HTML files, all you need to add is a slightly enhanced Python installation--by using your package manager to download two additional packages (libxml2 and libxslt). With them, you are able to build very nice HTML/ePub/Mobi documents.

If your interest is also in building high-quality PDF documents, you need a standard LaTeX installation (the free TeXLive system is recommended). Additional components and instructions are provided in the Lexxia package.

All this may seem very complicated, but it is not. Concentrate first on building HTML and then move on to PDF. If you have any specific difficulties or requirements, or would like to report any system deficiencies, feel free to contact me at LimpidSoft.

LimpidSoft continues to provide a range of quality free ebooks in several formats:

Now that the Lexxia kit is available, it is time to try your hand at building your own books. Mark up your own text, or download some of the LimpidSoft texts to get started!

Which Format is for You?

This will depend on how you want to use the file:

  • If you have a Kindle, the mobi format may seem obvious, but our experience is that customised PDF files give the best display---by far;
  • If you want to generate hard copy in a typical paperback style, consider the A5 format;
  • If you intend to read a book on your computer, either A4 or A5 format is appropriate, particularly with adjustment of the display size;
  • If you have an ereader that accepts EPUB files, the choice may again seem obvious---but the display of such files is markedly inferior to that of specialised PDF files.
  • If you are desperate and want to use the EPUB files, but use an ereader that does not accept them, there is a way forward (see below).

Babel Revisited

These are early days for ereaders, but it seems pretty certain that they are going to become seriously commonplace. Brand loyalty may become somewhat of a problem, as it brings with it the problem of ereader/file incompatibility. An example that is already with it is at a very simple level: Kindle 2 and HTML files: they don‘t mix. You can load an (X)HTML file, but it will be ignored!

LimpidSoft does not provide HTML files as such, but it does provide the EPUB format. And this is really just a standardised wrapper for XHTML. If you really want to view the contents of an EPUB file (say, ivanhoe.epub) on a Kindle, follow these steps:

  1. Rename the file to ivanhoe.zip;
  2. Unzip the resulting file;
  3. Look inside the resulting directory for an HTML file. Copy this to another location;
  4. Rename the copied file to make it look like a text file (in this case, it will be ‘ivanhoe.txt’);
  5. Load this file into your Kindle. Now you will be able to read it, but do not expect it to be in the same class as a PDF version of the same text!

It may be of interest to compare the sizes of the different file formats. For the Three Musketeers book, as an example, the results are:

Text=1.39 MB HTML=1.30 MB EPUB=462 KB
MOBI from HTML=1.20 MB MOBI from EPUB=1.31 MB
A4 PDF=1.59 MB A5 PDF=1.76 MB Kindle PDF=1.93 MB

I have chosen this book to illustrate the options, mainly because it is larger than most books, so that it clearly shows the trends: HTML and text are essentially the same in size, while the compression in EPUB reduces the size markedly. Reprocessing the HTML or EPUB file to MOBI simplifies navigation in the Kindle, but adds bulk. The PDF files are consistently the largest. It is interesting to compare the influence of page size on the PDF bulk: smaller pages means more lines and more pages, with more built-in instructions.