[IAEP] [support-gang] Tonight's Question: Read vs Read ETexts?

[James Simmons]

Read Etexts reads Plain Text files from Project Gutenberg plus RTF
format files from the Baen Free Library which it converts to Plain
Text before reading.  It is a pure Python Activity that is not derived
from anything else.  It also has a Book tab when opened from the
Activity ring (not resumed) and this lets you browse and download
titles from Project Gutenberg.  You can highlight and annotate text,
plus you can give a book as many bookmarks as you like.  Finally, it
can do text to speech with highlighting of the words being spoken.

If you're having problems opening PDFs with Read (and getting them
opened in Browse instead) try using Start With rather than Start from
the pop-up menu the Journal gives you.  Once you've successfully
opened a book with Read the icon in the Journal entry should change to
the Read icon and from then on you can simply Start the book from the
Journal.

The same trick works with Read Etexts.  The books you download using
Read Etexts will have the Read Etexts icon from the beginning.

James Simmons


On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 10:08 PM, Tim McNamara
<paperless at timmcnamara.co.nz> wrote:
> On 25 June 2010 14:39, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Saturday I need to show someone via Skype how to use the XO as a book
>> reader.  So far no luck with it.  I have tried both the Read Activity and
>> the Read E Texts Activity and can't seem to get either to work well.  Are
>> there any really good instructions anywhere for these?  I have been telling
>> folks everywhere how the XO makes a great book reader, but haven't tried it
>> in ages!  Am I lying to them?
>
> Here are some pointers that may assist:
>
> With Read, open downloaded documents from the Journal, not directly from the
> Activity itself. [1]
> ebook formats can be tricky - some ebook formats are designed to be read by
> a particular type of device. XOs are highly unlikely to high up on the
> supported device list.
> From memory, those Activities (possibly just Read E Texts) are derived from
> FBReader[1]. FBReader can open many several formats, but only a few are
> supported "fully".[2] This means that it will display text, but that display
> may not be pretty.
>
> Also, does "No luck with it" mean that nothing opens at all, or does it mean
> that files open but they are poorly rendered? If things are opening but they
> look ugly, it's probably a software issue. If things are not opening at all,
> you are probably trying to open ebooks in a way Sugar doesn't understand.
> Best of luck!
> Tim
>
> [1] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read#How_to_use
> [2] http://www.fbreader.org/
> [3] http://www.fbreader.org/docs/formats.php
>
>
> Sometimes it depends on the type of
> _______________________________________________
> support-gang mailing list
> support-gang at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/support-gang
>
>