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kjnThe iPod Touch and the iPhone can be quite decent e-book readers, but they have the drawback of not having dedicated e-book software short of Mobile Safari, and that requires an active net connection to load the book. This short guide shows you how to work around this limitation, using only the standard software on the iPod, ie no jail-breaking, hacking or access to the SDK is required.
I assume you want to use a HTML version of the book as the basis. You can use a PDF, RTF or plain text also. I'm using the various formats that Webscription offers as the basis.
First, you need a monolithic version of the book (ie, all the chapters in one large file). I've used the free software Convert Lit to extract the HTML file from the Microsoft Reader lit file, but you can eg save the RTF file as HTML, or use any other way to generate the file. In some cases you may have ready access to a monolithic HTML file.
The file of interest from the lit file is probably named xxxxxxxxxx__p_.htm
This file can be read on the iPod as is, but the font size is quite small (unless you hold the iPod horizontally). This can be fixed by inserting this line between the style tags:
Valid values for font-size are xx-small, x-small, small, medium, large, x-large and xx-large. Choose the one that suits your eyes the best.
The resulting file is quite readable on the iPod, but it still requires an active net connection. The last key to the puzzle is to use the free software FileMark Maker.
It is available both as a Mac OS X droplet application and as a Perl script. Let it run on the edited file, and it will generate a new file, which is opened in Safari. It contains a link which you must add as a bookmark. This bookmark will contain the entire book. Sync the iPod, choosing to sync Safari bookmarks as well, and you can now open the bookmark and read the book without an active net connection.
On Windows, you can also choose to use Internet Explorer to add the filemark and sync with the iPod.
I assume you want to use a HTML version of the book as the basis. You can use a PDF, RTF or plain text also. I'm using the various formats that Webscription offers as the basis.
First, you need a monolithic version of the book (ie, all the chapters in one large file). I've used the free software Convert Lit to extract the HTML file from the Microsoft Reader lit file, but you can eg save the RTF file as HTML, or use any other way to generate the file. In some cases you may have ready access to a monolithic HTML file.
The file of interest from the lit file is probably named xxxxxxxxxx__p_.htm
This file can be read on the iPod as is, but the font size is quite small (unless you hold the iPod horizontally). This can be fixed by inserting this line between the style tags:
<STYLE>
body {font-size:xx-large}
</STYLE>Valid values for font-size are xx-small, x-small, small, medium, large, x-large and xx-large. Choose the one that suits your eyes the best.
The resulting file is quite readable on the iPod, but it still requires an active net connection. The last key to the puzzle is to use the free software FileMark Maker.
It is available both as a Mac OS X droplet application and as a Perl script. Let it run on the edited file, and it will generate a new file, which is opened in Safari. It contains a link which you must add as a bookmark. This bookmark will contain the entire book. Sync the iPod, choosing to sync Safari bookmarks as well, and you can now open the bookmark and read the book without an active net connection.
On Windows, you can also choose to use Internet Explorer to add the filemark and sync with the iPod.
