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New New eBook for you, and a PDF question
I just finished this last night: http://cooklikeyourg...orites-htclyg.pdf

It's the 10 most popular recipes from the blog, formatted as an eBook. Tell me what you think. I'll be shipping this around to some people for blurbs before I start selling it.

The file is still pretty big -- 18.5 MB -- because I pasted all the images in their native resolution, which is much higher than you need for online viewing.

Anybody know how to convert and downsample a PDF without losing the index and links?


Or if you know how to pass the right parameters to pdflatex, that would work too.
--

Drew
Expand Edited by drook April 28, 2010, 01:17:02 PM EDT
New Looks great. Cautionary eBook reader information.
(I can't help much with the file size. If it were me, I'd see what GhostScript/GSView could do with it, but I doubt that it handles links and indexes well. I would assume that it's safest to adjust the images yourself before feeding them to your PDF creator. If you're worried about the time required, you could try something like Phatch - http://photobatch.stani.be/ (which I have only used briefly).)

I didn't check the link initially, and I didn't have an eBook reader, so I did some looking around. GowerPoint was recommended.

I downloaded the demo version of GowerPoint's uBook for Windows - http://www.gowerpoin...m/uBook_down.html - and installed it. The software seems pretty good.

Then I downloaded your eBook and saw it was just a PDF. It looks great in Adobe Reader. A couple of quick, nit-picky, suggestions.

1) There seem to be a lot of blank pages. I understand why you would want that if you're printing (e.g. to always have a recipe start on the left page), but for reading on the screen it's disconcerting. Is there some way you can put something on the page, or only include the blank page when printing?

2) Maybe present the recipes in ascending order (like Letterman's Top10 list)? Having #1 first seems to take the suspense out of it.

Finally, if you're thinking about people reading it on phones and iPads and such, I hope you're actually trying some of the readers for those devices. Unfortunately, in uBook it looks horrible. Just the text is shown and much of the formatting is lost. (There's a pointer to a better PDF to HTML converter - http://minnie.tuhs.o...tohtml/index.html - but I dunno how well it works yet). You might need a HowTo or ListofRecommendedReaders or such if you're concerned that people may put it into something other than Acrobat or GSView.

Otherwise, it is very well done. Thanks for the advance look! HTH a little.

Cheers,
Scott.
New All good points
I still had it set by default to print formatting, so all chapters start on the right page. (right-not-left not right-not-wrong) I'll redo it differently.

For eBook readers, I'll need to completely redo the formatting. I know this won't convert well.

I've found a fix for the images. If I had Acrobat, I could just tell it to render all images at X dpi. For this I'm going to copy the image directory, use mogrify to resize everything, then rename the image directory.

The ascending order is such a great idea, I should have thought of it.

By the way, what do you think of the cover?
--

Drew
New Um...
The cover - it's a beautiful picture. :-)

The falling stove gets your attention, but maybe not in a good way...? I think it's a great image to include with your writings and immediately gets across the "grandmother" idea.

Honestly, I'm probably the last person to be asked about graphics design issues. I think it's well done, and it gets your attention, but it's also a little distracting from the food.

Maybe Rand can offer some thoughts?

Cheers,
Scott.
New Calling Rand ...
Can I get an opinion on this?

http://cooklikeyourg...ges/raf-cover.jpg

That's 1/4 size, but probably about what it will be for an eBook.
--

Drew
New I, for one, welcome our new Granny's Oven Overlords
Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
New Is this link supposed to work?
http://cooklikeyourg...nder-tempura.html
New Shouldn't have the "html"
Where was that link?
--

Drew
New In the onion ring recipe
When it pointed to how to make the batter in a different recipe.
New Thanks, fixed in the book and the blog
--

Drew
New FYI
Apple Reveals New Service for Authors to Sell Their Books Directly in the iBookstore
http://www.maclife.c...rectly_ibookstore
New Ooh, looking into that now, thanks
--

Drew
     New eBook for you, and a PDF question - (drook) - (11)
         Looks great. Cautionary eBook reader information. - (Another Scott) - (4)
             All good points - (drook) - (3)
                 Um... - (Another Scott) - (2)
                     Calling Rand ... - (drook) - (1)
                         I, for one, welcome our new Granny's Oven Overlords -NT - (malraux)
         Is this link supposed to work? - (crazy) - (3)
             Shouldn't have the "html" - (drook) - (2)
                 In the onion ring recipe - (crazy) - (1)
                     Thanks, fixed in the book and the blog -NT - (drook)
         FYI - (SpiceWare) - (1)
             Ooh, looking into that now, thanks -NT - (drook)

Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping
54 ms