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I hate PDFs round 3
Aug. 28th, 2009 10:09 pmOkay so I finally got around to downloading all the Tardis Big Bang PDFs. I converted one to HTML hoping to use Calibre to convert the story into LRF so I can read it on my ebook device. The results are not what I was hoping for here is an example of what I got for the first paragraph.
“Chapter One
It was after his death on Argot Station that Jack realized how wrong he'd been. The death was an ugly one. Getting shot in the stomach was never a good way to go, and Jack knew he was unlikely to enjoy the aftermath either. He had the tendency to wake up as soon as his body was able to sustain consciousness, but before everything was back in its proper place. Getting shot in the head meant one hell of a migraine. Getting shot in the belly - with bullets that extruded nasty little blades, no less - meant several hours of extreme unpleasantness while his intestines squirmed themselves back into position. Jack didn't think about that much at the time. He wasn't thinking about much at all beyond the pain, until he coughed and then he was thinking about the blood in his mouth and throat, choking him. "Jack!" River was there, filling his field of vision. Jack turned his head, squinting to see if the guards who had shot him were still there or if they'd gone. "Jack, stay with me -" "G' be okay," Jack managed. She'd only been with him and the Doctor a few months and she'd never seen him die. She knew he'd wake up again, they'd told her that right away, but she seemed to have forgotten. She was trying to staunch the bleeding with her bare hands. Jack appreciated the effort, but it wasn't going to help. He coughed again. Knives of pain split apart his stomach and his mouth filled with blood. He gagged on it, unable to breathe. He tried to tell her again that it'd be okay, the Doctor would come for them soon, but all that came out was a desperate gargling noise. River's hands were covered in Jack's blood, and Jack was - Gone. He woke up in the TARDIS medbay. The bright lights made his head ache, so he closed his eyes, listened to the comforting thrum and hum of the ship, and waited for the Doctor to notice he was awake. He'd obviously missed out on the rest of their misadventure, but he couldn't feel too sorry about it. It was just as unpleasant as he remembered, feeling his insides slip around. Eventually the disorientation eased enough for Jack to sense that something was off. He blinked his eyes open, half-afraid he'd mistaken his location, but he hadn't. It was the TARDIS, only . . . no Doctor. That was strange. The two of them had what almost amounted to a ritual for the aftermath of these adventures, the bad ones where Jack died. The Doctor took it hard, and after a few hundred years of playing fast and loose with his own skin, Jack had learned to avoid it if he could. Since rejoining the Doctor a couple decades earlier, he'd only died a few dozen times. But the hours after each of those times were etched into Jack's memory as some of the sweetest, most intimate moments of his long life. “
I tried saving as RTF, got the same thing. I think what happened is that whomever created the PDF didn’t add enough space between paragraphs so the program is not detecting the paragraph breaks? It’s a mess. It wouldn’t be so bad if they had made the PDF look like a real book but that didn’t happen. (real book with paragraph indents instead of spaces) Or made sure the source had defined paragraph breaks which you can check by hitting the view formatting button in Microsoft Office. Most stories have ^l line breaks where they really need ^p breaks. Especially before converting to another format out of MS Word.
And as anyone that creates ebooks knows you can’t resize a PDF to fit a 6 inch screen it has to be made from the original source file. I’ll probably go through and guess where the paragraphs breaks are supposed to be but honestly I don’t think the authors intended or wanted their stories to look like this when random people, aka me, go through and start guessing as to where the paragraph breaks are supposed to go. I think in the end I just won't read any of the fics that aren't already in a single file at the Tardis Big Bang which is very disappointing. :(
Maybe if this was my only fandom it would be worth the time to reformat the stories properly into html or go and save all the chapters and merge them. However school started for me yesterday and I don't have time to go merge fics anymore and I certainly don't have time to make them look pretty for reading on my PRS-505.
I think authors that provide more than one format for their fic actually end up with more control over how their fic is presented to their users.
This was rather disheartening…I guess I just have to hope the authors post their fics someplace else like the awesome Doctor Who archive A Teaspoon and an Open Mind which is currently hosting 22,953 stories. Or with luck they'll post to Dreamdwidth. Either that or make an open call to my flist to see if anyone has had the time to merge any of the Tardis Big Bang stories but that's kind of my last resort option. I gotta say the Teaspoon archive does give me hope. It looks like many Doctor Who/Torchwood authors are hosting their fics there.
So far in terms of getting stories easily into 1 file without making my carpal tunnel worse I gotta say the Stargate Atlantis Big Bang and the Merlin Big Bang are without doubt my favorite Big Bang challenges. I also truly appreciate all the authors of the Tardis Big Bang and the Supernatural Big Bang that did offer their stories in a single file.
I'll admit I'm biased towards single file postings of fics so yeah I truly anticipate those two challenges for the ease of reading the fics aspect if nothing else.
EDIT: While I was browsing the Teaspoon archive I ran across the story I was trying to convert in a single file. A Wound In Time by Sahiya.
EDIT 2: Um I didn't single out Sahiya's story for any malicious reason. I just really love her stories and figured if I only had time to convert 1 story today it should be hers since I know she's a rather good writer and I've been wanting to read her fic since it was first posted. And after looking at the other PDFs I'd have gotten the same results with any of the conversions to html.
EDIT 3: I also don't mean to exactly single out the Tardis Big Bang but they did provide my latest example of why I find PDFs frustrating.
The Tardis Big Bang crew provided beautiful PDFs that are great for reading on a computer and I can tell they put some effort into it. That doesn't change the fact that format shifting from PDF can easily turn into one big mess.
“Chapter One
It was after his death on Argot Station that Jack realized how wrong he'd been. The death was an ugly one. Getting shot in the stomach was never a good way to go, and Jack knew he was unlikely to enjoy the aftermath either. He had the tendency to wake up as soon as his body was able to sustain consciousness, but before everything was back in its proper place. Getting shot in the head meant one hell of a migraine. Getting shot in the belly - with bullets that extruded nasty little blades, no less - meant several hours of extreme unpleasantness while his intestines squirmed themselves back into position. Jack didn't think about that much at the time. He wasn't thinking about much at all beyond the pain, until he coughed and then he was thinking about the blood in his mouth and throat, choking him. "Jack!" River was there, filling his field of vision. Jack turned his head, squinting to see if the guards who had shot him were still there or if they'd gone. "Jack, stay with me -" "G' be okay," Jack managed. She'd only been with him and the Doctor a few months and she'd never seen him die. She knew he'd wake up again, they'd told her that right away, but she seemed to have forgotten. She was trying to staunch the bleeding with her bare hands. Jack appreciated the effort, but it wasn't going to help. He coughed again. Knives of pain split apart his stomach and his mouth filled with blood. He gagged on it, unable to breathe. He tried to tell her again that it'd be okay, the Doctor would come for them soon, but all that came out was a desperate gargling noise. River's hands were covered in Jack's blood, and Jack was - Gone. He woke up in the TARDIS medbay. The bright lights made his head ache, so he closed his eyes, listened to the comforting thrum and hum of the ship, and waited for the Doctor to notice he was awake. He'd obviously missed out on the rest of their misadventure, but he couldn't feel too sorry about it. It was just as unpleasant as he remembered, feeling his insides slip around. Eventually the disorientation eased enough for Jack to sense that something was off. He blinked his eyes open, half-afraid he'd mistaken his location, but he hadn't. It was the TARDIS, only . . . no Doctor. That was strange. The two of them had what almost amounted to a ritual for the aftermath of these adventures, the bad ones where Jack died. The Doctor took it hard, and after a few hundred years of playing fast and loose with his own skin, Jack had learned to avoid it if he could. Since rejoining the Doctor a couple decades earlier, he'd only died a few dozen times. But the hours after each of those times were etched into Jack's memory as some of the sweetest, most intimate moments of his long life. “
I tried saving as RTF, got the same thing. I think what happened is that whomever created the PDF didn’t add enough space between paragraphs so the program is not detecting the paragraph breaks? It’s a mess. It wouldn’t be so bad if they had made the PDF look like a real book but that didn’t happen. (real book with paragraph indents instead of spaces) Or made sure the source had defined paragraph breaks which you can check by hitting the view formatting button in Microsoft Office. Most stories have ^l line breaks where they really need ^p breaks. Especially before converting to another format out of MS Word.
And as anyone that creates ebooks knows you can’t resize a PDF to fit a 6 inch screen it has to be made from the original source file. I’ll probably go through and guess where the paragraphs breaks are supposed to be but honestly I don’t think the authors intended or wanted their stories to look like this when random people, aka me, go through and start guessing as to where the paragraph breaks are supposed to go. I think in the end I just won't read any of the fics that aren't already in a single file at the Tardis Big Bang which is very disappointing. :(
Maybe if this was my only fandom it would be worth the time to reformat the stories properly into html or go and save all the chapters and merge them. However school started for me yesterday and I don't have time to go merge fics anymore and I certainly don't have time to make them look pretty for reading on my PRS-505.
I think authors that provide more than one format for their fic actually end up with more control over how their fic is presented to their users.
This was rather disheartening…I guess I just have to hope the authors post their fics someplace else like the awesome Doctor Who archive A Teaspoon and an Open Mind which is currently hosting 22,953 stories. Or with luck they'll post to Dreamdwidth. Either that or make an open call to my flist to see if anyone has had the time to merge any of the Tardis Big Bang stories but that's kind of my last resort option. I gotta say the Teaspoon archive does give me hope. It looks like many Doctor Who/Torchwood authors are hosting their fics there.
So far in terms of getting stories easily into 1 file without making my carpal tunnel worse I gotta say the Stargate Atlantis Big Bang and the Merlin Big Bang are without doubt my favorite Big Bang challenges. I also truly appreciate all the authors of the Tardis Big Bang and the Supernatural Big Bang that did offer their stories in a single file.
I'll admit I'm biased towards single file postings of fics so yeah I truly anticipate those two challenges for the ease of reading the fics aspect if nothing else.
EDIT: While I was browsing the Teaspoon archive I ran across the story I was trying to convert in a single file. A Wound In Time by Sahiya.
EDIT 2: Um I didn't single out Sahiya's story for any malicious reason. I just really love her stories and figured if I only had time to convert 1 story today it should be hers since I know she's a rather good writer and I've been wanting to read her fic since it was first posted. And after looking at the other PDFs I'd have gotten the same results with any of the conversions to html.
EDIT 3: I also don't mean to exactly single out the Tardis Big Bang but they did provide my latest example of why I find PDFs frustrating.
The Tardis Big Bang crew provided beautiful PDFs that are great for reading on a computer and I can tell they put some effort into it. That doesn't change the fact that format shifting from PDF can easily turn into one big mess.