[79attendees] RFCs in two ebook formats (mobi, epub)

Tero Kivinen <kivinen@iki.fi> Sun, 07 November 2010 15:44 UTC

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Message-ID: <19670.51583.480134.384304@fireball.kivinen.iki.fi>
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2010 17:45:03 +0200
From: Tero Kivinen <kivinen@iki.fi>
To: 79attendees@ietf.org
Subject: [79attendees] RFCs in two ebook formats (mobi, epub)
Precedence: list

I have made the tool to convert all rfcs to format suitable for kindle
3 (Mobipocket, mobi) and as side effect I also have RFCs in epub
format too (as that is used as a source format for kindlegen
conversion program).

My process does not try to keep the original format of the RFCss, but
rather try to make them ebook reader compatible. This means I do
remove all page breaks, page numbers, convert table of contents to be
links to actual section headers, remove hard linebreaks and make
normal text flowable (meaning you can change font size etc). I try to
detect pictures, list items, references etc and format those
accordingly.

There are limitations depending on the platform, for example in the
Kindle 3 the smallest fixed width font is just small enough to allow
65 characters on the line (when screen is rotated), and that is just
exactly what is needed for our loved 32 bit word pictures:

                        1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                       IKE SA Initiator's SPI                  |
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
...

I do not want to convert them to gif/jpeg images as then you would
loose ability to search, cut & paste etc.

Also in kindle there seems to be no way to access extra indexes I have
(Lookup Keywords, Lookup Titles) even when they do work if you load
same mobipocket file to mobipocket reader on some other platforms
(SymbianOs, blackberry, PalmOs, Windows Mobile etc), fortunately you
can get to the rfc index by through menu / index.

The epub format works for some other platforms (at least stanza in
iPhony altought it didn't support fixed width font so pictures were
not pretty), but I have not really tested it as I do not have those
platforms.

Anyways this is still work in progress, so feel free to send comments,
bug reports, feature requests etc to me.

Bill Fenner is now hosting those files in fast enough connection that
should allow loading them fast enough.

The urls are:

	http://www.fenron.net/~fenner/ietf/rfc.mobi

and

	http://www.fenron.net/~fenner/ietf/rfc.epub

The mobi format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobipocket) works in
Kindle 3, and any mobipocket reader software, along with lots of other
readers). ePub (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB) should then work in
rest of the devices...

You might need to download them to your PC first and then transfer
them to your device separately. Kindle should be able to download them
directly from that url, but the mime.types file in www.fenron.net does
not announce the proper mime type for those files, so it tries to show
it as text... (I assume this will get fixed). 
-- 
kivinen@iki.fi

[79attendees] RFCs in two ebook formats (mobi, ep… Tero Kivinen
Re: [79attendees] RFCs in two ebook formats (mobi… Albert Tian
Re: [79attendees] RFCs in two ebook formats (mobi… Michael Graff
Re: [79attendees] RFCs in two ebook formats (mobi… Malcolm Scott
Re: [79attendees] RFCs in two ebook formats (mobi… Andrew McGregor
Re: [79attendees] RFCs in two ebook formats (mobi… Michael Graff
Re: [79attendees] RFCs in two ebook formats (mobi… Tero Kivinen
Re: [79attendees] RFCs in two ebook formats (mobi… Gonzalo Camarillo
Re: [79attendees] RFCs in two ebook formats (mobi… Gonzalo Camarillo