Ebooks:howto
How to create eBooks
The program Calibre is used to generate an e-book in epub format. Although it accepts a variety of inputs, by far the best is HTML. The ebook itself is also expressed in HTML, and thus the conversion is pretty faithfull. Do not even attempt to convert an Acrobat file! Using Word is acceptable, but you will need to use the Word option to save as HTML. But the outcome depends very much on how fastidious you have been in your Word authoring. If you have carefully used the Word Template (stylesheet), and marked up section headings etc, then the outcome will be pretty good. If however, you have avoided the use of Templates, the result might not be that good.
A useful program which can be used to edit an (unsatisfactory conversion as done above) is Sigil. Using this, you can edit the initial conversion to something more reasonable.
How to use eBooks
Currently, some lecture course materials are being offered in eBook format. The standard used is the epub and this is supported on a variety of eBook readers. The combination tested thus far is the Stanza ebook reader as available on Apple iPhone/iPod/iPad devices. To install an ebook into this environment, proceed as follows:
- Download the ebook from the appropriate location. Three examples are linked here, as Pericyclic Reactions, Molecular modelling Conformational analysis, Synthesis Lab.
- Open iTunes on a computer.
- From the iTunes Store, go to the App store, and find Stanza and install it into your apps (it is free).
- Plug your mobile device in. When it shows up in the DEVICES panel on the left, select it and go to the Apps tab.
- One of the items shown should be Stanza. Select it. whereupon an area labelled File sharing will appear. Using the add button in this area, add the downloaded ebooks (as .epub files).
- On your iPhone/iPod/iPad, open Stanza. The ebooks should now show up as items in your library.
- Using this program you can search the full text of a book, annotate it (by tapping/holding and then annotating), resolve hyperlinks using Safari, and much more.
