Subject: [74attendees] Reading Internet-Drafts on the Amazon Kindle

From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:00:02 -0700

Save trees!

http://blog.marc.petit-huguenin.org/2009/03/internet-drafts-for-kindle-2.html

-- 
Marc Petit-Huguenin
Home: [email-masked]
Work: [email-masked]

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From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:07:40 -0700

Don't you think it's a bit odd that you managed to buy a computer that
can't handle ascii text files?

joelja

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From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:18:39 -0700

> can't handle ascii text files?

Who said it cannot?  It's just that I-D are not formatted to be
displayed on a small screen.

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From: Joe Abley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:28:31 -0400

On 13 Mar 2009, at 17:18, Marc Petit-Huguenin wrote:

> Who said it cannot?

Umm...

> It's just that I-D are not formatted to be

... you did! :-)

Joe

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From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:39:11 -0700

>> displayed on a small screen.

*sigh*

RFC and I-D are not ASCII text files.  They are line printer files.

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From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:35:38 -0700

> RFC and I-D are not ASCII text files.  They are line printer files.

The info on the linked URL isn't detailed, but there are two things
notable in it:

1) problems with tables
2) problems with the number of tabs

I agree that CR/LF and FF are printer directives, but they are also
fairly common in ASCII renderers. However, they don't appear to be the
primary issue.

I'm surprised that Kindle cares about the column width; I was expecting
it could zoom in/out -- is it just that when viewed in full-width the
text is too small to read?

It's not clear what the issue with tables would be. I wasn't aware that
RFCs were supposed to use tabs; when I render them with my Word tool,
they use only spaces. Fixed-width fonts are all that are required to
make that work.

Overall, I don't see a 'printer file' issue here (i.e., CR/LF or FF
related).

It might be useful to get details...

Joe

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From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:22:51 -0700

> It might be useful to get details...

There is multiple issues when trying to display an I-D/RFC on a Kindle:

- The Kindle does not have fixed-width fonts (well, at least it
didn't have fixed-font until the new version that was released few
days ago - I discovered that few hours ago and I still have to
figure out how this works).  Not good for ASCII art and tables.

- The Kindle can display only ~63 characters in a row with the
smallest font.  This also does not work well with RFC formatted for
72 columns.

As I said, the format of RFC/I-D is made for printing, not for
displaying (I am not sure it is even possible to buy a 80 column
ASCII terminal this days).  So the idea is to start from the RFC
2629 XML document and format something that is usable on the Kindle.
 This permits to use all the features of the Kindle - annotations,
reflow, links, bookmarks, etc...  Here's a file I converted to this
format:

http://ietf.implementers.org/draft-ietf-behave-turn-uri-01.mobi

The obvious problem is that not all I-Ds or RFCs have been created
from an RFC 2629 XML document, so I needed another solution to load
all the other I-Ds on my Kindle to read on the train to the IETF
sessions in two weeks.  Trying to convert a file already formatted
for a printer is not easy (how to detect what is text and what is
ASCII art or tables?), so I decided to simply convert each text page
to an image.  It's not as convenient as a real Kindle document, but
it is readable, and better than carrying 500 pages of paper.

I just thought that other attendees could have the same problem than
me and could be interested in my solution.  I didn't want to go into
another controversy about RFC formatting.

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From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:51:48 -0700

Marc Petit-Huguenin wrote:
> ASCII terminal this days).  

Fixed-width fonts are useful for more than just RFCs. It's surprising
that they're omitted. As to the display size, I suspect it's not very
good for reading research paper any more than it is for reading RFCs, if
it can put only 63 characters in a row.

Sounds like this is more a Kindle optimization issue than an RFC
deficiency. I.e., at 63-chars, Kindle is optimized for reading novels,
not reading technical documents of any kind.

...
> sessions in two weeks. 

How about converting them to PDF? Does that still have the 63-char limit
or will it scale?

Joe

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From: Yaron Sheffer <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:30:39 +0200

"DEC VT340 terminal looks nice!" -
http://cgi.ebay.com/DEC-VT340-A2-Terminal-looks-nice-Digital-VT340-G-VT340_W
0QQitemZ350175417739QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCOMP_EN_Workstations?hash=item3501754
17739&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1546|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1
318|301%3A0|293%3A1|294%3A50

For reading RFCs the way God intended...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
> On Behalf Of Marc Petit-Huguenin
> Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 7:23
> To: Joe Touch
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [74attendees] Reading Internet-Drafts on the Amazon Kindle
> 
> Joe Touch wrote:
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 74attendees mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/74attendees
> 
> Scanned by Check Point Total Security Gateway.
> 
> Scanned by Check Point Total Security Gateway.

---

From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 08:50:58 -0700

> not reading technical documents of any kind.

Nobody said that RFCs are deficients.  They are formatted for line
printers and it's OK.

I bought a technical book for my Kindle, just to see how a document
heavily loaded with equations looks like, and this was what I
expected:  all the equations are converted to images, which mean
that the size does not change when the size of the normal text
changes (Note that it's the same for HTML as long as browser does
not suppport MathMl). A second problem is that all this images makes
the book very slow on the Kindle 1 (it's OK on the Kindle 2).

So scientific papers can be read on a Kindle but they need to be
reformatted from the TeX source, just like RFC and I-D should be
reformatted from the XML source to be readable.

> How about converting them to PDF? Does that still have the 63-char limit

It's automatically converted to a mobi file anyway, so it has the
same limit.

To better understand the problem, I prepared 3 screenshots of the
same I-D, displayed 3 different ways on the same Kindle 2:

http://ietf.implementers.org/screen_shot-2165.gif

This is how a text file (or PDF) looks like.  The table looks bad,
and the text is not better.  It's readable, but annoying.

http://ietf.implementers.org/screen_shot-2167.gif

This is how the same document looks like after been specifically
formatted for the Kindle from the XML source.  The figure and table
are converted to an image, so they look as good or even better than
on the printer, and the text flows correctly and it is possible to
change the size of the text, annotate, jump directly to RFC
references, etc...

http://ietf.implementers.org/screen_shot-2166.gif

This is how the same document looks like after conversion if the XML
source does not exist.  This is just a series of images, so it looks
exactly as the printer version.  Because this is images, there is no
annotation, dictionary, links, size change possible.

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From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:53:52 -0700

...
> annotation, dictionary, links, size change possible.

So you don't really need source, you just need GIF image output. That
can be generated from PDF or txt directly.

I found various programs for a PC that do this (Zan Image Printer). I
haven't tried it to see if it handles multipage correctly, but those
with a Kindle might give it a go.

(i.e., the problem isn't that RFCs are printer files; the problem is
that they're not, and Kindle needs a specific kind of printer file to work.)

Joe

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From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 10:26:38 -0700

> that they're not, and Kindle needs a specific kind of printer file to work.)

Image files are just a short term solution, because you cannot
annotate images files on a Kindle.  But perhaps my workflow is
different from other people:

I do print RFCs on paper, because RFC are never replaced - I just
annotate them when an errata is published.  This is why the line
printer version is perfect as the canonical version of an RFC.

For I-Ds the problem is different because there is often multiple
versions in a short period of time.  So my current workflow is to
put my annotations in pencil directly on the paper version.  I also
put comments from other people on it (with their initials), so when
I send my review, I do not repeat what other people said.  When a
new version of the I-D is released, I just copy the annotations that
were not integrated from one copy to the other.

Now this is a lot of paper printed that, at the difference of RFCs,
will go to the garbage.  So the idea was to use the Kindle for I-Ds,
because, as for the paper version, I can work on them in a plane, a
train, a waiting room etc... but with the advantage of not carrying
tons of dead trees.  The Kindle permits to bookmark, highlight and
annotate, just like on a normal book, so you just have to download
the annotations file on your computer to prepare your review.  The
only problem is to prepare the I-D on a format that permits to do
this annotations.

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From: Franck Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:34:27 +1200 (ANAT)

What about on the iphone?

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From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:50:09 -0700

> What about on the iphone?

Sorry I do not have an iPhone, so I cannot help here.

On the Google G1 phone, an I-D looks fine on the browser with the
small font in landscape mode, but display only an half page.  But
there is no way to annotate the document, which is my main
motivation.  It should be possible to write an Android application
for this.

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From: "Arnoud van Wijk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:01:44 +0100

Use the Irex Iliad.
:-)
Just no formatting..just create a pdf or read text plain. Works like a
charm.
http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad

I have the old one.

Just my 2 cents :-)

/Arnoud

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:74attendees-
> [email-masked]] On Behalf Of Marc Petit-Huguenin
> Sent: vrijdag 13 maart 2009 22:00
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: [74attendees] Reading Internet-Drafts on the Amazon Kindle
> 
> Save trees!
>