Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced • Hacker News Board

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#71

Post by Pfhreak » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

This is fantastic, and immediately I want to try and contribute engineering time to it. I've tried reading Gutenberg ebooks before and gave up because of how inconsistent and unreadable they could be.

Is there a wishlist of tools/software out there that someone could contribute to?

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#72

Post by earenndil » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #52

BTW does Kindle let you load your own DRM-free ebook files instead of buying books on Amazon? I use a PocketBook (pocketbook-int.com) which emulates a mass storage device and lets me read everything. I once considered buying a Kindle but heard it won't let me load bare files this way. Is this true?

I generally upload them to a file-hosting website--0x0.st works well--and download them to the kindle from there. Use calibre to convert them to mobi format if they're pdfs.

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#73

Post by jdb42 » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 10:19 PM UTC

It's always great to see public domain books being made available, and standardebooks is certainly worth a visit. However, while I read quite a lot and in particular the sort of books that are available there, I mostly give the site a miss purely because of its design. I don't want to seem too sarcastic, but having huge images as a listing for books is odd when most of the users can read quite well. I'm probably a bit sensitive about this, since our local library does the same thing - it almost looks like there is something about uncompromisingly textual information that provokes a reaction from web designers.

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#74

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 10:19 PM UTC

politelemon wrote: post #55

qwerty456127 wrote: post #52

BTW does Kindle let you load your own DRM-free ebook files instead of buying books on Amazon? I use a PocketBook (pocketbook-int.com) which emulates a mass storage device and lets me read everything. I once considered buying a Kindle but heard it won't let me load bare files this way. Is this true?

You can sideload the files via USB, just copy the files over to its internal storage and it will appear on the home screen. You can also associate a Kindle with an email address, and email files to that address. The file appears as part of your cloud collection. For sideloading, the books need to be azw3 or mobi. For emailing the book needs to be mobi. In either case epub is not accepted.

I have had sideloaded files mysteriously disappear from a Paperwhite 3.

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#75

Post by viraptor » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 10:20 PM UTC

This made me smile: (from the style guide)

> Do convert from logical punctuation to American punctuation where possible.

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#76

Post by syshum » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 10:21 PM UTC

politelemon wrote: post #55

qwerty456127 wrote: post #52

BTW does Kindle let you load your own DRM-free ebook files instead of buying books on Amazon? I use a PocketBook (pocketbook-int.com) which emulates a mass storage device and lets me read everything. I once considered buying a Kindle but heard it won't let me load bare files this way. Is this true?

You can sideload the files via USB, just copy the files over to its internal storage and it will appear on the home screen. You can also associate a Kindle with an email address, and email files to that address. The file appears as part of your cloud collection. For sideloading, the books need to be azw3 or mobi. For emailing the book needs to be mobi. In either case epub is not accepted.

My Kindle Paperwhite will read PDF, there are some limits and Mobi displays better but it possible to read a PDF on a Kindle

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#77

Post by lone_haxx0r » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 10:33 PM UTC

I got really excited, but then I noticed that there was no PDF option. I hate epubs with a passion, because all epub programs suck.

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#78

Post by timClicks » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 10:39 PM UTC

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #77

I got really excited, but then I noticed that there was no PDF option. I hate epubs with a passion, because all epub programs suck.

Submit a patch. It's easy to moan about a missing feature, but isn't terribly productive.

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#79

Post by terminalhealth » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 11:05 PM UTC

sctb wrote: post #16

terminalhealth wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang, could you lift vvillyd's rate limit as new user in case this still exists?

We removed it a little while ago, in fact. Thanks for the heads up! (Emailing hn@ycombinator.com is quicker and more reliable for next time.)

Thanks.

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#80

Post by zlsa » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 11:29 PM UTC

disease wrote: post #56

Are there any good, open source e-readers out there?

There's [Foliate](https://johnfactotum.github.io/foliate/) for reading epub files on Linux.