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Is there a way to publish an eBook, distribute it and the push updates to the distributed eBooks? If I publish an eBook, distribute it and later I want to edit or add to the information, is there is a way to push those updates to the already distributed copies of the eBook? <Q> Most online publishers have a method to allow for updates to published ebooks. <S> The user generally is given way to identify that a book has an update, then the user is given the option to re-download the work. <S> I don't think any publisher has "push" to reader. <A> Depends on your definition of 'way to publish an eBook'? <S> If you mean you wish to distribute the eBook file outside of a publishing ecosystem (online store) <S> then I don't know. <S> If you are using the Apple iBooks Store, then information is here . <S> Readers that have downloaded your book will get notified of updates just like app updates on their devices. <A> In general the answer is "No" unless the following conditions are met: the publishing service has some mechanism to force updates to the devices that have downloaded the ebook directly, or through some proprietary program. <S> This precludes anyone managing their ebooks e.g. in Calibre. <S> the device has to be connected to the service in order to get the updated version <S> I would not want such a service, as I don't like updates to happen without my explicit knowledge. <S> Not every change is an improvement. <S> The mechanism you propose is a similar to the one used in the software industry: publish half-finished and partly tested code and update as necessary. <S> And there you see that people stay—for whatever reason—with older versions for years.
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So yes there is way to redistribute the book, but it is dependent on user to perform some action to receive the update.
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Using Nook outside the US I bought a Nook and I live in Mexico, I've read that you need a credit card to purchase books, but I don't want to buy books from b&n, my question is: do I need to add a credit card in order to use the nook? for example, there's this option where you can load your own ePubs from your computer, and that's the reason why I bought it, will that work without an account or US credit card? <Q> Yes, you can load ePubs from your computer. <S> I've done this in Israel with both a 1st generation Nook and a Simple Touch. <A> There are two questions here. <S> No, you do not need to add a credit card. <S> Adding payment information is only useful if you want to buy books directly from BN.com. <S> Do you need to add an account? <S> No! <S> With a new Nook (or a freshly reset one) <S> Switch on Nook. <S> Choose your language. <S> Hold the top right button. <S> Swipe the screen from top left to top right. <S> Press the new "Factory" button. <S> Hold down the top right button and tap the bottom right corner of the screen. <S> A new "Skip OOBE" button will appear. <S> Click it! <S> You've now skipped the "Out Of Box Experience" and have a Nook which isn't tied to BN. <S> You can copy ePubs onto it - or do anything else you like. <S> I do this for my US Nook which I use in the UK. <A> You do not need a US-based credit card to activate your Nook. <S> You do, however, need to create a B&N account to activate your device. <S> Once that's done you can hook up the Nook to your computer with USB, it'll be in "mass storage device" mode <S> and you can just copy epub files onto it without a problem. <S> Source: I've got a Simple Touch with Glowlight myself and do not live in the US. <A> You only need to have a B&N account to access the DRM Protected content purchased through the the Nook Store. <S> You can also purchase using gift cards purchased elsewhere or given as a gift. <S> Any side loaded content that exists with out drm is available without the account.
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And you only need a credit card(or debit card) if you want to purchase through the nook store using that card.
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What 's the best way to read a scientific PDF? I need to buy a device for reading. It must have all these features: Smoothly zoom all pictures Format all tables properly Read PDF (or be able to convert) Not create eye problems and be visible in the sun Is there a category of devices that is able to meet all these demands? What is the best size? <Q> Buy an iPad or iPad mini and install <S> Goodreader <S> (the latest version at this time is actually called GoodReader 4 , according to the previous link; it can be found here ) <S> .That is the best choice. <A> You're trying to find something out of both worlds - tablets and eReaders. <S> There are serveral devices planned to publish within the coming year. <S> But at the moment this market looks rather abandonned. <S> (planned devices by Sony and Onyx as far as I know) Until those devices are on the market you need to limit your requirements, as visibility and readability in sunlight of todays tablets is not that great. <S> While e-ink displays are nice to read in nearly every light are still limited to classic ereaders which don't allow full featured pdf view. <A> Print it with a good printer. <S> I know this is not the answer you are looking for <S> but it's still the solution that beats current technology. <S> You can't zoom a print; I'd argue that a good print is sufficient since an scientific article should only have images that have value on A4/Letter paper. <A> It has a 9.7" e-ink screen, which I believe is the largest of any e-reader (the Kindle Fire HD has a 7" screen, and does not use e-ink). <S> You can also zoom in to 200% of the original text. <S> It is available through Amazon for $300 . <S> It includes a full keyboard, 3G free "whispernet" connection for downloads, runs up to three weeks on a battery charge with the wireless off, and is one of the thinnest e-readers out there (1/3 inch). <S> It also includes an accelerometer to sense when you rotate it, to allow a PDF to be read a half page at a time in landscape mode with much larger type. <A> If you want to be able to read anything on a device in a direct sunlight your only choice is an ereader using electronic ink. <S> Here is an example, outdoors on a sunny day with the sun blasting directly at the screen (try that with a tablet or your phone): From my own experience 9.7" <S> screen size is the minimum you need to read technical literature. <S> I tried with 8" hi-res screen <S> but it was just too small. <S> I made an almost complete switch from paper to the ereader <S> and I read books mainly in the PDF format from sources such as Manning , O'Reilly , Packt , Safari and books that I couldn't find anywhere and scanned myself. <S> You have quite a choice these days. <S> In 2012 I started to use bespoke Linux based Onyx Boox M92 and then in 2014 upgraded to Android based Onyx Boox M96 , both 9.7" electronic ink ereaders. <S> At present there are newer N96 (dual touch) and N96ML (touch + frontlight) 9.7" Android devices and 13.3" Onyx Boox Max . <S> There is also 13.3" Sony DPT-S1 <S> but it runs custom Linux (limited software choice). <S> You don't list these as requirements but there are some things of secondary importance after the screen that still quite matter to me in the reader I have: very long battery life since the screen doesn't use it once the page is displayed ability to install Android apps (dictionary, cloud client, VPN client etc.) <S> connectivity (wifi, bluetooth) external storage (microSD cards) and finally ability to scribble/highlight/erase as I would do in a normal book. <S> One potential disadvantage of ereaders - they are not very powerful. <S> This can be an issue especially with scanned documents when turning a page can take up to 3 seconds (depending on resolution, complexity, etc.), which renders skimming through such documents impossible. <S> Below is an example screenshot from my ereader with a table and some doodles, you can zoom in the document as much as you like: <S> You can find loads of information on ereaders on MobileRead forums .
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The Kindle DX, which uses e-ink (so it is readable in direct sunlight), was specifically designed to render PDF files in their native format (including multi-column material, tables and graphics) and was designed to be used in an academic environment.
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How to convert PDFs to readable Kindle format I have several class notes (more like books summarizing the material) that my college professors have provided in PDF form. As reading on a computer screen isn't exactly easy on the eyes (and gobbles unnecessary power compared to my Kindle) I'm looking for a way to convert these well . It would also be nice to be able to read/study in places where having a laptop would be impractical (e.g. weekend trips to places with no electricity provided, train travel). I have already tried multiple file converters, including zamzar and Calibre, and the quality of both is no improvement on reading on a computer screen. I either receive gibberish (particularly when it comes to mathematical formulas) or else strange line breaks that make it difficult to follow the flow of the text, or both.This doesn't help the fact that I have to concentrate more anyways as the texts are not in my native language (I'm studying abroad in Germany).Reading pdfs on my Kindle is also not a viable option, as the constant moving back and forth over the page breaks my concentration as well. I remember reading somewhere that converting to HTML, cleaning the code, and then converting to epub/mobi was suggested, but I can't find the article again and I wasn't sure what to do after converting the pdf to html (which seemed to work decently, and the HTML version looks good enough in my browser, besides small, rare garbled parts where certain mathematical symbols or special characters were, which I could live with and aren't of importance for non-math courses anyways).I would also be open to other roundabout ways of conversion (over an Open Office/Word text document, for instance) as long as the quality is good and easily readable. As a student my budget doesn't really include commercial optical character recognition software. Can anyone help with this issue? <Q> Simplest way is to send kindle team an email with the PDF attached along. <S> They'll send you back the converted .mobi format. <S> Send to Kindle by E-mail <S> Send documents to your Kindle as an email <S> attachment <S> You and your approved contacts can send documents to your registered Kindle devices, free Kindle reading applications, and your Kindle Library in the Amazon Cloud by e-mailing them to your Send-to-Kindle e-mail address ([name]@kindle.com). <S> Your Send-to-Kindle e-mail address is a unique e-mail address assigned to each of your Kindle devices and free Kindle reading applications upon registration. <S> How to send a document to your Kindle: To find your Send-to-Kindle e-mail address, visit the Manage your Devices page at Manage Your Kindle. <S> Documents can only be sent to your Kindle devices or apps from e-mail accounts that you added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List. <S> To add an e-mail account, visit the Personal Document Settings page at Manage Your Kindle. <S> To send a document to your Kindle device or app, simply attach it to an e-mail addressed to your Send-to-Kindle e-mail. <S> It is not necessary to include a subject in the email. <A> To get a good reflowable and readable text you would indeed, as you suggest, have to go to some OCR software. <S> Tesseract is a free OCR software with good (IMHO) quality that you could use. <S> The problem is in the mathematical formula, I have not seen OCR software that does a good job in that area. <S> That leaves two options: <S> Cut out the formula's as images and put them into the text at the places where the OCR faltered. <S> Rewrite the formula in some system that can generate HTML. <S> The second option is more work and more error prone. <S> I have used that (in combination with the python sympy module and generating LaTeX), but of course any typo leads to incorrect formulae, something that is more difficult to achieve when just cutting out the formula as images. <S> One other, maybe less obvious, road is to ask the professor for the source material from which the PDF was generated. <S> You might have an easier way starting from there. <S> And your professor might be willing to supply you with the material with the lure of getting an ebook compatible version of the text in exchange. <S> Even if the original material are individual scans, you are better of starting with those images for OCR, than with PDF files (which is, apart from its multipage capabilities, fundamentally unsuitable for scanned material) <A> I have a solution that I think will work for you - very quick and easy - and involves NO CODING: <S> Amazon released an app called the Kindle Comic Creator: <S> http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1001103761 <S> You can download it for free. <S> It's still in beta, has a few bugs, wrt the TOC, and the documentation and support for it are pretty terrible <S> but it does a few things very well, one of which is zoom-able panels. <S> Here's what I recommend <S> , save your PDF into discrete JPEGS, you can do this through the file save menu and then load all those individual JPEGS into the comic creator, it has a guided set up process when you open the app and begin a new book, very simple, it will load all your JPEGS in chronological order. <S> You can then run a detect all panels command <S> and it basically will detect where items in the page are grouped together. <S> For each of these panels you will be able to zoom straight to that content, making for very easy reading. <S> You can also edit the dimensions of the panels if the computer is detecting badly. <S> Once you have the panels where you want just export and compile to .mobi, it has a feature for this in the app of course. <S> Keep in mind <S> this will be a fixed format ebook still but with the zoom feature it should be much easier to read and can be easily exported to .mobi format and loaded on your kindle. <A> I use an older Kindle (non-touch screen) and recently encountered the same problem with reading PDF files. <S> I've converted over ten PDF files to MOBI, and they all look great on my Kindle! <S> You can also convert PDF to EPUB for free: http://www.pdfpocket.com/
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Fortunately, I came across this awesome free web app: http://www.pdf4kindle.com/
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Which distributor do authors prefer I purchase from? I own a Kindle Paperwhite, and until now I've unthinkingly bought all my ebooks from Amazon. It recently occurred to me that since ebook distributors take on no risk when making a book available, it doesn't seem fair that they should be earning a percentage of the author's profits (rather than a small monthly flat rate for hosting content and making it available). I'm curious which site pays authors the highest royalties for ebooks. I'd much rather support the author with my ebook purchases than the distributor. <Q> I always buy from an author's website directly if he or she has one. <S> Then there is no distributor or retailer fee paid by the publisher and author. <S> Not many authors have this I know! <A> I'm published through all the distributors. <S> Selling books on Amazon usually helps me the most because the visibility boost I get from being on the bestseller lists on Amazon <S> then helps me sell even more books. <S> So in general, I prefer to push sales towards Amazon. <S> But what writers appreciate <S> even more than a few percentage points more royalties on a given book sale is word-of-mouth. <S> So if you read a book you enjoy, the way you can help an author the most is to: Tell your friends Post about it online <S> Post a review wherever you bought it. <A> Smashwords claims to give the author 85% of what users paid for his\hers books. <S> They also offer to distribute the book through other services (such as Amazon), but then the author only gets 60% of the money. <S> Some of the authors were not satisfied with how this redistributing system (books appeared in those other shops with a big lag or didn't appear there at all). <S> From clients perspective the service is ok, as they provide book samples (you can read a good bit of the book before buying) and the prices are low. <S> However I've got the impression (I can be wrong of course) <S> that mostly amateur authors publish through this system. <A> Self-published authors have a number of options available to them. <S> They can publish their books directly through online retailers like Amazon, Sony Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes. <S> They can also go through redistributors such as Smashwords and Draft2Digital, which are companies that will create differetn formats for your book and then distribute those formats to each of those same online retailers and others. <S> The royalty that an author gets will vary depending on whether they publish directly or go through a redistributor, and it will also vary based on price, but generally it is between 60-70%. <S> As a self-published author myself, I'm perfectly content with any format as long as someone is buying my books! <S> This can range from 6% for a new author to as much as 20% for a developed author. <S> Alternatively, these authors usually also receive a guaranteed advance on their sales, so even if the book is a bust, they will have something to show for it. <S> In spite of this, more and more authors are beginning to reclaim the rights to their back titles and sef-publish them because they have better potential there. <S> If you truly want to help an author, the best thing you can do is leave a review on whatever site you purchased the book from. <S> Often times the reader reviews are used to help with the recommendation algorithms, so when other readers who have expressed an interest in similar titles visit the site, that author has a better chance of being recommended by the site's built in tools. <S> Telling others about the book will also often help in generating additional sales, and those are always welcome!
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Authors who are published through one of the major publishing houses like Putnam or Harlequin will often receive a much smaller royalty which is agreed to in a contract up front.
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Alternative epub reader app for Android I'm looking for a epub reader app for Android 4.0 which is NOT one of the following: OReader FBReader Cool Reader Other requirements: load EPUB files (my homemade ones are directly converted from HTML using Sigil and occasionally may contain some Japanese characters and internal # anchors; in short, the whole book is in a single HTML file inside the EPUB file); other formats (including HTML) are welcome has popup English-English dictionary or is compatible with ColorDict (or similar dictionary app) allows some adjustment of display (set font size, white background, turn off page turning animations etc.) supports local ( href="#chapter1" ) anchors for document navigation it would be nice if the app was fast and\or lighweight Some background: I bought a Onyx Boox T68 ebook reader\tablet and I have a small problem with it. I can't install FBReader on it. The device comes with FBReader preinstalled (among other software 1 ), but it's buggy and crashes on my homemade epub files (I had no problems with those in FBReader on my cell phone and on a cheap tablet that had very similar specs and same OS as Onyx Boox T68). The preinstalled dictionary takes the whole screen and is a little bit slow, so I would much prefer to be able to use ColorDict, however preinstalled FBReader (and it appears all of the preinstalled readers) is incompatible with ColorDict. For a second I thought I can install regular FBReader on the device, but because there is already a version of FBReader installed, I can't do that. I can't uninstall any of the preinstalled apps either. The only way for me to uninstall those would be to root the device, but I don't want to do that because I'll lose the warranty. I tried to rename and compile FBReader myself, but after spending 4 evenings on the problem I give up (finally I managed to build FBReader, but I wasn't able to rename the package for some reason). 1. There is OnyxReader, OReader, FBReader and Cool Reader. Of the 3 OReader appears to be the fastest and most stable (actually I haven't encountered any problems yet), but it isn't compatible with ColorDict (at least the preinstalled version isn't) and internal anchors don't appear to work. Edit: After a lot of trial and error I finally managed to rename and compile FBReader. While it has some minor issues of it's own (doesn't refresh eink screen, doesn't hide the non-standard top android bar, when zoomed chapter headers end up being too big in compare to regular text, no physical page turning button support) it's much more stable and does everything I required perfectly xD And yes, ColorDict also works the way it should. Unlike in Moon+ where the dictionary popup took half of the screen for some reason, in FBReader it takes a small part of the screen and never ends up covering the selected text. This said, other recommendations are welcome. Even if they don't help me out directly, they might help others with the same problem as I had. <Q> Aldiko , though not perfect, is by far the best ebook reader available for Android. <S> It has full support for all ePub features, plus PDF, and has a reasonably nice UI unlike all the other apps. <S> It has all the features you asked for, except built-in ColorDict support - however, you can "share" selected text using the Android sharing system, which allows you to share it to ColorDict. <S> One extra tap, but it works. <S> But it has a poor UI compared to Aldiko. <S> It has some kind of dictionary system of its own built in, which I have not tried. <S> Regarding the other suggestions : Google Play Books is not a good solution as it can not directly open files on your device, you have to upload them to Google. <S> Moon Reader has equal functionality to Aldiko in many respects, but (in my opinion) a horrible, outdated UI and much worse ePub formatting support. <A> Full visual options: line space, font scale, bold, italic, shadow, alpha colors, fading edge etc. <S> Adjust the brightness by sliding your finger along the left edge of the screen, gesture commands supported. <S> Highlight, Annotation, Dictionary (Offline or Online, support Google, ColorDict, Fora, etc.), Translation, Share functions all in moon+ ebook reader. <S> 5 auto-scroll modes: rolling blind mode; by pixel, by line or by page. <S> Real-time speed control. <A> I recommend... <S> Google Play Books : <S> Read offline Bookmark pages, highlight text, and add notes Elegant 3D page turns Bookmarks, notes, and reading positions are synced across your phones, tablets and computers Search within books, use dictionary, find geographical information, discover web results, and wikipedia right on the page Select fonts, font size, and layout for flowing text books Choose day, night, and sepia reading modes Listen to books with text-to-speech when publisher allows Upload PDF or EPUB files to your library <S> And you can also read your uploaded epubs on the Google Play - My Books page. <A> I use moon+pro on my T68 <S> it works well. <S> Only draw back is it does not refresh the page. <S> None seem to but the built in stock ereader <S> and I don't like the library set up on those compared to moon. <A> Ebookdroid rocks . <S> You should absolutely have a try on this one ; pdf , djvu and epub reader .Re <S> -Editing... <S> I was always looking for a fairly good ebook reader for my Android phone, the best i have found so far , in my opinion, is EbookDroid , here is why (in my opinion) <S> it is free (to use) <S> It is free application , i have never seen ads on it . <S> quick and light it loads the whole book only for the first time encountering it , once the book is in the library list its pages load only one page at a time with many bookmark and scrolling futures.the place of the page is saved on the excite so the next time the readers find themselves continuing reading the same page. <S> Inverted Colors; <S> Inverted colors : this is one of the major futures, thought i found only recently that you can apply this option for the whole screen in Android (Settings->Device->Accessibility->Negative colors) <S> this future enable you to read white letters on a black screen , making staring at the screen for long time easy on the eyes and the battery. <S> DJVU and Epub supportOnly recently this ones was supported . <S> Automatic cropping (in options) and using the volume button to scroll through pages <S> Very stable .For <S> more detail take a look at : https://code.google.com/p/ebookdroid/ <S> and : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ebookdroid
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UB Reader also works well - it has the best ePub formatting support of any reader I've tried. Moon+ Reader Supports txt, html, epub, pdf, mobi, umd, fb2, chm, cbr, cbz, rar,zip or OPDS
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Is there a way to read kindle books on Windows which do not support Windows? I read on multiple devices: Windows, Mac, iPad, Android Phone, even an old Kindle DX all from Amazon. One problem I have is some books seem to be designed to work only on some devices. I suspect the reason for this is to avoid screen capture which is clearly easier on Windows than on a smartphone. Lending evidence to my suspicion is the fact that when I try to open some books on Windows, I get this message: The item is not compatible with this device. I do not get this error trying to open on either the iPad or Android phone. I do find it frustrating that I am unable to read some of my books on some of my devices (especially when my Windows computer has a much larger screen). So, is there a way to work-around this limitation so I can read all these books on Windows? <Q> As we discussed in the comments, you can use the Kindle Cloud Reader to read your books in your browser, instead of in the Windows desktop application. <A> You do not mention where you purchased the the work <S> Frozen: A tale of two sisters" by Melissa Lagonegro , but on Amazon it is DRM protected you can tell because "Simultaneous Device Usage: <S> Unlimited" is not listed . <S> Presumably you purchased it with DRM protection. <S> Transferring from one device to another is governed by the agreement you purchased the work under. <S> As a general rule, transfer is only allowed between devices you purchased from the same vendor with the same account. <A> I used a tool called Calibre to convert books between formats. <S> There are numerous plugins for Calibre to remove DRM and other restrictions <S> so you can read ebooks you own on the device and application of your choice. <S> Google search for Calibre DRM removal . <A> Are you sure you are trying the cloud reader and not simply the Kindle PC app? <S> (I had confused these myself earlier.) <S> I thought I had no way to read the book as it was unreadable on the small screen of my android phone and was not compatible with the Kindle PC app (so no way to download it) and Kindle Paperwhite. <S> But finally I could read it in the cloud reader. <S> THe book will then open inside your browser.
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Go to Amazon in your PC browser, go to "Manage your content and devices", then find the book and on the "..." to the left of the book name and select "Read Now".
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How do I copy and paste text from Windows 8 Kindle app book to Microsoft Word I need to open up my Windows 8 Kindle app and while reading a book, I want to cut and paste certain passages to a Word document. I did this before a while back but can't seem to do it again (or remember how I did it before). I used the dual screen that Windows 8 allows and then highlighted the passages and somehow copy and pasted them into the Word document. I think I used the Ctrl + c to copy and the Ctrl + v to paste, but that doesn't work. Any suggestions? <Q> You can't do it directly from the desktop reader app for Windows 8 . <S> You can, however, do one of the following things instead: 1. <S> Use Kindle Cloud Reader Highlight the text you want to copy. <S> Go to https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highlights and find the highlight in question. <S> Copy and paste the text from there. <S> Of course, use this within the limits of copyright, etc. <S> See this related question about essentially the same thing . <S> 2. <S> Use the Windows 7 app <S> If you can stand the non-Metro layout, you can run the Windows 7 app on Windows 8 ( see this discussion . <A> It is a crap solution but if you select and search you can then copy from the search window. <S> Why Amazon wants to make it that hard <S> I don't know. <S> The old copy function included the reference which was quite useful. <A> In your Amazon account when you purchase a kindle book, download it <S> "your PC" <S> I was unable to copy and paste when downloading electronic books to my windows 8,10, to my tablet, but when I selected download to "your PC " it worked without a problem. <S> The kindle for PC app has a bluish background, thats that app <S> I use, <S> the kindle app with the black background would not allow me to copy and paste, but the kindle for PC app does
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The Windows 7 app allows copying: when you highlight text and right click, "Copy" is one of the options:
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Is there an easier way to edit a .mobi file? I am used to creating and editing .epub files, usually with Sigil. Sometimes, however, I need to retouch a file in .mobi format for my wife. My usual approach is to convert it in .epub with Calibre, edit it, and then convert it back to .mobi , but I wonder if there is a quicker way which does not involve two conversions. <Q> As far as I know .mobi <S> files can't be edited directly, they have to be converted first to another editable format. <S> So, no, you can't directly edit .mobi <S> files in just one step. <S> See this thread on MobileRead forums for further reference. <S> Anyway, I think that there is an easy a solution to your problem. <S> Please note that in providing the following informations I have assumed that you are interested in using your eBook files with a Kindle device . <S> If it is not the case, maybe not eveything will apply to tour particular situation. <S> Maybe you are already aware of this since you are a Calibre user, but it now has an integrated ebook editor that can work not only with .epub <S> files but also with .azw3 <S> ones (also known as KF8), which are used on Kindle devices. <S> Here is a link to the Calibre manual page about this feature, where you can check if this is a tool that will do for you. <S> It is rather similar to Sigil both in appearance and in functionalities, so you will have no problem to sort it out. <S> I know that strictly speaking <S> an .azw3 <S> is not a .mobi , but both these formats are mainly used on Kindle devices; moreover, as far as I know, for practical reasons (even if not for technical ones) the .azw3 <S> format is considered to be a successor to .mobi ; so, if you need to retouch your ebooks and have a rather recent Kindle device (or app), it should not make any great difference which one of these formats you will use on it. <S> Here are also some links to various resources that you may find useful: Difference Between Kindle Content AZW, AZW3, PRC, Mobi, Topaz Mobi format , on Wikipedia Kindle formats , on Wikipedia <S> The pages about MOBI, AZW and KF8 (AZW3) formats on Mobileread wiki. <S> The subforum about Kindle formats on MobileRead (which is, in fact, one of the biggest and more useful online resources about everything related to ebooks) A question here on this site about the various formats used by Kindle devices. <A> What are you looking to edit? <S> Content or basic metadata? <S> It's written in .Net <S> so you need Windows (the source code is available <S> so you could grab that and compile it with Mono if you are running *nix/OSX). <S> It is very basic though, allowing you to edit only the following <S> (I'll provide a screenshot to make it easier): <A> Since you're familiar with Sigil, you could install the KindleImport and KindleGen plugins. <S> If you've converted the .ePub files yourself to .mobi files, consider converting .ePub <S> files in the future to .AZW3 files with Calibre. <S> AZW3 files look better on Kindles and can be edited directly with Calibre. <S> (Calibre packs an unpacks them on the fly in the background.)
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If it is basic metadata, there is a program I have found and played with called MOBIeditor .
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Are there good book recommendation services? I would like to get some book recommendations. Are there any services that you can suggest? <Q> What Should I Read <S> Next is a decent service. <S> It doesn't require an account, which is an added bonus. <S> You simply type in a title or author and the service will recommend books by the author or similar to the title you entered. <S> The links provided will point you to Amazon for further information, so it is not ebook specific (and may take a few manual steps to find it on ibooks). <S> There is also this post that lists the top 10 book recommendation platforms (though it is a year old and includes the Sony Reader Store which no longer exists). <A> Of course if you choose to register you will have more options, like rating books you read to get more personalized reccomendations, following people with common tastes, and all this kind of social media stuff. <A> Try the book recommendation tool on Zolabooks.com/recommendations . <S> You enter a title, it recommends four others. <S> If you click on one of the recommended books, it re-enters the search using that book as the seed. <S> The service was built from the foundations of Bookish, a company that was founded by several of the large publishers.
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You may give a try to some book specific social network like Goodreads ; you don't need to register to view its contents, so if you look at a book page you can see that it shows many sections like "other books from the author", "readers also enjoyed", "lists with this book" and so on.
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How to hide/delete/ignore a specfic span type I am generating HTML output for ePub from LaTeX source.But, am having difficulty eliminating the "Chapter " at the start of each chapter. So, wondering if there is an easy way to tell the HTML reader that this is some form of comment so as to not display this in the output? <span class="titlemark">Chapter 1</span> Ideally, I'd like to eliminate the <br /> that follows this as well, but not sure that that would be easy. Notes: The command line tool I am using htlatex which takes a .tex file and produces HTML. <Q> If you have an html editor which supports wild card or RegEx search and replace like Adobe Dreamweaver you could delete these out of the source code very quickly. <S> See image <S> below- <S> Also you can go to RegEx tester sites like these to form the most effective search expression for your needs. <S> http://regex101.com/ <A> You can try to suppress both those tags using CSS in an included .css <S> file (or inserting in the HTML code between <style> and </style <S> > ): <S> span.titlemark, span.titlemark + br { display: none;} <S> But you would have to test that on all devices to see if their renderers correctly handle it.¹ <S> If you don't want to go into the effort of testing this, it is better to remove both nodes altogether, with appropriate parsing of the input. <S> Using python (2.x) and the BeautifulSoup package², you can do: import sysimport iofrom bs4 import BeautifulSoupwith io.open(sys.argv[1]) as fp: soup = BeautifulSoup(fp)for node in soup.select("span.titlemark"): print <S> node.get_text <S> () <S> sibling = <S> node.find_next_sibling <S> () if sibling and sibling.name == 'br' and not sibling.get_text <S> (): sibling.extract <S> () <S> node.extract()with io.open(sys.argv[1], <S> 'w') <S> as fp: fp.write(unicode(soup)) to get rid of both.³ BeautifulSoup supports several html/xml parser , depending on the type and quality of the output of htlatex , you might need to experiment with the alternatives to get better/faster results. <S> htlatex is a shell script, so you could make a copy ( /usr/local/bin/htlatexstrip ) and add calling the python script as a postprocessing step in there. <S> ¹ <S> The X <S> + Y suppresses the sibling <br / <S> > <S> node ² install with pip install beautifulsoup4 or easy_install <S> beautifulsoup4 ³ <S> I am sure you can do something like that easily in PERL (or Ruby) as well, <S> I just don't know how <A> If you want them to remain in the source code, but simply hide them in the browser output, you might add the following statement to your style sheets : .titlemark { <S> display:none;} <A>
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You could try using CSS to style the titlemark class with "visibility: hidden" or "display:none".
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Is there a way to sync reading progress across multiple devices and platforms? I know you can already do this for the Kindle and between Android devices with say Moon+ reader installed. What I meant is for EPUBs and between platforms. I would like to read on my Android phone for example and then pick up where I left off on my desktop. Is this possible? I'm looking for a solution that does not involve using Kobo or Amazon's apps. <Q> As a general principle, no. <S> But most software vendors provide compatible apps for PC/Mac/Android. <S> So if you will be happy using their reader app, you just install their apps and get synchronization across all platforms. <S> For instance, I don't own a Kindle, but I buy ebooks from Amazon and read them on both Kindle for PC and Kindle for Android <S> The same is true of Kobo . <S> What this doesn't do is let you sync sideloaded books, or any book not purchased from that particular vendor. <A> Try the Bluefire reader ( http://www.bluefirereader.com/ ) <S> I had to switch to Bluefire from Kindle after getting a windows 8 tablet since the win8 kindle app doesn't allow sideloaded books. <S> Bluefire on the other hand has apps for ALL the major ecosystems (ios, android, windows). <S> In order to sync between devices you will need to set up a free adobe ID which you will use to register each of your apps, then dump your epubs to DropBox and download from dropbox to each of the apps. <A> <A> I used to use Aldiko (and AldikoSync) on all my android devices, but this is now too much hassle as the device needs to be rooted to work (you used to be able to use an older version of Aldiko on un-rooted devices, but that stopped working on my latest android devices.) <S> However this wouldn't work on desktops. <S> I now use Google Play books which, as "idiotprogrammer" states, works great across android (tablet and phones) and chrome on desktops. <S> My next step is to find an e-reader that I can use Google Play books on (I have an old nook which I used for Aldiko, but it won't run GPB.) <A> The app "PocketBook" is an alternative to Kindle and Google Play. <S> It's worth a look if you don't have/want to use an Amazon or Google account. <S> It will sync your books, notes, progress, and so forth across devices, using Dropbox as a back-end. <S> It is on both iOS and Android. <S> http://reader.pocketbook.digital/eng <S> I discovered it just by going through the various ebook apps on the different platforms. <S> The best overall iOS eBook apps (Marvin and Hyphen) unfortunately do not have any way of syncing to Android. <A> Apple Books does exactly this for ePubs across all platforms <S> it’s <S> available on. <S> Which doesn’t help an Android user, but it’s something. <A> BookFusion can sync reading progress across Android, iOS and web application. <S> I'm happily to use it to read my PDF books. <S> Currently the reading experience is acceptable but not perfect. <S> I've sent some feedback email, the support team says there will be a big update in Q3-Q4 2020.
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Google Play Books does a great job of syncing epub files and even remembering where you were on another device.
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How to make money by giving books away for free? I recently did my first free book giveaway for a few books on amazon and was getting hundreds of downloads a day, my first reaction being holy crap ... my second being does anyone have any ideas how I can make more money by giving away books for free? (besides the obvious advertising my other books at the end) <Q> I suspect advertising won't get much traction -- unless it's a product related to the subject of the book (I'm assuming nonfiction here). <S> Probably the best payoff from a freebie is getting the email from a downloader. <S> That way you can form a relationship with the reader/customer over time. <S> (I'm talking about outside amazon.com here). <S> Also you can drive traffic to your blog, which can in turn can lead to more ad possibilities and more things to sell. <S> I think the hardest thing for authors is author branding. <S> A free ebook can help alleviate that issue -- especially if you can persuade them to sign up for an occasional newsletter. <A> The best way to get this strategy to work is to have more books available for readers to BUY. <S> The idea is to give away a title to generate interest in you as a writer. <S> Then if the readers who acquire the free book decide they like it or you, they can go and look for other titles you might have available, and they end up buying those titles. <S> This is a strategy that I have used very successfully with one of the pen names that I write under. <S> This is especially effective when you are writing books in a series and make the first one free. <S> A word of caution though is to NOT make ALL of your books free, even if you do them one at a time at different times. <S> You would be surprised how many readers will see that second or third book go free and decide that they can just wait until you eventually make the others free. <S> You don't want to condition people into believing that you will eventually give away everything if they are patient enough. <A> There is a third option, but it does depend on where you are or willing to publish/release your eBook. <S> Leanpub, Gumroad, and I believe a few others have a "pay what you want" capability. <S> That is, you set a minimum price (as low as $0), and you (sometimes optionally) set a "suggested" price. <S> Then, you unleash your book to the world, and people pay what they are able/willing to pay. <S> It sounds ludicrous to think that people would pay for something when they can get it for free, but it's surprisingly successful , with ebook averages upwards of $10-15 , and roughly half pay some amount of money even for a free book. <S> The really crazy part? <S> It doesn't just apply to eBooks.
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From the book perspective, you can send book announcements and special discount coupon codes.
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is it allowed to print a freely available ebook for own usage What are the things I should first check if I want to print a freely available ebook on internet for my own usage. I don't mean to just print using a home printer. I want to print it as a proper hardcover book (single copy as for my own use). p.s. no this book is no where to be bought as a physical copy or electronically. It's sort of a lecture series, where author converted into free ebook years later. If it's allowed what are some of the online services I can try for this ? <Q> If the book is explicitly free, then you can print the book and use it for your your own purposes. <S> Please note however that the owner to the book's rights has to say so (author, publisher), not just anybody who only put it up on the internet. <S> Be sure to provide evidence to the print service provider up front , that you have the right to print this book, as otherwise they might inform legal authorities of possible copyright infringement. <S> That a book is freely available doesn't necessarily mean you have the right to do print it for yourself. <S> If that were true then music sharing programs/websites that make some piece of copyrighted music freely available would make the music implicitly free to share. <S> And that is not the case. <S> A copyright owner has to take some action to ensure his rights if they are infringed but they are not always aware (immediately) that this happens. <A> You need to be careful in assuming that this book is "freely available". <S> You mention that it is part of a lecture series, which leads me to believe that it was at one time used as materials to be handed out during that lecture series. <S> As such, there is a really good chance that the author will retain full copyright privileges. <S> Keep in mind that even if the original material does not have a copyright notice explicitly displayed, it is still considered to be protected under copyright law. <S> The 1976 Copyright Act provides that copyright protection begins ". <S> . . <S> in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed" (17 U.S.C.A. § 102(a)). <S> " Assuming this material was created in the US, that means the author retains the copyright for the duration of his life plus 70 years. <A> The first point is that freely available does not mean freelyusable , not even freely redistributable. <S> Many copyrighted works arefreely available, even placed under a Creative common licence <S> , butstill have legal restriction on their uses, regarding for examplemodification or commercial use. <S> The fact that it is, or is notavailable in print or some other form is irrelevant. <S> The only thingthat matters is what the licence says. <S> If you have no licence, thenevery use is forbidden, unless explicitly permitted by local law,though you are obviously permitted to read the document, as therewould be no point in making it available otherwise. <S> However, the copyright law of some countries (France for example)allow private copying , provided it is for your own use ( <S> which impliesthat you do it yourself). <S> There may be a further restriction that itis legal only if your access to the source work is itself legal, thuspreventing copies from pirated sources. <S> In your case, you have legal access to the document as it is freelyavailable. <S> Hence, where law permits, you can make private copies onwhatever medium, including paper. <S> However, using an online service toget it printed would probably not be considered as doing it yourself. <S> Even going to a print-on-demand shop in the street might be legallydisputable. <S> Then, things seldom get that formal, and it is likely that no one,author included, will object, especially if the book is not availablefor sale in the form you seek, so that you cannot possibly cause himany damage. <S> Further legal details (to add accuracy to previous answers) <S> If you are in a country that is a member of the Bern Convention - whichis most countries, USA included - the work is protected by copyrightregardless of where it was created, and at least as well as workcreated within the country. <S> Actually, in the USA, copyright protectionis higher for unregistered foreign works than for unregistered USworks. <S> In the USA, your legal risk in printing for your own use a book thathas not been registered with the Copyright Office is very low, sincethe copyright owner cannot sue for attorney fees or punitive damage,but only to get the price of the printed book. <S> But I am not a lawyer.
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Most likely, the author won't mind you printing a copy for your own use, but the only way you can truly be sure that it is okay to do so would be to contact the author or find some place where he expressly grants permission.
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Ebook app for Windows 8 I am looking for recommendations for an ebook application that runs on Windows 8/8.1 . <Q> You can try the good old ebook reader bundled with Calibre. <S> It's a multiplatform software, so it's available for other systems too, not just for Windows. <S> Besides being a great application (Calibre itself is the swiss army knife for all things related to ebooks), it's also free and open-source. <S> There is also EPUBReader <S> , it's not a standalone program but a Firefox extension. <S> Anyway I've never used it <S> so I can't tell you much more than this. <S> Other available ereaders are those tied to online ebook stores, like Kindle , Kobo , Nook , and so on. <A> Works best for me. <S> TxtR is also a good option. <A> I would recommend Adobe Digital Editions . <S> It's free and will run on 8.1. <S> It also supports EPUB 3. <S> As long as there is no DRM, you can print from there too. <S> It can open PDFs too.
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I like Readium, which is an extension for Google Chrome.
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How to add external epub to Kobo Desktop? My Kobo Aura HD H2O is "in the mail" so I'm trying to prepare for it by adding existing non-DRM ePub books that I already own. Ideally I'd like to be able to add books to the Kobo Desktop App and have the device sync via WiFi when it arrives. In the interim, and ongoing, I'd also like to have the Android App installed on my phone & tablet so that I can read the same books there and also have them sync location, bookmarks etc. I've looked through the Kobo support / KB section and google a bit, as well as explored the Kobo Desktop app, but I'm not seeing a way to do this. What am I missing? Thanks in advance! (And please please don't say that only books purchased via the Kobo store can be added and that I have to copy them onto the device directly and not have any sync capability... The reason I'm switching to Kobo from Kindle is to rid myself of the hassle of having islands of content!) <Q> Please note that if you simply need to transfer .epub files to the reader, you can simply connect it to your computer with an USB cable, it will be treated like an external USB storage drive; you can simply copy your books on the reader (maybe on a new sub-directory to keep things clean and neat) and when you disconnect it, it will update the database and recognize your new books. <S> There isn't anything easier than this ;-) <S> Anyway for a more complete management, I suggest you to try Calibre , it is a superb ebook manager itself with a ton of features ; also, it is free and opensource and it is available for Linux systems too, if these are things that are relevant for you. <S> One of its strengths is the opportunity to add plugins to extend its functionalities. <S> It works perfectly with any ereader device, without the need to add anything, but I suggest to you a couple of plugins that are specifically aimed at Kobo users, that can be useful to have: <S> Kobo Touch Extended Driver <S> : It replaces the standard Kobo device driver shipped with Calibre, its main feature is to optimize <S> the .epub <S> books you are sending to the device with the particular format used by Kobo, called .kepub.epub . <S> Kobo e-readers have two different readers inside (I mean "reader" as a software here), one is used for standard ePub files while the other has some different features and is used for Kepubs. <S> I prefer the last one, but in the end it is a matter of personal preferences, so I suggest you to try both of them and see which format you like the most. <S> Kobo Utilities : this is a must-have tool, IMHO. <S> It allow you to perform many operations directly on the device, by manipulating its internal database; it is nothing too complicate, but it could be considered as a tool for advanced users that know what they are doing; I must say that I've never had any kind of problem, but I suggest you to read the warnings from the author. <S> Please note that you don't have to download these plugins from the MobileRead forum <S> , the easiest way is to install them directly from inside Calibre, where this task can be performed from a nice and handy graphical interface. <A> I've managed to upload external ePubs to Kobo's Desktop App on a Mac. <S> Whether a similar process would work on a Windows machine, I can't comment, but in case this helps any Mac users out there: <S> You need to create a new folder in your user's Documents folder called Digital Editions. <S> Copy the ePub file into this folder. <S> Don't hit the sync button, that won't work. <S> You need to hit ⌘-Shift-S and the app will ask for permission to synch with your Documents folder. <S> Hit <S> yes and <S> the e-book should then appear under My Books. <A> You can't expect answers if you refuse to accept answers that state the truth. <S> afaik, you can't make a Kobo sync <S> state with sideloaded books <S> (and I've delved a long way into the software and database structure). <S> Kobo is only slightly better than Amazon about "islands of content". <A> I just purchased the Kobo H2O and use the following way to get books from other sources onto the reader via wifi: <S> Get dropbox account <S> Add folder in dropbox named for example "epub" <S> Add the books you want to this folder, either by computer or when purchasing books with your smartphone <S> (this is how i usually shop for new books) <S> Log in to dropbox mobile page on you Kobo reader and navigate to your book folder. <S> Set this as startpage for browser or add bookmark (you still have to login every time you open the browser, but you get redirected to the right folder straight after login) <S> Click on file and wait... <S> Then accept download!
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If you only need to get content onto the Kobo, then your best bet is to load the books into Calibre, and then sideload from there either by USB or Wifi via the Calibre server.
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Is there any ebook reader that can synchronize the bookmarks across PC(windows, osx), iOS, android devices? I am looking for a reader that can synchronize the bookmark at which we last read and can continue from where we left? I have a surface, macbook, ipad, and a samsung tab across which I would like to synchronize the books, and their bookmarks. Amazon Kindle app comes close but doesn't support epubs. Any suggestions? <Q> Google Play Books is probably what you are looking for. <S> It synchronizes data between all your devices, allows you to upload your own ebooks and it supports epub format. <A> If all you're trying to do is sync your last-read position between devices I would recommend Bluefire Reader paired with a dropbox account. <S> You'll also need to set up a free Adobe ID and register the Bluefire apps on all your devices to the same Adobe ID to enable syncing. <S> The only drawback is that it does not sync bookmarks, notes and highlights at this time (although I've spoken with the developer and that functionality is under development). <A> I think Kobo is what you're looking for. <S> , so you can read between your smartphone, tablet, computer, or Kobo device and pick up right where you last left off.
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The Kobo app syncs all your bookmarks Google books which was mentioned by a previous poster is a decent option, but it can be irritating managing your files on the google cloud.
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Are there any solutions available for managing a corporate library of ebooks? My employer maintains a small library of technical books for developers. If there's a book we think would be useful for us, we typically buy a number of copies and place them in the library, where the employees can borrow them. This works well for paperbooks, but with more and more people wanting to use ereaders or tablets to read, we are looking for a solution that solves the same problem, but for ebooks. Ideally, it would be a solution that works with books from any publisher, and with any ereader/reader-app. I've seen that Overdrive offers a corporate library service, but from the description I was able to find on their site, it seems rather limited and a bad fit for our needs. In case it's relevant to the answers, we are located in Norway, but will typically purchase books in english from the US or UK. PS.If we were to ignore legal issues, we could simply set up calibre on a machine with the web-interface running, and add books when purchased. However, I believe this would at the very least land us in some very grey areas legally speaking. <Q> There aren’t many choices. <S> The most simple is to have a cloud-like space/service or simply a shared intranet directory. <S> The need for controlling readers requires much more and is typically dependent on a special app or DRM. <S> This issue is typically a thing for bigger companies like publishers or libraries ( Adobe Content Server , Azardi Online ). <S> If it is simple, small library it would need simple and strict rules. <S> Otherwise the solution would be expensive, complex and annoying for you. <S> You could also try: Personal Book Space <S> but I have no experiences with it. <A> After visiting a recent CILIP showcase in London I was seeking a similar solution for a client and fell upon Soutron and there corporate eBook PDF delivery software . <S> In talks with them now. <S> Looks promising as you can control who receives which title and set DRM permissions, rules for printing or not etc. <S> Works for eReaders, Tablets and desktops. <S> Hope this helps <A> These books can include interactivity like videos, animations, interactive troubleshooting questions and a variety of other interactivity. <S> Organizations are able to upload content using a user friendly web interface and members can read on IOS, Android and Web <S> You can learn more by visiting https://www.bookfusion.com/business <S> We also have partnerships with local and international publishers. <S> Disclaimer: I am the founder of BookFusion. <S> We currently use the corporate library functionality of our platform to share eBooks, meeting minutes and strategy documents.
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BookFusion allows businesses to create their own public or private digital library to legally distribute, ebooks, manuals, white papers and other digital content securely to your customers or employees.
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What does it mean that a pdf is "paginated"? I have quite often seen written somewhere that pdf is (or isn't) paginated . Maybe this term is used for other formats, too. I thought that this is used to pdf where page numbering in the file corresponds to the page numbers in the actual document. (To explain in layman's terms, if it as book and the frontmatter is numbered as i-xiv and the rest of the book is numbered 1-400, then when I try to go to page number 1 in the viewer, it goes to the first page of the book, not the first page of the frontmatter.) But I have also seen this post on another SE site. The answer given seems to indicate that non-paginated pdf would mean that it is a file which consists only of single very long page. To clarify the things: What is the meaning of the term paginated pdf-file. If both usages mentioned above are correct, which of them is more common? <Q> I have never heard it used to mean either of those things. <S> In my experience, if someone says a PDF is paginated, they simply mean that there are page numbers on the PDF's pages. <S> They may or may not correspond to some other publication, like a physical book. <S> The point is simply that the pages have numbers on the pages themselves. <A> This is why I would account your second usage example as correct. <S> But paginated may also simply reffer to the fact that the pages of a document have page numbers. <S> See also the defnition of pagination at Merriam-Webster. <S> This question might also be suitable for English Language & Usage <A> There is a relatively obscure feature of PDF called tagging that permits reflow. <S> It is remotely possible that the word "paginated," when used in reference to a PDF, could mean "non-reflowable," but I doubt it. <S> I doubt it, because my sense is that the vast majority of PDFs are not reflowable, and therefore it is the default situation, needing no qualification. <S> Even if a PDF is reflowable, my guess is that most PDF viewers would not know how to reflow them. <S> So again, being "paginated," if that means "non-reflowable", is not generally worth mentioning, as it is of little consequence to most people. <S> (Note that it is of great consequence to those trying to use a PDF with an assistive technology like a screen reader, but that is not most people.) <S> Despite these doubts, for completeness I thought I might record the remote possibility that "paginated" means "non-reflowable."
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Pagination as described by Wikipedia "is the process of dividing(content) into discrete pages."
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What devices support reading scanned PDF documents well? To focus, please assume I care only about one thing: The experience of reading "side loaded," scanned PDF files of books downloaded off the Internet on a portable device. There is an upper bound of around 200MB for a single file. I am not interested in "native" PDF files (re-flowable), EPUB, or any other e-book format. I am not interested in reformatting the PDF files, optimizing, ORC-ing, etc. Not interested in e-book marketplaces or dictionaries or apps or note-taking or games or other bells and whistles. Here's the workflow: I search Google for an old book, find it on archive.org, download it, copy/sync it to the device, read, rinse, repeat. There are plenty of reviews of devices that cover reading different e-book formats, but rarely do they cover reading scanned PDF books. If mentioned in a review, the topic usually gets a sentence or two, and that's it. Or it only talks about "native" PDF support. Or the review is from 2011 and out-dated. I have for months been trying to get an answer to this, and this is what I've found so far as my options: An e-reader with e-ink An Android tablet (or other vendor) with a decent display An e-ink Android tablet Sony Digital Paper Laptop computer (I already have one, I'm looking for a better experience) E-ink would be best, because these books are all scanned black-and-white. I work all day on the computer, the last thing my eye balls need is for me to stare at another lit screen into the wee hours of the night. But most e-reader reviews that I've read said they just don't handle navigating scanned PDF files well (if they can even open them). Is that still true? Besides software support and ease of use (which is probably the biggest issue), the amount of RAM and processor power is likely a concern, too. A tablet would work if it had a good, crisp display. But the big concern here is eye strain. At least a decent tablet will have enough RAM and processor power to handle a large PDF and allow me to navigate it. So this is a workable option. I have actually read a large scanned PDF book on a first generation iPad -- the PDF app kept crashing and the display was poor and pixel-y, but I persevered. Still, my eyes hated me. A hybrid would be the Onyx Boox which appears to be an Android tablet that uses an e-ink display. This might work. Reviews suggest it isn't a perfect device but still works well for PDF files. But I can't tell if the reviewers are talking about scanned PDF files or "native" again. Anyone have experience with this one? Sony Digital Paper. I was going to say that cost doesn't matter, but at $1000 I have to set a limit and this is just too much. This thing apparently will have no problem loading and displaying and navigating any PDF, so this would definitely be an option, except for the prohibitive price. Has anyone used one of these? Is this a good device if one intends to use it to read exclusively and not do any note-taking? Hmm, my wife would kill me. Getting PDFs on it matters: USB or syncing would be best. I use Linux exclusively and don't have access to Windows or Mac OS X, so this has to be possible via Linux (e.g., Dropbox support is good on Linux). But I'm still more concerned with how well the thing supports actually opening and navigating the scanned books. Back to the question: What devices support reading scanned PDF documents well? I want to be able to turn the page without waiting 30 seconds. I want to view a page and scroll around (if need be) without fiddling too much with zooming and waiting too long for rendering. And likely there are important factors I'm not considering. Please give me the lowdown. If the market still isn't prepared to support this use case, that's fine, too, I suppose. Thanks for your help. <Q> I read scanned PDFs on my Android tablet pretty regularly and without problems. <S> I presently use a Lenvo Yoga 10 HD+ (previously I had an Acer Iconia A200), but any reasonable spec tablet should do you. <S> If you're trying to quick-flip pages one after the other, it'll take a second or three to go to the next one. <S> If you actually read each page, though, you won't see that, because it renders the next page in the background. <S> Things to look for: <S> Quick page flip (or at least page flip you won't notice) <S> Controls that make sense to you Pan and Zoom controls appropriate to the platform <S> If you close the PDF and re-open it later, does it come back to the same place? <S> I know a couple of readers I tried DIDN'T do that. <S> Reasonable screen size - <S> the 10" display on my tablet is fine for 8 1/2x11 pages, as long as the type isn't minuscule. <S> Make sure the device takes an SD card - you'll want lots of space to store PDFs. <S> I find it's nice to side-load stuff to the SD card, and read from there. <A> To answer your questions: the largest PDF file I have is a 330MB scan of a book at 300dpi no problem with opening such files, browsing, scribbling on, zooming, (auto)cropping, bookmarking - you can do that all this depends on the size of the book of course, but I generally do not have the need for scrolling/panning, I find the 9.7" size screen sufficient but there is a 13.3" model too if that's not enough for you depending on the size/resolution/complexity turning a page of a scanned PDF file <S> can be up to 3 seconds (e.g. my 300/600 dpi scans can take this long); if you want to skim through scanned books that's a no go, but if you read cover to cover it doesn't matter much no eye strain and possible to read on a sunny day in your garden or by the window (no glare) <S> connectivity: USB, microSD, wifi, bluetooth <S> You may also want to have a look at my answer to this question where I talk about my general reading experience with this reader. <A> I've used multiple devices to read scanned PDFs, including iPad, Android phone, and Sony e-ink reader. <S> The biggest problem is that the font in scanned PDFs can't be resized, and the text doesn't reflow. <S> On a small device, such as a phone or pocket e-reader, you need to zoom in and then pan across the page. <S> Reading is difficult in this situation, and can be exacerbated when the scanned document consists of two sequential pages. <S> The e-ink reader was terrible and I stopped using it for this type of document, despite being my reader of choice at the time. <S> The phone was marginally better, as moving the page around was faster and easier. <S> The iPad worked well. <S> Ideally, I would aim for a device that can hold at least the full width of the page on one screen and still be comfortable to read without further zooming.
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I usually use ezPDF reader, but there's a lot of PDF readers out there that work fine (ezPDF was the first that I found that performed well for most things I look at). I currently use 9.7" Onyx Boox M96 , a device from 2014, and find it adequate for the job.
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How to remove and add certain pages from pdf file? There are PDF files which are very long and most of the pages don't provide any essential information. So I want to keep only those pages which are relevant and want to get rid of unnecessary material. I have found threads which provide information on how to edit an epub file but not pdf. Most of you might feel that solution of this question is same as for "Merge PDF File". They are different in following aspects: Merging and deletion are different and here I am asking for deletion not merging. If someone likes to give same solution then their answers are duplicate not my question. The answers given for merging of PDF files doesn't provide solution how to add pages at specific location in a PDF file. It also doesn't specify how to remove just few pages from a single PDF. Solutions given to "MERGE PDF FILES" just implies how to merge two PDF files using range specification method , in order to omit particular pages. <Q> I think that PDFtk is the tool you need. <S> https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/ <A> Try using Adobe Acrobat. <S> That programme has lots of functions like: toggling pages and removing pages! <A> You can give a try to CutePDF, if you use windows. <S> For more information , you can use the following link, http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-Pages-from-a-PDF-File <A> Under any Mac OS after 10.7, the included Preview <S> PDF reader tool will allow you to do any of those manipulations with great ease. <S> Just display the thumbnails of the file and you can delete or drag any page of a PDF file. <S> You can even add any page from any other PDF file with this method. <S> As simple as that. <A> You can find these tools at DeftPDF <S> Delete PDF page tool - can delete specific pages by entering page numbers on the text box or simply clicking the page to delete. <S> Can delete multiple pages at one click. <S> Edit PDF tool - can delete one by one and insert pages one by one as you scroll through the PDF. <S> Extract <S> PDF pages - Can pick out the pages you only need so you don't have to delete <S> but it will keep only those you want. <S> Somehow it's similar to deleting or removing unwanted pages. <S> Split PDF tool <S> - If pages you need are at a certain range and the others are just unwanted pages, just split them up to that page. <S> Combine and reorder - <S> Can also both delete and insert pages. <S> You can also reorder the existing pages to the order that you need so the pages will be inserted to where you need it to be. <S> source <A> it is very easy to do so using any pdf editor like wondershare or Masterpdf editor and many others. <S> I edit books using masterpdf editor and i am sure you can find a free alternative
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There are several tools that can do what you need - which is both add an additional page and delete a page.
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What is the native pixel resolution of the viewable area on a Kindle Paperwhite 2 when displaying a .pdf file? My goal is to produce files which, when displayed, are rendered 1:1, pixel-for-pixel, in order to ensure maximum text clarity. The values provided in the GUI version of the k2pdfopt program, seem to be incorrect, and produce an obviously degraded result when displayed on the device. Of course, this should exclude the chrome at the bottom of the screen, and any margins that are drawn. Also, a means of preventing the software from automatically scaling the image would be useful to know. <Q> To prevent the images from scaling you should set the width of the image in pixels rather than in, eg, 100% . <S> It appears that the Kindle Paperwhite is 4.6 inches wide at 212 ppi ( source ), which comes to an unlikely 975.2 pixels wide—but it's a place to start. <S> If it's distorted, then there is probably a hard-coded margin for the page of greater than 2 pixels, so reduce a small amount and try again. <S> Note that specifying the pixel size will mean that on other Amazon devices, the image will not resize to fit the screen—iPad and iPhone Kindle <S> app users may not be happy with the end result. <A> Calibre lists the paperwhite as having a pixel count of 658 x 940 and the paperwhite 3 as having a screen size of 1072 x 1430. <A> Screen shots from a Paperwhite 2 displaying a PDF file can be located here . <S> These screen shots were the basis for the values used in the latest version of k2pdfopt. <S> My experience is that getting a 1-to-1 isn't trivial. <S> I had to work at it with my old Kindle 2. <S> You may need to adjust slightly the values of the width and height and the values used by the -pad option. <S> Also you should use the -mc option (on by default). <S> For each trial, you should take a screen shot of your PDF on your Kindle and see if it exactly matches the bitmapped file within it. <S> You can see the values used for the Paperwhite 2 selection by running: <S> k2pdfopt -dev ?
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I would suggest setting image width (or width of containing div ) to 970 px for starters.
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Embed JavaScript in an e-book using an e-reader I'm looking for an e-reader that can embed Javascript in an e-book. I need to display a popup in the e-book but using a e-reader. Apparently, it is not possible for the Kindle Reader but I'm wondering if it is possible with another device? <Q> JavaScript is an optional part of the epub 3.0 specification : <S> EPUB Content Documents may contain scripting using the facilities defined for this in the respective underlying specifications ([HTML5] and [SVG]). <S> What this means is that even a fully-compliant epub 3.0 device doesn't need to implement JavaScript support. <S> The ones that do will generally be the "more bells and whistles" devices; the iPad, for example, supports JavaScript. <S> The IDPF's epub Chrome extension Readium does as well. <S> Note that according to the epub 3.0 specification , the following criteria for reading systems that support JavaScript must be met: › <S> It must support container-constrained scripting and may support spine-level scripting. <S> › <S> It may render Scripted Content Documents as an interactive, scripted User Agent according to [HTML5]. <S> › <S> It must not allow a container-constrained script to modify the DOM of the parent Content Document or other contents in the EPUB Publication, and must not allow it to manipulate the size of its containing rectangle. <S> (Note: Even if a script is not container-constrained, the Reading System may impose restrictions on modifications (see also the dom-manipulation feature).) <S> › <S> It may place additional limitations on the capabilities provided to scripts during execution (e.g., limiting networking). <S> › <S> It must implement the JavaScript navigator extension object epubReadingSystem defined in Appendix A, JavaScript <S> epubReadingSystem <S> Object . <S> It also must support the dom-manipulation and layout-change features defined in Features in container-constrained scripting contexts. <S> › <S> It must regard the scripted [Publications301] property of the Package Document manifest item element as the authoritative definition of whether an EPUB Content Document includes scripting. <S> EDIT: <S> For an example, check out Beneath The Ink . <A> Also Adobe Digital Editions 4.0 seems to reading JavaScript. <S> It is rather important, because ADE is rendering engine for most e-readers for the market. <S> Unfortunately not all (if any at all) manufacturers use new engine at this time. <S> ADE 4.0 is available on Adobe sites <A> I'm looking for an e-reader that can embed Javascript. <S> AFAIK, only tablets with epub3 apps support Javascript. <S> For example, iPads/iPhones with iBooks and Android tablets with Gitden Reader (which is also available for iOS.)
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Popup text and images are definitely possible using JavaScript in iBooks.
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Kindle vs Kindle paperwhite, is the resolution really important for eyes? I'm trying to decide between buying a Kindle vs. a Kindle Paperwhite. The Kindle has a resolution of 167 ppi and the Paperwhite has a resolution of 300 ppi. I don't care about the backlighting since I use a lamp. So the only question is, is the resolution on the Kindle bad for my eyes? Is it really better to have a higher res screen? <Q> Here's a comparison of 300 ppi (Voyage, Oasis, 2015 Paperwhite) vs 221 ppi (2014 and earlier Paperwhite) vs 167 ppi (Classic Kindle). <S> Actual dimensions seem to be 1072 x 1448 (300 ppi) <S> 758 x 1024 (221 ppi) <S> 600 x 800 (167 ppi) <S> The 300 ppi can legitimately claim to be nearly indistiguishable from paper to my eye, once you factor in the natural fuzziness of eInk and the 16 shades of grey. <A> I think it's always better to have a good resolution. <S> It's not a problem if you are reading ePubs. <S> But when reading PDFs, I feel it is very hard to continue because I feel tired with low resolution. <S> If the resolution is low and I try to read zoomed out, then my eyes can really feel tired. <S> Even when the resolution is high, don't read too tiny letters for a long time. <S> If you do so, you may unknowingly take the device very close to your eyes and blur your vision. <S> Even if you have a back light in your device, it is always better to read with a lamp because when we read in the dark with a back light, the pupils of the eyes automatically adjust to the dark, but we are sending more light than the retinas expected. <A> Is the resolution on the Kindle bad for my eyes? <S> NO. <S> The resolution is fine for your eyes and for any eyes for that matter. <S> The question should be: <S> Do you care for the resolution of the Kindle? <S> And the answer to this question depends solely on you. <S> I despise low resolutions, they're an eyesore for me, so I had to had the Paperwhite. <S> My girlfriend on the other hand, either doesn't care or can't spot a major difference most of the time. <S> So she has the low res Kindle <S> and she's perfectly happy with it. <A> Resolution is neither good nor bad for your eyes—all a lower resolution will do is make your text more jaggedy and less aesthetically appealing, which will be exacerbated at large font sizes. <S> For reference, most print books are in the 200–300 dpi range. <S> Books on glossy paper can be higher dpi (because the ink doesn't soak in as readily). <S> For reference, most of the web is still at 72ppi. <A> There are lots of filters that you can add for free that make this easier to answer. <S> I use kindle fire and a bluelight filter. <S> This has way more to do on your eyes than the res. <S> Here is the skinny on all the research. <S> I use Twilight on my Kindle and F.lux on my pc and my tablet. <S> I hope this helps, also there is an eye health app on android that you can get DescriptionProtect your eyesight with your iPhone/iPad! <S> This is a quit nice app which can reduce your visual fatigue and protect your eyesight! <S> When you feel visual fatigue or strain your eyes for a long time, just open it!Portect <S> your eyesight with rotational eyeball! <S> Why does it work: <S> Myopia results from asthenopia, staring for a long time. <S> This application helps in restoring vision and relaxing your eyes. <S> How to use it:1 Open this application. <S> Exercise and relax your eyes by following the rotational balls for 10 minutes every 1 or 2 hours. <S> 2 Close your eyes and recall the movement, rotate your eyeballs. <S> 3 <S> We provide you with tips of how to protect your eyesight. <S> Notes:1 Please don't move your head with the ball, rotate your eyeballs only!2 <S> This application is for recreation and relaxation only. <S> It can not be used as medical device! <S> Call your doctor if you have problem in your eyesight! <S> FreeDragon Web Site <A> answer is No. <S> specially if you want to read a simple text document I assure they are all identical (add Voyage to your list). <S> there are many comparison in internet, just google name of both devices and look at google images. <S> maybe it is unrelated, but I suggest you to go for pw because back-light makes it even easier to read during the day. <S> amazon occasionally give discount for pw for price as low as 100 <S> € <S> so I would say it definitively worth it. <A> Having upgraded from Kindle to Paperwhite I have both and still use both. <S> For reading after dark <S> I use the Paperwhite and its backlight <S> but I carry my Kindle with me for reading in the day.
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Basically, higher dpi will make your text crisper (to a point), but if that's not a big deal to you, you'll be fine. I find no problem with the difference in resolution though I prefer the higher resolution.
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Can you use a Kindle without an Amazon account? I'd like to know if it is possible to use a Kindle reader without having an Amazon account, but rather only uploading the reader's own files into the device. <Q> I just got a new paperwhite, and am reading my own books on it without registering. <S> It nags you to register, but if you open Calibre, and then connect via USB, you can put books on, and it all works just as normal. <S> The only thing you can't do if you don't register is to "buy" Amazon's drm books, or access the ones you've already "bought." <S> Although it is possible you may be able to transfer said books through your kindle desktop app, I haven't tried,don't really care. <A> I can't speak definitively about this, but my understanding is that you need a kindle account to register the device as new. <S> The reason is that amazon.com wants to make sure you are able to spend money -- they lose money on the kindles and hope to make up for it with sales of ebooks and apps. <S> After it is registered, you can connect via USB to a laptop or computer and transfer as many files as you want, more or less (using Calibre, etc). <S> You don't need to purchase one thing. <S> You don't need to use kindle to do the transferring (unless you really want to). <S> So you really only need to connect to amazon.com one time. <S> You don't need to connect to wifi after that first time. <S> I'm guessing that you are dealing with a used device wiped clean with broken wifi or you are in a country where amazon doesn't have a store or you are buying it for a young person and don't want to give him access to your credit card. <S> If you are concerned about credit card use, you can give a functioning credit card when you register, and then change/remove the credit card later. <S> By the way, one advantage of being registered is that Kindle will automatically download updates. <S> See also this thread <S> http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=TxFBK4BK0D6L9Y <S> See also this thread on setting parental controls to prevent kids from buying things http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201423070 <A> Never register your kindle when you buy. <S> Turn off wifi by putting into wifi mode. <S> Then just use your kindle as a sort of usb stick with screen. <S> Drag and drop pdf and mobi files (use the great free program Calibre to convert epub etc to these formats. <S> This works for a kindle of a couple of years ago with the square button on the bottom. <A> Yes, you can use a Kindle (at least Kindles that are several years old) without an Amazon account. <S> I got a secondhand Kindle that is probably ~4-5 years old. <S> I connected to wifi to deregister the prior owner. <S> Then I turned wifi off, and connected to my pc with a microUSB cable and uploaded books using Calibre. <A> I just got a new paperwhite 09/2018 <S> and you can use it without registering although it may not seem like it at first. <S> You'll see the connect & register screen when first starting up and it won't let you do anything else. <S> Pretend like you are going to, search for networks, but don't join anything. <S> Cancel back out <S> and it will then ask if you would like to continue setup later. <S> Do that and then never register if that's what you prefer. <A> You can copy MOBI or PDF or a few other data file formats into the "Documents" directory using USB, and it'll display them just fine. <S> There are four differences I've found that apply to all the Kindles I've tried this with. <S> You can't buy books from Amazon Store directly from the device, obviously. <S> You can't take an Amazon Kindle copy-protected-format file from one of your other Kindles, copy them onto your unregistered Kindle, and read them. <S> (Not surprising.) <S> You can't email a file to the Kindle using Amazon Whispernet's my-kindle-name@kindle.com address (also obvious.) <S> The Collections feature doesn't work without registration (Not obvious, and annoying.) <S> It's not a problem if you've only got a few dozen books on there at a time, but if you've downloaded half of Project Gutenberg onto your Kindle into one big flat directory mess, it's hard to keep track of stuff.
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Yes, you can use a Kindle without an account, or without registering it.
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What is the best way to read manga on Kindle? I have a Kindle 5 and I would like to read manga (japanese comic) on it. What methods can I use? What format is the best and is there any converter that can create that format from a bunch of JPEG files? Also, I have Ubuntu, so if a program is required, it would be better if it is available for Linux. <Q> The fastest and simplest way is to use a comic book archive format. <S> If you already have the image files, make sure that they are named with the correct alphabetical and numerical order (I.E. cover.jpg , page001.jpg , page002.jpg and so on); the program that you will use to read the comic will display your images in alphabetical order. <S> Then you can simply compress them in <S> a .zip <S> archive, and rename <S> it's extension from .zip <S> to .cbz . <S> If you prefer, you can also compress the files in a .rar <S> archive, but in this case you should rename it in .cbr . <S> Your ereader should be able to read one of these formats. <S> Alternatively, you can try PDFtk , it is a nice tool for manipulating PDF in various ways; it is cross-platform (hence you can find it also in the Ubuntu repositories) and can be used to create a PDF from the source images. <S> I've always used it from Command Line, but on openSUSE repositories I found at least a couple of graphical interfaces, the packages are named pdftk-qtgui and pdfchain ; I suppose that these should be available on Ubuntu as well, try to look for them (bear in mind that on different distros, the package names could be a little different). <A> I used it several times, and worked fine (didn't cut into the text, etc.) <A> You can convert the JPEG files to a proper EPUB book as described in this answer and then convert that, e.g. with Calibre to the Kindle format.
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The easiest solution what I found is Kindle Comic Converter, which also cuts the edges.
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Which ePub readers are available for Windows? On my Android devices I use Aldiko and Moon Reader Pro, depending on my mood.On Windows, however, I am still stuck with FBReader and the reader bundled with Calibre, and I don't like very much both of them. (Adobe Digital Edition is a heavy program). I would prefer a standalone program which runs on Windows 7 too, and I don't like browser extension since my browsers already use a lot of RAM. Any suggestions? <Q> You can try IceCream Ebook Reader : <S> Meet Icecream Ebook Reader, one of the best free EPUB readers that transforms your computer screen into a convenient top-notch ebook reader. <S> The tool enables you read ebooks in EPUB, MOBI, FB2, PDF and other popular formats. <S> Manage your digital library on your PC or Windows-based laptop. <S> This program also features the ability to turn pages, use bookmarks, search your library, track reading progress and much more. <A> You could try Sumatra PDF ; despite the name, this program can read various document formats, including ebooks ( .epub and .mobi ) and comic books ( .cbz and .cbr ). <S> It's free and open source, and its main features are being a lightweight and portable program; I've tried it a couple of times, and I found it a bit too minimalistic (maybe this is a plus for you), but if you need a program that won't drain your system resources you should definitely give it a try. <S> Besides that, and not counting other obvious alternatives like Kindle and Kobo readers for PC, I don't have many other suggestions; I'm mainly a Linux user, and I'm fine with Calibre internal reader, so I've never really bothered to look for other things. <S> You could try to look for something else on alternativeto.net ( here and here ), but honestly, there seems to be very few ebook readers for PC, if compared with their portable devices counterparts: people mostly like to read ebooks on ereaders or tablets, so I think that developers have less incentive to work on software that runs on a PC. <A> If you like good support of ePub3 and it <S> ’s advantages, give a chance to Azardi Reader or to Readium. <S> Azardi Reader <S> Well built reader with nice support of modern e-books’ features. <S> Readium <S> Supporting latest standards as far as possible. <S> It is possible to install it in a form of Chrome plugin (or Vivaldi plugin). <S> The rest, like ADE, are, according to my experiences, a bit unstable. <S> There are plenty of plugins to Firefox as well as Chromium but none of them has as good options and ePub support as these two. <S> I use them daily for testing. <S> Anyway, these two are those recommended to readers of the publishing house I work for. <S> Azardi: Readium: <A> You may want to try ePub File Reader. <S> The software interface consists of two parts, the left will show document chapter directory, the right is a browser to show document content. <S> This software is easy to use very much, it is a freeware and completely free to use. <S> EPUB File Reader download page <A> Customize your reading experience to view books with different fonts, line spacing and themes, turn pages with the flick of a finger or jump to any page. <S> The app even comes loaded with free book samples. <S> And so you never lose your place, the NOOK app syncs the last page you've read across your tablet and PC. <S> As someone else said, Ice Cream is pretty good too, if you are on Windows Vista and above. <A> VitalSource Bookshelf, calibre, Kindle, Firefox addon and also ADE-4(ADE 4 is supporting epub3 and fixed layout. <A> For Windows 10, I use Microsoft Edge, it simply does the job.
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EPUB File Reader is a free EPUB files viewer, can help you to open and read ePub e-books and documents. If you use Windows 8 or 10, Nook is a really good choice.
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ePub readers for Windows that support continous scrolling? I need to find an ePub reader application for Windows that support continuous page scrolling. Thanks in advance for any help you are able to provide. <Q> <A> You can use Firefox with the EPUBReader extension. <S> With the extension installed, open Firefox, then Ctrl+O to open a file. <S> Locate and select your epub file. <S> By default, EPUBReader shows the ebook paginated. <S> To get continuous scrolling, go to Settings (bottom left of the screen) and select Reading Styles > Website. <S> (Note: EPUBReader does not open ebooks with DRM.) <A> You are supposed to do some research on your own before you ask a question, so that you can be very specific. <S> Epub readers using e-ink do not scroll because the screen refresh is too slow, though there is research to improve that (see for example Bookeen's work ) <S> Of course this does not have to apply to epub reader software that uses more traditional screen displays, though these applications sometimes suffer from the same limitation (no scrolling) as they imitate e-ink eReaders. <S> Still, you should expect many epub reader applications with scrolling on systems using traditional display screens, whatever the operating system. <S> That is indeed the case. <S> If you ask your favorite browser with keywords such as epub reader windows scrolling , you should get many answers to your question, as I did. <S> However there is no point in reproducing here these answers which I did not test myself, and which may change with time. <S> Each reader can get more up to date answers by doing it on his own. <A> You can try the new updated Microsoft Edge now. <S> Its Epub reader is pretty good. <S> It has the page theme settings and text size and continuous scrolling too.
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Try the calibre ebook viewer: open your book and enable "Switch to flow mode" (the button on the top right corner)
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Do I need an Amazon account to use a Kindle? I am looking to buy a Kindle Paperwhite (7th gen). Do I need an Amazon account for it to work? I just want to put books on it from my PC. I cannot create an Amazon Account because I have no credit card, so will my Kindle register without it? <Q> With amazon account, it is much easier to send your personal books to your kindle: <S> send books an an attachment to your personal amazon email Use browser extensions to send webpage directly to your kindle <S> Alternatively you can send books via USB cable to your kindle without using an account. <A> I am not familiar with the paperwhite kindles... but with the kindle fires (at least that 2 latest ones) they read MOSTLY all epub and <S> mobi files- but some just don't show up on the kindle. <S> I have no idea why unfortunately, but if you have an e-book in the format of the actualy file- either epub or mobi- <S> it will seem to recognize and store the book 80% of the time about. <S> The method I use is the simple drag and drop from PC to correct folder on the kindle. <S> Sometimes the books will show up in your library with a cover photo, and sometimes they will show up in your documents with the title and no cover, but still has the whole bookmarking/flip the page/ basic e-read features. <A> When you buy a Kindle you will get an account. <S> When you turn it on, it will prompt you to create an ID and Password and will assign you a unique Kindle e-mail, regardless of who bought it. <S> You'll use the e-mail to load things onto the Kindle. <S> Kindles will read PDF's as well as Kindle documents, look to see what formats are covered when you get your paperwhite. <S> Non-Books are mostly held in a Documents folder. <S> Amazon accepts PayPal and debit card purchases, so I assume that's what you're using. <S> And in any case, if a Kindle has reverted to factory settings (i.e. buying a used Kindle), it will always make the user register it anyway. <S> A word of caution, though, take a look at what format the books on your computer are in. <S> Amazon won't convert EPUBs to Kindle format. <S> If you buy a Fire, you can use the Bluefire app to read EPUBS that you load manually. <S> I don't think that will work on a paperwhite--I know it didn't on my Kindle Touch. <A> DISCLAIMER: <S> This is by no means a marketing stunt, at the end of the day you know what is best but from your description it was clear to me that you might not be making the right decision. <S> Just my 2p. <S> The benefit of using a kindle is the entire eco-system and infrastructure built around it by Amazon. <S> If you take that away, the kindle is actually a pretty poor choice for an ebook reader. <S> If you do not want to register your credit card and will not primarily buy your books from Amazon, you are subscribing to a world of hurt in my opinion. <S> Please note that there are ad supported versions of the paperwhite and you need to pay extra to remove these. <S> This brings me to the next leg of my answer. <S> My scenario was a lot like yours <S> and I spent a lot of time researching the ereaders out there. <S> I am confident to offer you the same advice and that is to actually go for a Kobo reader instead. <S> That ereader is and a amazingly open device and very friendly towards people who would want to dump their own ebooks on to the device. <S> Not only that, the book formats supports is great allowing you to read anything from comics (cbzs) to the industry standard epub files. <S> In the future should you decide to buy books you can do so easily from the device itself using the kobo store.
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You don't need a credit Card to register your amazon account.
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Can I only transfer files to my Kindle Paperwhite using the cable that shipped with the device? I read a lot of out of copyright (and sometimes out of print) books, which I download from Gutenberg.org and then transfer from my Mac to my Kindle, usually with the excellent Calibre app. I just connected my Kindle to my Mac with a regular micro USB cable, and while the Kindle charged okay it didn't show up as a storage device on my Mac and Calibre didn't recognise it, either. I then tried another micro USB cable, and that didn't connect the Kindle as a storage device, either (it charged it, though, just like before). Finally, I dug out the micro USB cable that shipped with my Kindle and this one worked: my Mac recognised my Kindle as a storage device, and Calibre was able to send books to my Kindle. So, should any micro USB cable work fully with my Kindle (i.e., connects it to my Mac as a storage device, as well as charging it)? If not, what's special about the cable that shipped with my Kindle? <Q> Additionally, there are some USB cables that are with charge-only feature. <S> They have less pins, usually a lot cheaper or come with devices that are not made for a pc-device storage connection. <S> For example, a Chinese cable for 0.99$ or a cable that came with a portable charger (power bank). <S> I've come across quite a few of these in my life, they will not work with your Android phone also, or your camera, or any other device that needs the data transfer pins. <S> [Edit] <S> , it's only the ability to transfer data with it that is required, as already stated by the other answerer :-) <A> I don't have a Kindle Paperwhite, but I have used other Kindle devices. <S> The cable is generic. <S> Any matching cable should work. <S> Most of my file transfer I did by sending the books as email attachments (downloading) rather than copying over USB (sideloading). <S> Both worked for me. <S> With USB I used a standard micro USB cable but not the one that shipped with the Kindle. <S> There was nothing special about the cable shipped with the Kindle in my experience. <S> This post on the mobile read forum has three people saying they used generic cables with the paperwhite 2 <S> This answer on ebooks.stackexchange.com has details on how to get books on your device if your USB cable is not working. <S> On your Mac, using each cable one at a time, what do the Apple menu <S> > <S> About This <S> Mac > System Report <S> > Hardware > <S> USB details say? <S> Does the paperwhite cable show a kindle device and the other two a different device? <S> Is it possible that two of the cables are old/broken and <S> the cable with the paperwhite is the only one functioning? <A> Interesting I have 2 kindles. <S> a paperweight and a voyage. <S> The older paperweight allows me to download books from iMac via calibre on it. <S> The newer paperweight (voyage) - no joy with the same cable! <S> I have tried multiple times. <S> Works with one <S> so not the other. <S> So the cable works differently across different kindles. <A> There are several possibilities that may explain your problem. <S> First, as was suggested by Непитерская Кошка in his answer, it couldbe that the cables you tried are charge only. <S> Some very cheapUSB-like cables are intended only to make electric connections inorder to charge devices, but they will not carry any data. <S> I own sucha cable, which actually features a multiplicity of connector, not all in USB physical format,including many that would not be usable for anything but charging. <S> However all other connectors I acquired, including those provided withan electric charger, were capable of carrying data, so that I expectcharge only USB cable to be fairly rare. <S> Another problem may arise because there are several USB standards,today basically USB 2 and USB 3 (though subversions exist, such as USB 3.1). <S> These standards are supposed to be compatible, working at the speed ofthe components using the oldest version. <S> Bu that is not always thecase, from what I can read on some sites. <S> Basically you have 3 elements involved: the connector on the computer the connector on the kindle the connecting cable <S> Each can be USB 2 or USB 3, or some sub-version of them. <S> According to https://www.howtogeek.com/222400/do-usb-3.0-connections-require-usb-3.0-cables/ it is possible that a USB 2.0 cable will work (at USB 2.0 speeds), for some, but not all, USB 3.0 devices . <S> This could be the reason for your problem, depending on the kind ofcables and connectors you have.
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oh, and NO, the cable that goes with your Kindle is NOT the only one it can use
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Software recommendation for writing ebook and exporting to multiple formats I am thinking about writing and/publishing an ebook with the following in mind: It will contain code (needs proper formatting) I should be able to publish PDF and EPUB versions I might need to have an HTML version of the book too Since I am new to this stuff, I wonder if anyone could give me some points on which software (free/paid) I should use for writing/formatting the ebook. I have used LaTeX about 8 years ago, and I really liked it, but I am not sure if I can export to the formats I want with LaTeX. <Q> Pandoc is your friend here. <S> Pandoc can take your input file (LaTeX, markdown, other) and transform it to PDF, EPUB, HTML (and many more). <S> With regards to formatting your code, both LaTeX and markdown have components that will help. <S> LaTeX has many more layout options. <S> I've used both LaTeX and markdown to produce ebook (ePub) files. <S> An example of using pandoc with LaTeX is shown in another ebooks.stackexchange.com question I posted . <S> It's great to have a range of options. <A> If you don't want the hassle of setting up the full LaTeX stack, as needed with the, in this respect, unfriendly pandoc , you can have a look at reStructured tex t and Sphinx . <S> For these tools exists to generate ePub and PDF, the latter without having to go through LaTeX. <A> I say this as something who doesn't normally use the product, but Adobe InDesign allows for an easy export into PDF and epub. <S> I don't know about formatting code blocks though. <S> Adobe ID has a monthly subscription, so even though it's a premium product, in many cases you're only using it for one or two months. <S> You might be able to buy some low cost Adobe ID templates, so you don't have to set everything up. <S> I use a Docbook solution (with Docbook XSLT, using the Oxygen XML editor software). <S> This produces output very easily in html, epub and pdf, although the learning curve is high. <S> (Also, Oxygen XML license is pricey for commercial use). <S> Docbook can do code blocks very easily; on the other hand, when producing pdfs, you have limited formatting options. <S> Oxygen uses the open source Apache FOP (which lets you output from Docbook XML to PDF), but there are commercial options (in the 200-500 range) which let you produce nice looking PDF files. <S> (Check out renderx and antenna house). <S> Docbook can do output for webhelp, javahelp, htmlhelp as well. <S> Docbook works well, but the toolchain is hard to set up. <S> A "dumb but effective" solution might be to code your output in HTML, paste it into MS word (to produce a PDF), and then to use SIGIL to move the html files into epub. <S> Or use the MS word file as the source for doing output using Calibre. <S> There are pros and cons for each solution. <A> Some time ago I created a GitHub repository of eBook Writing Resources. <S> Specifically, this is the current list (as of the time of writing this answer - visit the link above for an up-to-date list as well as to get visual indications on whether they cost money, work offline or on the cloud etc.) of eBook writing software. <S> Writing Tools <S> GitBook <S> Penflip Scrivener yWriter <S> BookWriter <S> WriteItNow
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Specifically, GitBook and Scrivener do let you write code properly as well as export to PDF and EPUB. Pandoc is cross-platform and free under the GPL, although donations are appreciated. I haven't used pandoc, but it sounds like a good solution if you have lots of legacy latex content.
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Is there a eReader app for Android, Windows and Linux? Is there an eReader application that runs under Windows, Android and Linux flavors? Someone just gave me a tablet but I also use MS Windows and Linux Mint. I could wade into searching online but I presume most work under only one OS. <Q> FBReader and Cool Reader support all the operating systems that you have listed, but I don't personally use them, so I can't give you more insights. <S> You can try them and see if they fit your needs. <A> The e-reader that comes with Calibre works on Linux and Windows. <S> There is companion application that work with the database from a tablet, but doesn't have the reader, it launches any other one found on the device. <A> This probably is not the answer you are looking for, but I highly recommend using Google Play Books for cross-platform reading. <S> It renders things so well that it's my default choice for everything. <S> I'm not criticizing FBReader or other readers which are cross platform, but many of these apps just don't render ebooks well. <S> I have basically given up trying to format for them because they override so many publisher defaults. <S> (Curiously Adobe DE has a mobile android version which works pretty well though has minimal features). <S> There's a Readium plugin in Chrome that lets you view epub files offline in any Chrome browser. <S> Calibre is cross-platform too, though the reader is not particularly reader-friendly; it was built mainly to let you see the result of converted ebooks. <A> For windows/linux platforms you can use calibre For Android, the best app I've found so far <S> is eReader Prestigio <S> Chrome users can use Readium extension
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About the only epub reading app that doesn't override defaults is Adobe Digital Editions, but there's no Linux edition version -- though I suppose you could use WINE or something like that.
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Converting pdf with table of content to Kindle format To convert the pdf using Calbre I use : Click 'Add Books' and add pdfs to librarySave To Disk -> Save Only MOBI format to disk-Once saved the folder location of converted file should open.Send converted file to kindle via email When I convert the pdf file using Calibre this an .opf is generated, what is use of this file ? The file I'm trying to convert is http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/2.4.2/AkkaScala.pdf and does contain a table of contents that are navigable. I've also tried converting using : http://ebook.online-convert.com/convert-to-mobi But in both cases the table of contents navigate is not functional, clicking an item in TOC redirects to beginning of TOC. How to convert pdf file to kindle format and maintain shortcut links to each of the file sections ? <Q> A few quick thoughts. <S> First, if you are using a Kindle Fire tablet, there is no need to do a conversion. <S> just download a PDF Reader app from the app store and read the file that way. <S> (It's free and a cool feature in your kindle account): <S> https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_pdoc_main_short_us?nodeId=200767340 <S> I haven't really looked at PDF conversions from the PDS; I'm guessing it will look really ugly. <S> But I suspect the Kindle conversions to PDF are better than calibre's (although calibre might let you fine tune it). <S> Using Kindle eink to read PDFs is usually a disappointing experience unless the document is short and very simple. <S> I glanced at the document. <S> (I have made similar kinds of documents using Docbook XML). <S> This document was optimized for PDF; you will lose a lot of formatting by trying to convert it -- though ironically it's pretty easy to convert it from Docbook XML to epub files. <S> To answer your question, the .opf is a file that stores epub metadata; apparently calibre needs to convert the PDF first to epub, and then reconvert it to the kindle .mobi format. <S> That's why the end result is so horrifying. <S> Also: If you have access to an android tablet, you could upload the file to Google Play Books website and then read the PDF perfectly in the Google Play Books app on your device. <A> To answer your first question. <S> The .opf file holds the metadata that Calibre extracts from the (PDF) file when adding it to Calibre, as well as that metadata that you decide to edit on (author, title, series, etc). <S> For some formats like ePub this metadata is almost taken verbatim and inserted in one of the files that are zipped into the ePub container. <S> For other files like PDF this cannot all be stored in the original file and hence has to be stored separately. <A> Try this approach: <S> Convert the PDF to Latex <S> Modify the code (if necessary). <S> Change the paper size (probably A5) in the code and export it to Kindle or PDF format.
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If you are using an eink Kindle, I would suggest sending the PDF to the Kindle Personal Document Service which will do the conversion for you.
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Kindle app takes up entire screen on windows 10 and I don't know how to get out of it I just downloaded the Kindle app for my Windows 10 PC. When I open a book, the app takes up the entire screen. I can't see any of my other apps, and I can't figure out how to close Kindle or switch to another app. If I hit ESC, it does nothing. The only way I can get out of the book is to hit the Windows key on my keyboard, but this doesn't seem like a useful solution. <Q> For my installation of Win10 I can still use alt tab or the like if I'm using a full screen application. <S> Maybe that would work for you, did you get the application from the website or from the store? <S> Sometimes they differ. <A> This drove me nuts, too. <S> Alt-tab will allow you to move away from the the Kindle screen, but it doesn't close it. <S> If Kindle offers a direct keystroke to close the program, they're keeping it a secret. <S> But here's how you can force close it <S> : move your cursor over the "K" (for Kindle) in your Windows Task Bar. <S> Right click and select "Close window". <S> Adios Kindle. <A> On my Win10 machine I just downloaded the kindle version amazon made for windows 7 because of all the issues I had with the version from the store. <S> You could try using that in the future. https://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/pc/download <A> The Kindle app must think it's on a tablet, or it's a "tablet only" app for Win 10, so it will have no visible title bar or close/minimize/maximize buttons. <S> There are 2 ways. <S> Using your finger (if a touchscreen) or mouse, "grab" the top of the Kindle app window where the title bar would normally be, and drag the window down. <S> The app will disappear and this will close the app. or hit the Escape key. <S> This should also exit the app. <S> In both cases you will likely return to your (what I call) <S> "tablet desktop", which is different from the normal Windows desktop that has been in use for 20+ years. <S> The "tablet desktop" has link to many apps, but in the bottom left (on my PC anyway <S> ) it has a link to a normal desktop you are used to. <A> Swipe from the right. <S> Click 'Settings', 'Control Panel'. <S> The ctrl panel should pop up as should a bar along the bottom.
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Look for the Kindle app on the bar and close it like you would normally close a program by R clicking/holding it down.
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List of places to publish free ebook in PDF format I wrote a mathematics textbook (high-school level), in PDF format. It is free and I just want it to be as widely-distributed as possible. Converting it to any other format makes it awful. (It's merely awful when converted to .docx, but completely unusable when in .epub format.) Many websites (e.g. Smashwords) don't accept PDF though. So I'm wondering if someone could give me a list of sites where I can publish my PDF ebook. <Q> If your original manuscript was written in latex you could also convert that to an epub, although that it can involve a little work. <A> Unglue.it is specially for free ebooks . <S> And then there is the self-publishing platform of Gutenberg Project . <A> To add: Internet Archive . <S> Library Genesis . <S> Both of the above are easy to use, support many formats, but require that your ebook be free. <S> Also, Library Genesis is not quite 100% legitimate. <S> Lulu allows PDF uploads. <S> Lulu is buggy and difficult to use. <S> But your ebook doesn't need to be free. <S> Also, it is the only close competitor to Smashwords (for US ebook publishers). <S> They state: <S> PDFs sell wonderfully on the Lulu Marketplace! <S> But if you upload a PDF, it cannot be distributed to popular eBook channels such as Amazon Kindle, Apple iBookstore℠, Barnes & Noble NOOK <S> ™ bookstore, Kobo, and others. <S> If you'd like to distribute to these channels, Make an EPUB . <S> We'll help you throughout this process, we promise.
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Scribd ( https://www.scribd.com/ 1 ) will let you publish a pdf for free.
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Can one use two Amazon accounts on one Kindle? For historical reasons I happen to have two accounts on Amazon,and I would prefer to keep both, as they are in different countries. I have ebooks in both accounts. Can I access both accounts with thesame kindle or kindle app and download the books from both? How can I do it? <Q> I asked the same question to an Amazon customer service. <S> The answer I got was NO. <S> I did recommended them to design a way to allow users to link their multiple accounts in whatever countries. <S> What I'm doing now is using an Android simulator on my desktop computer, where I can run a separate Kindle app and use a different Kindle account. <S> The Android simulator I'm using is bluestack, and TBH <S> it's not a bad experience. <S> But I'm still struggling to find a way doing so on my iPhone and iPad... <S> Hope someone else can update the answer. <A> My answer shouldn't be treated as definitive, but I did google around a bit. <S> One youtuber claims that he can access books from two accounts by logging off the device with his original account, logging on with the second account, downloading the ebooks locally, logging off again and then relogging with the original account. <S> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqSgRmTxwyM Youtube commenters are skeptical -- and so am I. <S> You can try, but you might screw up one or both accounts in the process. <S> https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201733400 <S> In my opinion (I'm speculating here) <S> I don't think it's feasible though on either android or ios or native kindles. <S> Perhaps if you could find the unencrypted versions of the files you could transfer them to a second app capable of reading .mobi files. <S> (I know you asked a question about that a little while ago). <S> Perhaps you can use an app like fbreader to read unencrypted .mobi files . <S> https://fbreader.org/content/book-formats-supported-and-not-supported <S> It seems easier just to have two separate devices with different accounts registered on each one. <S> Here's a wild idea -- <S> why not write the Amazon people and ask them if they might consider transferring ownership of the files from one account to the other -- especially if you can demonstrate that you own both of them. <S> I'm guessing that you aren't the ONLY Amazon.com customer who has moved to a different country. <S> After all, you clearly have bought the ebooks in question. <S> (Don't keep your hopes up! <A> Not sure if you are still looking for a solution, but I was in the same situation. <S> I had an Amazon US account and an Amazon IN account. <S> Both of these has a few eBooks. <S> I installed the Kindle for Android app on my phone with one account. <S> And then installed the Parallel Space app via the playstore https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lbe.parallel.intl . <S> Then selected the Kindle App to run another instance in the Parallel Space environment with the other account. <S> Hope this helps! <A> Amazon let me do this by setting up a “family”, but my other account is my business.
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one solution might involve having two separate instances of an app running on a device -- one with each account. Amazon has a method to link ebooks within different accounts within a family -- but there are strict rules about eligibility, plus I highly doubt it would apply to accounts for amazons from different countries.
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Can you suggest an advanced ereader application for textbooks? I need an ereader application that can be effectively used with textbooks; it should support features like note taking, searching, highlighting, and organizing books of any format (EPUB, PDF). What are my alternatives? <Q> Assuming you are interested in Android apps (you don't specify your OS), I can suggest you Moon+ Reader and Aldiko Reader . <S> Both of these apps have the features you need. <A> Google Play Books (GPB) app can do that and very well. <S> It also stores books in the cloud. <S> But so can iBooks. <S> And the Bluefire app. <S> And Adobe Digital Editions app for android can do that as well. <S> (For .mobi files, the kindle app lets you perform the function). <S> Most ebook reading system can perform the basic functions you mentioned. <S> The big caveat is IF the EPUB or PDF is DRM free. <S> Still, you can buy the textbook directly from the Apple or Google store and view the book with all these features. <S> Two additional points: <S> Many textbook manufacturers don't release or sell DRM-free versions which you can upload directly into the app. <S> Some textbooks use multimedia which is not fully supported in some of the epub readers listed above. <S> For this reason, sometimes textbooks are sold as "apps" instead of as ebooks which are viewable in a mobile app. <S> If that is the case, you don't need to use an epub reader. <A> For android there is always Google playbook by default
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but if you want an alternative you can use “Gitden Reader: EPUB3 & EPUB2” the only Android reader which supports ePub 3 to full.
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Bulk conversion of PDF books to DJVU/MOBI/EPUB I have an extensive library of heavily formatted PDFs which I'd like to convert. I've tried Calibre on Windows and GNU/Linux, but it throws a few errors and bails. Can someone recommend software for Win/Linux that yields good conversions in batch mode? I have over 10,000 volumes, so converting each by hand is impossible. Thanks :) <Q> I'm not sure why you wouldn't want to stick with PDF <S> but I recently just converted over 1T of EPUBS & MOBIs to PDF as I use Adobe Acrobat X Pro on a daily basis both personally, academically and professionally. <S> It will convert your files to EPUBS or whatever files you want. <S> It is also capable of 100 files per batch and converts quite rapidly, especially when compared to Calibre which I had initially tried and found I could single convert quicker using Online-Convert (which is my go-to single converter for both work and pleasure). <S> I was able to complete all of the conversions before the trial ran out. <S> As for DJVU, I found Online-Convert to do the best work and I use a 2cm border when I convert anything to PDF. <A> I'm going to push back on your question a bit -- why would you want to convert from PDF to epub? <S> Both are rendered formats, and their rendering is specific to the tool used to render them. <S> PDF's by their very nature are made in order to be printed according to a specific dimension. <S> I'm guessing that you want to do backend processing for a website or business that has legacy PDFs. <S> Perhaps you want to redistribute the files to a more mobile-friendly format? <S> Now that tablets of 9 inch and higher are popular, it is fairly easy to use a PDF viewer app to read almost any pdf tolerably well. <S> Why not just treat PDF as an end format for viewing -- and not worry about imperfect conversions? <S> A person with an android could potentially upload all these pdfs to Google Play Books and have a high quality way to read all the pdfs. <S> I am guessing that you have already googled for batch conversion from pdf to epub . <S> (see also this: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-free-PDF-to-EPUB-converter ) (Flawed) <S> Solutions certainly exist, but I am having trouble understanding the business need. <A> Since you've mentioned that you have an e-reader, you could install KOReader , which has a dynamic PDF page reflow feature, on Kobo, Pocketbook and Kindle e-readers or reformat all pdf files for 6" screens with Willus.com's K2pdfopt . <S> (The PDF reflow feature of KOReader is based on K2pdfopt.)
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AniceSoft worked beautifully keeping everything as they should be and as it allowed me to set the margin size output for the final PDF.
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Are book trailers necessary? I am about to start finalizing my first book, and I was wondering if I should make a book trailer to help promote it. I'm not really into the whole production, but I just saw this video and realized, "... this is something I can do." I have literally a ton of memory cards filled with home video related to my book subject. My questions are: Is it a good idea, in the sense: will this typically help sales? or is this enough to establish branding for my book? If so, what is the best platform to showcase such a video? <Q> On the other hand, Amazon and Smashwords allow book trailers (with Amazon, you have to create an account on Author Central). <S> So it gives potential readers a different kind of medium which can justify the purchase decision. <S> I have created one book trailer and am working on another. <S> I have also studied other book trailers and have reached the conclusion that lowtech works best. <S> Many of the book trailers seem way too polished and marketing-ish to convince me of anything. <S> On the other hand, I have seen some book trailers in sci fi genre which definitely made the book more appealing to me. <S> But sci fi is a special category, and the graphics/presentation for these book trailers were top-notch -- and expensive if you had to pay someone to do it. <S> In my opinion, book trailers are fairly good at building an author brand. <S> You could just have a 2-3 minute video of the author speaking about why he/she wrote the book. <S> If the book is nonfiction, the author could talk about what led him or her to write the book (that is always interesting). <S> Keep in mind that viewers tend to judge authors by appearances or manner of talk or dress. <S> Some degree of mystery can be good for an author. <S> Update: I just checked the youtube page for my 1st book trailer, and I see that in 2 years the video received 164 views. <S> That's not a lot of payoff; on the other hand, a lot of self-help, business gurus do youtube videos to accompany their book and get a good number of hits -- especially if they are peddling practical knowledge. <A> I admit I am not into videos at all (ok, I made a video interview for the first book I wrote, but it was more fun than other), but I believe that having a chapter freely available should be a better publicity for the book. <S> Of course, your mileage may vary: if you are good and brilliant in producing videos, and you like it, probably it will help sales. <A> If you plan on advertising or promoting your book on Facebook and some other platforms, you will usually get a bigger reach with video than with an ad featuring a still photo, <S> so that's one reason in favor. <A> Hi LaserYeti and welcome to the forum! <S> I personally don't agree with the usage of video for advertising a book. <S> I think it is more logical to use the same type of media to advertise your product: Movies advertise with trailers and book advertise with written text like samples. <S> For example making a website that promotes your work is not a bad idea! <S> Also, depends on the category of your book, you may find some websites that help you promote your work. <S> Maybe it is unrelated to your question: to have more view and hopefully more sell for your book <S> , I suggest you attract viewers using Most Popular Keywords (i.e., grasp search results in amazon and google...). <A> Neccessary? <S> Probably not. <S> Nice to have? <S> Maybe. <S> It's more how you plan your overall marketing strategy for promoting your book. <S> A 30-second announcement trailer on Facebook Video and YouTube will do nothing to harm your book launch by any means. <S> This got me thinking about another idea for using video to promote a book launch -- what about a webinar with a live-reading and a Q&A? <S> Be an interesting way to engage with your audience and potentially sell a couple of books along the way (you can drive traffic to your webinar signup page with targeted Facebook ads). <S> Just an idea.
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By itself I don't think book trailers accomplish very much; they have to be coordinated with other publicity/marketing methods.
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Can I use bold and italics tags? I'm new to epubs; I'm wading through the InDesign tutorials and will then have to learn how to work with iBooks Author (and perhaps Sigil as well). Anyway, I ran into an unexpected snag in InDesign: It doesn't like bold and italics tags. As I understand it, they prefer to replace these tags with classes that select a particular font (e.g. Arial Bold or Arial Italic). Given that 1) ebooks are based on html, and 2) there must be 10 million websites that use bold and italics tags, this seems like a really stupid move to me. So here's my question: What would happen if I snubbed the new rules and published an epub with bold and italics tags? Would it create some technical problems that would come back to haunt me? Will Amazon or other publishers reject epubs that have traditional bold/italic tags? On a related note, I wonder if there's a way to instruct an epub to disallow fonts that don't "recognize" bold/italics tags. Fonts like Arial and Times New Roman would be allowed, while really funky fonts would be essentially banned (except perhaps in headings or art work). <Q> I have never used Adobe Indesign, but I'm guessing that when they spit out html they use the italic and bold html tags. <S> My guess is that in Adobe Indesign you are not seeing a separate font at all but a compound statement about font-style and font-family. <S> You can easily test this by outputting it epub/html and viewing the source. <A> I'm testing this with Calibre editor, I don't know if InDesign works the same, but html tags are the same regardless of the software. <S> I can render a bold italic text in two ways, with <b <S> > <S> and <i <S> > <S> tags, or with <strong> and <em> tags. <S> Example: <S> <b><i <S> > <S> This is a bold and italic text</i></b <S> > <S> gives me <S> This is a bold and italic text <strong><em <S> > <S> This is a strong and emphasized text</em></strong <S> > <S> gives me <S> This is a strong and emphasized text <S> I tested it with Calibre reader and on a Kobo Glo and it works. <S> I don't understand what you mean by saying <S> Anyway, I ran into an unexpected snag in InDesign: It doesn't like bold and italics tags. <S> As I understand it, they prefer to replace these tags with classes that select a particular font (e.g. Arial Bold or Arial Italic). <S> but if you manually insert the tags, there should be a way to tell the program to leave the code that way instead of modifying it with CSS classes. <A> Old question, but I came in search of an answer and have some things to share on this topic! <S> Adobe InDesign uses character or paragraph styles to format italics and bold, using a relevant font family, this is correct. <S> There used to be a way to visually "force" a style, but I'm using Creative Cloud and have the most recent InDesign, which doesn't show these options anymore. <S> What would happen if I snubbed the new rules and published an epub with bold and italics tags? <S> Would it create some technical problems that would come back to haunt me? <S> Will Amazon or other publishers reject epubs that have traditional bold/italic tags? <S> It wouldn't be a "bad" thing to use HTML tags to indicate bold and italic. <S> Ebooks can be formatted using HTML, and these tags are widely supported, even in books that are done in HTML and then converted to the relevant file formats. <S> The text styling is transferred. <S> I wonder if there's a way to instruct an epub to disallow fonts that don't "recognize" bold/italics tags. <S> Fonts like Arial and Times New <S> Roman would be allowed, while really funky fonts would be essentially banned (except perhaps in headings or art work). <S> A publisher can define a font face for an ebook, which the user may decide to use. <S> But the joy of e-readers is that the user can change it to suit their reading preferences, such as size and font face. <S> There is really not much point in defining what font faces are "permitted" in an epub, because the epub is not the file in control of the fonts on the device. <S> Perhaps the rules have changed again, but Amazon KDP supports <b <S> > <S> and <i> <S> ( and many more HTML tags ). <S> Finally, I wouldn't advise creating an ebook in InDesign. <S> Ebooks are supposed to be "reflowable" and InDesign will place line breaks into text in order to fit it in the relevant frames. <S> Since ebooks are supposed to work with any width of the body of the text, this is counter to InDesign's functions in size-dependent layout design. <S> Calibre is useful for converting, but Microsoft Word and simple HTML are also options for creating an EPUB.
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The font families that are used on e-readers generally include the capability to have bold, italic, and underline styles put on them.
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How can I create an ebook from existing HTML files? I will be writing software that allows me to select stretching exercises, put them in order, and then create an ebook, one per page, and then use it on my kindle. I was hoping that my software could produce the final ebook, e.g., mobi, but that seems unlikely (I can't find the spec for the file format). So my next idea is to produce a set of HTML files, a table of contents file, and manually use Calibre to convert it to mobi/azw and upload it to my kindle. I did the HTML part once years ago by creating the HTML files by hand so it should work. But I was wondering if there is a better way? <Q> You could also use Pandoc in conjunction with the kindlegen command-line tool. <S> Converting your HTML files to Markdown files is not necessary but if done will allow (easier) conversion to other formats should the need arise later on. <S> The table of contents can be automatically generated using Pandoc. <S> Pandoc can export to the epub format which in turn can be converted to mobi using the kindlegen tool. <S> It's possible to write a bash script to automate the process. <S> Sample command using Pandoc to export to epub : pandoc -o <S> myBook.epub myBook.md --toc \--epub-cover-image <S> = <S> cover.jpg \--epub-stylesheet= <S> myStylesheet.css <S> \--number-sections <A> There are many ways to skin a cat. <S> Calibre is one such way, but not the only way. <S> is there any software available to directly write in mobi format? <S> Some things to thing about: <S> Would it not be easier to produce an epub file and convert it to mobi using Kindle Previewer? <S> Sigil is other software for creating epub -- which might let you export to mobi or export to mobi and then use Kindle Previewer to export to mobi. <S> You can import html files or create html files in sigil itself. <S> If you are using a lot of images, it might be easier to use Adobe Indesign and export to epub. <A> If you are already accustomed to Calibre, you could give a try to its full fledged ebook editor , that handles both epub and azw formats. <S> Having the source HTML files, it should be an easy task to import them in the editor and create the ebook, complete with a proper table of contents. <S> Some other related questions: How to build an epub starting from a bunch of HTML files? <S> Are there any WYSIWYG editors for EPUB books? <A> The Scriba software is an option, I think. <S> http://scriba.software.informer.com/3.5/ <A> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/epub-read-the-web-offline/ <S> From the Firefox's extensions web page: <S> EpubPress bundles webpages into an offline book that you can read on any of your devices. <S> Benefits: -Downloads <S> webpages for offline reading. <S> -Removes ads and banners from webpages for a cleaner reading experience. <S> -Compatible with all your mobile devices (Kindles, Nooks, iPhone, iPad, Android, etc.). <S> -Email delivery, allowing you to push content directly to your device. <S> All the amazing content of the internet, available on devices that were made for reading! <S> How to use: <S> 1.Open all your articles in separate tabs. <S> 2.Order them the way you want them to appear in the book. <S> 3.Click 'EpubPress' in your menu bar. <S> 4.Select your articles. <S> 5.Download and enjoy!
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There is a new Firefox extension that does exactly that: create custom ebooks from favorite blogs and websites.
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Need suggestion on selecting the font type for self-publishing book I just want to know what sort of fonts are appealing to the users, in book format and also in e-book format? I did the normal internet search and found lots of information, still most of them are talking about, Serif Sans. I'm using open serif, still need some suggestion on selecting the font to first self-publishing book. I knew being elegant is also bit perspective think, changes from the person. I want to use the font which is widely used in the professional poetry book. One font for book ebook and paper book. <Q> Recommending a specific font without actually seeing where it's going to be used is a lot like suggesting a wardrobe without knowing the person who will wear it. <S> The purpose of a font is to make text readable. <S> This is particularly true when there's a lot of text for the reader to process. <S> Setting the text of a book in a fonts with potential for slowing down reading speed is going to hamper readability. <S> (Also, support for custom fonts varies between e-book platforms. <S> Different ebook standards handle fonts differently, and what's supported in different platforms can change. <S> If custom fonts are important to your book, PDFs and printed books can handle any font you like.) <S> What do users find appealing? <S> That's extremely subjective. <S> Different designers, who have been trained in font use, will disagree on this. <S> In general, a font will set the mood of a page. <S> Looking into past use of a type of font will help you predict what kind of feel a font will create in users. <S> What kinds of fonts do other books like yours use? <S> Knowing that will help you, whether you want to blend in and let the words do the talking, or stand out from your peers with a page that has a different feel. <S> Readability is a large area to explore. <S> There are many studies and articles on which fonts are most readable, but the conventional wisdom (which has often been questioned) is that serif fonts are best for body type. <S> Sans-serif fonts are often used to set off headlines and titles. <S> Using no more than two fonts on a page is a good rule of thumb; without real knowledge of how fonts work together, using more than that looks chaotic and amateurish. <A> I would suggest looking at top selling books in your genre and ones geared toward your audience (in both ebook and paperback) to see what the majority of fonts on there seem to be. <S> If it is a historical fiction set in the 1800s, a script font or flowing font might be more fitting than a harsher angular font <S> If the font would be clear and legible in a thumbnail picture used to promote your ebook on the internet. <S> Like amazon store, youtube picture inserts for reviews or blog posts when marketing the book. <A> There are two competing visions in the ebook world: the embedded font vision (pushed by Adobe) where ebooks creators are expected to choose interesting fonts and embed them (generally by using Adobe InDesign). <S> The other vision is using the system fonts provided by the reading system/device and letting the readers decide. <S> Technically <S> the early devices and reading systems have not supported embedded fonts uniformly. <S> (It differs according to the font and the actual device). <S> Support has improved over the years, but it still requires lots of testing. <S> Fortunately reading systems have increased the number of fonts already available. <S> Fonts on apple iBooks are pretty great, and Amazon included a great font <S> Bookerly on their Kindle devices a few years ago <S> (which was a pretty big deal). <S> I guess with poetry it makes sense to choose custom fonts, but be prepared for the possibility that some reading systems won't display them or the reader may simply turn the publisher defaults off. <S> I've encountered a lot of problems on the lesser known ebook readers on android. <S> I might change my way of doing this soon if rendering of embedded fonts is more reliable, but my rule of thumb has been NOT to specify a body and p font and then specifying a headline font found on the reading system in css and embedding font in special cases. <S> Also, I sometimes use a different font for title page stuff. <S> Here's some good reference info: <S> http://rogerpacker.com/how-to-choose-typography-for-ebooks/ <S> https://bisg.site-ym.com/store/ViewProduct.aspx?id=6974109 About Georgia, of course it's a great font, but did you realize that Google Play Books doesn't include it as a system font -- which is really bonkers. <S> Finally, I wish there was a font foundry which in addition to selling licenses for ebook production could guarantee correct rendering on the major ebook reading systems. <A> I like " Georgia " and use it in my novel, but I'm pretty sure that's simply a personal preference, where I feel that the style of the font matches the feel i connect to the story. <S> I do not use "Georgia" in general and have no idea how other people feel about it <S> (notice the use of 'feel'), but to me it makes sense. <A> There is Georgia — which is just gorgeous, and I prefer it — but it may not work for all scenarios. <S> When you want to choose a font, you should consider the content the font represents. <S> If my collection contains more serious works, I tend towards san-serif. <S> If I am experimenting, cartoony fonts and cursives can come to play. <S> The font you use should be able to tell the feel of your work without the reader reading through.
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Other things to keep in mind would be: if the font fits in with the feeling and setting of your book.
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What are serif and sans serif fonts on different ebook reading systems? In epub and kindle css, you can specify a fallback font by specifying p {font-family: "Georgia", serif} h1 {font-family: "Helvetica", sans-serif} If various reading systems have defaults for serif and sans-serif, can you tell me what they are? I.E. Kindle e-ink, Kindle android app, Google Play Books, ibooks, Kobo, Adobe DE. On a related question, can I assume that all titles are in the default sans-serif font? When a customer overrides publisher defaults and chooses a certain font (like Bookerly on kindle), does that leave the title fonts still in the default sans-serif? UPDATE: Someone on KDP forum has confirmed that user-selected fonts for kindle systems are the same for body fonts and heading font. Therefore, you would need to specify a heading font if you want it to be different. UPDATE 2 I encourage people to post fonts existing on the mobile devices or reading systems that they have. Please indicate whether there is an option to specify Publisher Defaults on the reading system. Also, if you have any insight as to which font would be considered the default Serif or Sans Serif choice by the reading system, please mention it. Thanks! UPDATE 3 (5/2017) A commenter has pointed out that some Amazon Kindle devices are using fonts for Indic languages written in Bengali/Devanagari/Gujarati/Kannada/Malayalam/Tamil/Telugu. On the device this font is referred to as "Noto Sans." Noto is a multilingual font developed and supported by Google, but Amazon has only used portions of this Noto font for Indian languages. I have seen no official announcement yet. <Q> Kobo ereader devices <S> My 1 st gen Kobo Glo has the following fonts pre-installed (I suppose other Kobo devices use the same set; it is possible for the user to add more <S> but I think this is beyond the scope of your question): <S> Serif: (1) Amasis Caecilia Georgia <S> (Default Serif font; also default font if nothing is specified in the ebook) <S> Kobo Nickel <S> Malabar <S> Sans Serif: <S> Avenir <S> Next <S> (Default Sans Serif font) <S> Gill Sans <S> Other: <S> KBJ-TsukuMin Pr6N <S> RB <S> (Serif) <S> (2) <S> KBJ-UDKakugo <S> Pr6N M <S> (Sans Serif) <S> (2) <S> OpenDyslexic <S> Of course, these customizations are optional, and it is possible to default fonts as defined inside the ebook. <S> About titles, if there are not specific settings inside the ebook stylesheets, they are treated like other text: besides having a larger size, if not explicitly set to something else, the default Georgia is used. <S> Kobo app for Android <S> Compared to the ereaders, the app is more limited in the customization options: <S> Default settings Droid Serif Droid Sans 1. <S> Including slab serif 2. <S> I'm not really sure <S> but I think that these are used for Chinese/Japanese languages compatibility. <A> Here -- as best as I can tell -- are the system fonts for selected Android reading systems: Kindle for Android: Bookerly Caecilia Georgia <S> Palatino <S> Baskerville <S> Helvetica <S> (sans-serif) Lucida Droid Serif Open Dyslexic <S> Note: <S> Kindle/Android does NOT have an option for the user to select Publisher Defaults. <S> Google Play Books: Original (?? <S> -- does this mean Publisher Default?) <S> Sans (unclear?) <S> Literata -- this is supposed to be the default font on GPB Merriweather Goudy Vollkorn <S> Note: <S> GPB <S> does NOT have an option for the user to select Publisher Defaults (unless it is "Original") <S> Adobe DE for Android <S> No fonts available to select Overdrive for Android 3.6.2 (Overdrive is a library reading app which uses a branded version of Adobe DE reader and its DRM). <S> No information is given about which fonts are the reading system's default for the general terms ("Serif, "Sans-Serif", etc). <S> Book Default <S> Sans Serif Serif <S> Monospace Sans serif Bold Serif <S> Bold <S> Monospace Bold <S> OpenDyslexic <S> OpenDyslexic Bold <A> Important Note : <S> Kindle devices (and possibly apps on ios/android/windows) targeted for non-English speaking countries might have a different set of default fonts. <S> I've seen reports starting in 2016 ( here and here ) that (unspecified) versions of Kindles devices for India include Noto Sans (the portion which support the Indian languages). <S> According to reader reports , this started happening with reading devices which were able to receive the 5.8.7 firmware (or higher). <S> That meant Kindle Paperwhites (generation 6 and later). <S> If you know of other non-European fonts which are included by default on your device or app, feel free to mention in the comments) <S> Kindle 4 (aka Kindle Touch) <S> Caecilia Caecilia Condensed Helvetica -- <S> Sans Serif Publisher <S> Font Kindle Fire (version unspecified) Arial - sans serif Baskerville Caecilia <S> Courier <S> Georgia <S> Helvetica - Sans Serif <S> Lucida Sans <S> Unicode <S> - Sans Serif <S> Palatino Times New Roman <S> Trebuchet <S> Verdana <S> - Sans Serif <S> Bookerly (unsure about which KF versions it appears on?) <S> (This info comes from a great Roger Packer article, How to Choose typography for ebooks ). <S> PS, would be nice to know which of these would be the system defaults for serif and sans). <S> Fire HD 8 <S> Bookerly Caecilia Georgia Palatino <S> Baskerville <S> Helvetica (Sans Serif) <S> Helvetica Light (Sans Serif) <S> Lucida <S> (Info Source: <S> This video review of Fire HD 2016 ). <S> Kindle Paperwhite Caecilia Caecilia Condensed Baskerville <S> Palatino <S> Bookerly (only for 3rd generation and after) Publisher Font <S> (This info comes from this article about 1st gen Paperwhite and this article about Bookerly ). <S> Several sources report that Kindle Paperwhite (6th generation and later) include Korean : HY Gothic & HY Myeong, <S> Chinese : <S> M Ying Hei & ST Heiti & ST Song, <S> Indic : <S> Noto Sans Bengali/Devanagari/Gujarati/Kannada/Malayalam/Tamil/Telugu. <S> (It is unclear to me whether these fonts are installed on all these reading systems or whether they are installed only AFTER the Kindle owner loads an ebook in one of these languages). <S> Kindle Basic 7 <S> (7th generation, 2014) <S> Baskerville <S> Bookerly Caecilia Caecilia Condensed Baskerville <S> Futura Helvetica (Sans Serif) Palatino Open Dyslexic <S> Kindle Basic 8 <S> (8th generation, 2016) <S> Amazon Ember (Sans Serif, see this comparison video ) <S> Baskerville <S> Bookerly Caecilia Caecilia Condensed Baskerville <S> Futura Helvetica (Sans Serif) Palatino <S> Open Dyslexic Kindle Oasis <S> Amazon Ember <S> (Sans Serif, see this comparison video ) <S> Amazon Ember <S> Bold <S> Baskerville <S> Bookerly <S> Open Dyslexic Palatino <S> Publisher Font <A> iBooks (v. 4.10) Athelas Charter <S> Georgia <S> Iowan <S> Palatino <S> San Francisco <S> Seravek -- Sans Serif Times New Roman <S> Related: <S> here's a deep dive into the system <S> iBooks fonts (written in 2011, but still relevant). <S> Here's another "review" of iBooks fonts (also from 2011). <S> Please note that as of 6/2017, you cannot embed fonts or have extra fonts show up as options in iBooks unless the publisher makes small modifications to the package.opf file . <S> If that is done, the embedded font(s) show up as "Original" on the Font settings. <S> Kindle for IOS (ipad 1 through iphone 6s) <S> Bookerly Caecilia Georgia Palatino <S> Baskerville <S> Helvetica <S> (sans-serif) Lucida Droid Serif Open Dyslexic Publisher <S> Font iBooks 3.1.3 <S> ipad 1 <S> /ios 5.1.1/ Athelas Charter Georgia Iowan Palatino <S> San Francisco <S> Seravek -- Sans Serif Times New Roman <S> RELATED : <S> Iosfonts.com shows system fonts for all Apple system devices (although not necessarily iBooks). <A> Overdrive Libby on Android <S> Instead of offering fonts to choose from, Libby offer these book design variants: Publisher's Default Legible Scholar <S> Paperback <S> OpenDyslexic <S> Custom <S> If the user chooses "Custom," the following options will appear: -- (default) <S> Serif <S> Sans Serif <S> (Presumably, the first option includes body font in the SW's default serif and heading fonts in the SW's default sans serif).
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Futura Helvetica (Sans Serif)
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How to rename epubs when the file name is a numeric string? I have a number of EPUB titles that need renaming, from the likes of "1631214659.epub" to "Moon's Napa and Sonoma" and so on. They load into Calibre under their actual titles, but I still need to rename the source file appropriately for archiving. I've tried copying each file's string of identifier numbers into Google after the search term EPUB, and that usually works, but then I have to copy the resulting title text string and paste it into the file name each time. I'm wondering if there's an app that "reads" the file and can display or even change the book title on the fly. I know nothing about ebook conversion beyond what Calibre affords, so if the info is viewable that way, I've missed it. <Q> I wrote a small python script to do that. <S> pip install epub <S> Install the epub library and run the below script with a sibling directory containing all your epub files to be renamed. <S> import osimport globimport epubdirName = "books" #the folder containing your epub files, should be in the #directory which contains the script. <S> for File in glob.glob(dirName <S> + "\\*.epub") <S> : with epub.open_epub(File) as book: title = book.opf.metadata.titles[0][0] os.rename(File, <S> dirName + "\\" <S> + title + ".epub") <S> Note : The title should not be too long (not exceeding your os' filename limit). <A> The question is not too clear. <S> Is it the case that you simply want torename the file containing the epub book, so that the name of the fileis then the title of the book with the suffix .epub ? <S> That can bedone very simply, using a command that extracts the book title fromthe file (see Command line extraction of metadata (title. <S> author) from epub file ), andmake it the new file name. <S> The exact command depends on your operatingsystem (I run Linux). <S> Supposing your file is called 12345.epub, inLinux shell (command line) you would write: mv <S> 12345.epub " <S> `exiftool -T -Title <S> 12345.epub`".epub <S> Of course this can be iterated over a list of files, or all the files in a directory. <S> I did some tests that worked. <S> exiftool is a very general command to extract metadata from files. <S> It is written in Perl (my quick guess) and I expect it to be available in all environments. <A> For Windows cmd.exe: <S> ren <S> 12345.epub <S> mybookname.epub <S> For linux based OS: <S> mv <S> 12345.epub <S> mybookname.epub <S> For Windows gui: use file manager, click once on the file. <S> Hit F2 to enter "rename mode". <S> Only the base filename should be selected (not the extension). <S> Type the new name. <A> I haven't verified this to be the case, but I'm pretty sure it works. <S> An epub is simply a zip file with its file extension renamed to .epub. <S> The ebook name comes from the package.opf . <S> Then look for the information in the line: <S> <dc:title> <S> Your Title </dc:title <S> > . <S> But even knowing that is unnecessary. <S> I would throw copy all your epub files into a separate directory, then add them to an app like Adobe Digital Editions or Readium (or even Calibre). <S> Click on INFO or PROPERTIES TO view the ebook title (i.e., dc:title) and see what the file is named. <S> Then in Windows explorer you use this information to edit the file name of the original epub file. <S> Tedious, but it works. <S> Another way to do is to right-click the ebook, select, EDIT THE EBOOK, and then choose File -- <S> > <S> Save a Copy -- <S> > (input your preferred name in the dialogue and press Save). <S> BTW, I had this exact same problem with earlier versions of Project Gutenberg files (which had cryptic file names). <S> In the last year or so PG corrected it so that (most) file names are comprehensible to humans. <A> Calibre doesn't change the source, but if you open the containing folder (after right click on the book title in Calibre) you'll see an EPUB there with the title as stem of the filename (and .epub as extension). <S> On any change of title in Calibre, the name of that file changes as well. <A> If you switch your calibre library to a new location, all changes made in metadata is automatically reflected in the new location. <S> You can later switch to the old location if you want. <A> Recently, I came across a set of scripts called ebook-tools that can solve this problem. <S> Works like a charm. <A> This is a long time after the question - but it doesn't seem to have a simple answer yet <S> so:The OP said his books"load into Calibre under their actual titles" which means the metadata in the files is OK. <S> In Calibre go to Preferences/Saving to Disk and create the naming pattern you want. <S> e.g. something like {title} - {authors}. <S> You can also set a preferred output format to automatically change mobi to epub or whatever. <S> Then you can import your numbered books to Calibre and use the Save to Disk feature to output your correctly named archive copy. <S> NB by this time you will have 3 Copies of each ebook: <S> your original, Calibre's copy in it's library and the new renamed output version. <S> If all you want is a copy easily identifiable by the file name then perhaps a regular backup of the Calibre library folder is all you need.
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The simplest way "to rename the source file appropriately for archiving" is to use Calibre's "Save to Disk" function.
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How do I make Calibre convert CBZ to EPUB without images shrinking or conversion? I've got comics in CBZ format with pictures in 2k or 4k pixels tall and when I try converting them to EPUB, Calibre shrinks the pictures to 1k or under, making them very blurry to view on a mobile or tablet. Is there a setting or type of script I can use to convert each picture to its own EPUB page and not have Calibre shrink the picture? <Q> Try Kindle Comic Converter . <S> Despite its name, it works for all types of readers, and can output EPUB. <S> Be sure to select the generic reader output, enable Color Mode, and select EPUB as the output format. <A> When you open the conversion window, before actually starting the process, go to the comic input tab, you will find a box labeled change images dimensions 1 . <S> By default, Calibre uses the settings from the page setup tab to select standard output settings for the selected device, this includes that device screen size, to which the images are resized. <S> 1 - Or something similar <S> : I'm using the italian version, the actual wording may be a little different. <A> When running the CLI Calibre tool called ebook-convert , you can specify --output-format= <S> tablet which will not scale any images. <S> I would assume the equivalent GUI option will have the same behaviour.
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By putting a custom value (in your case, the original dimensions of the pictures inside the CBZ files) on the change images dimensions box, you can force Calibre to use these values instead of the preset ones from the page setup tab.
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Looking for software to combine articles into ebook I'm looking for a way to combine articles from the Internet into an ebook that I can then read on my ebook reader. I have tried: (1) using the Export Pocket to EPub Chrome extension, but all it did was just take me to the extension's homepage. (2) using Instapaper and Pocket as custom news sources with Calibre but the ebooks Calibre created were empty. (3) using the EpubPress Chrome extension, which with about 10 article got stuck in the 'Fetching Images' stage and then did nothing. Are there any other specific approaches I can try? Thank you. <Q> Actually with instapaper (if you're logged in) You can visit either: https://instapaper.com/mobi https://instapaper.com/epub to download the latest 20 articles. <S> Then there is the normal download option in the drop down menu (under your user name). <A> All tabs in window are merged in one page and after that with internal for browser print functionality they can be saved in PDF. <S> One extension have to be added in Chrome - Merge all tabs for print or save <A> Two fast solutions: Download individual articles into Evernote app or Offline Browser app. <S> Note: free versions of Evernote only works with Internet access. <S> A simple cut and paste into MS Word and save as PDF works if you're looking for something fast.
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Some better chrome extension is Website to PDF One solution for creation of PDF directly in Chrome browser.
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How to create an ePub full-page image which properly reflows I'm interested in taking some text and making an ePub e-book out of it. It has full-page images in it. Is there some way in ePub to make an image become a full-page image that properly gets reflowed when the font size changes? That is, I want the image to always take up a full page, but when the font size changes, the text should reflow so that the image is still full page, but doesn't break the text off on the previous page. I'm describing this very poorly. When I was a kid, I would read the novels my father had acquired when he was a kid. Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Rick Brant, Ken Holt, Tom Swift /Jr., etc. These books had a style of illustration, where every so often there would be a full-page illustration. It had a line from the text of book below it in italics. It was usually within a page or two of where the text it illustrated came from. I'd like to recreate this in an ePub book I'm formatting. There are pull-out illustrations, which don't need to be at a particular place in the text. If reading the book on a device which displays a page at a time, what I want to have happen is for the text to reach the bottom of a page, you "flip" the page, there is a full-page illustration, you "flip" again, and you're back reading the text. It shouldn't matter where the page breaks are, the text should flow to the end of a page, then the illustration, and then the text resumes. If I change the font size (because my eyes are getting worse), it should still be a full-page illustration that doesn't cause the previous page of text to break off half-way down. Is this possible? Thanks… <Q> Either put the images in their own html files or use the code above, page-break-before , or -after. <S> In these situations I generally use the css height: 100% , on both the container and the image itself, so if you use <div class="fullscreenimage"><img <S> src="some-image.jpg" alt="lalala" /></div <S> > <S> div.fullscreenimage img {height: 100%;} <A> The other suggestions didn't work for the device I'm using (reMarkable). <S> However, I found an epub file that looked right so grabbed the cover page from that. <S> It's an xhtml file with the contents as follows: <? <S> xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml: <S> lang="en"> <head <S> > <S> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset= <S> UTF-8"/> <S> <meta name="calibre:cover" content="true"/> <title> <S> Cover</title <S> > <style type="text/css" title="override_css"> @page {padding: 0pt; margin:0pt} body { text-align: center; padding:0pt; margin: 0pt; } </style <S> > <S> </head> <body <S> > <S> <div <S> > <S> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns: <S> xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="1.1" width="100%" height="100%" viewBox="0 0 <S> 1399 2200 <S> " preserveAspectRatio="none" <S> > <image width="1399" <S> height="2200 <S> " xlink: <S> href="cover.jpeg"/ <S> > </svg <S> > <S> < <S> /div> </body></html <S> > <S> A little hacky but works. <S> It basically fills the entire page with an SVG tag <S> and I guess the image resizes itself to fit. <S> You can probably play with the aspect ratio if you wish but on the correct aspect device it looks fine. <A> I have some ideas here, but I haven't tested it out. <S> Also, a lot depends on support on reading system. <S> In epub3, it's possible to use CSS to force a page break before or after an element. <S> Something like this: img.fullpage {page-break-after: always;} Conversely, you could use img.fullpage {page-break-before: always;} The only catch is that it's not supported in Google Play Books. <S> I think it works in some (most?) <S> Kindles. <S> As you describe the problem, font-size is irrelevant. <S> Also, your css code should let the image resize depending on screen size. <S> I use max-width. <S> On kindles, max-width is NOT supported, so here's how I do it. <S> https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=1005910& One more thing. <S> Because of the flakiness of support for page-break-after, I try to put images at the beginning or end of chapters. <S> This formatting issue shouldn't be hard if everybody supported epub3 adequately. <S> Unfortunately some reading systems -- and some older devices don't.
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you could create this css rule that does what you want: div.fullscreenimage ,
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How can I print an image-only ebook as a physical book? The Shabara Bhashya is an important text of Hindu philosophy, containing the traditional proof that Hinduism is true, but unfortunately it's out of print. It's in the public domain and available on archive.org , but I'd like a physical copy of it. My question is, how do I print a single physical copy of this ebook? I've found sites where you can print a single copy of a book if you upload a text PDF of the book, but in this case the PDF consists of image scans, not text. (And OCR would produce a garbled mess, as there are a lot of Indian words in the book.) So is there any way to print a public-domain book if you have scanned images? <Q> You can print the file easily with lulu.com as a printed book. <S> I believe they have a manufacturing facility in the U.S. and the U.K. and can ship globally. <S> The fact that your pdf is an image file makes no difference. <S> Keep in mind that if your book is in manuscript format you will have to do a bit of tweaking if you want it printed in common stock book sizes. <S> But if you have an a4-size manuscript and you're satisfied with an a4-sized book, you will have no problem. <S> The text you are interested in can be downloaded in pdf format. <S> Download that file, then use Adobe Reader (free) to get the width and height of the book. <S> When you start a private print project with Lulu, you will be asked if you want to make the file available in the Lulu bookstore. <S> Since you just want a copy for yourself, answer "no. <S> " You will be given a choice of standard print sizes. <S> If there is a match between the file dimensions as reflected in Adobe Reader and the print sizes offered by Lulu, you are in luck. <S> Upload the file and you will be asked to submit or create a cover. <S> Lulu's cover creator takes care of this process for you. <S> Input the title and author. <S> If you are so moved to upload a graphic, remember that it should be 300 dpi in the CMYK colorspace. <S> Otherwise, choose one of the preformatted cover designs. <S> If the size of your book does not match, or if you want to squeeze the size up or down to match a stock size, use a program like jpdftweak (free) to change the file dimensions. <S> After the cover is created, you can place an order for the printed book. <A> Office stores like Office Max also have low-volume printing services there too. <S> Professional printing companies will generally charge you a lot more because there is a lot more setup involved with their machines. <S> One type of soft cover book in the US is called "perfect bound". <S> That's how paperbacks are made here. <S> Ask for that. <S> At Kinkgo's you will probably have to provide a separate image for the front cover. <A> just print the images: there are a lot of programs which convert images to a pdf file. <S> You will obtain a very large file, but this should not be a problem. <S> The only caveat is that the resolution of the images should be 200 dpi (dots per inch) at the bare minimum, and 300 dpi for a decent rendition. <S> Of course you may also start with OCR and correct by hand the result, but I warn you that it is a tedious and long work.
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Download a PDF of the book and take it to Kinko's (in the US) which will print one-off books for you.
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Is it possible to cap royalties for an ebook? I want to write and publish an ebook, but I am restricted to earning a set amount of income per month from all my income earning efforts. Is there a way to cap the passive income from an ebook on a monthly basis if that gets too high certain months? Essentially, I would be given the option by a publisher to monitor my earnings and modulate my income accordingly. Example: I can earn $100 a month. Ebook A earns $50 in January Ebook B earns $75 in January I can decide to limit the income from Ebook B to $50 that particular month. <Q> I feel sure you could LEGALLY, it's just a matter of contract, but I doubt any publisher would want to fool with such a complicated setup. <S> I might be wrong though. <S> Possibly you might find one who'd be willing to do a contract where, if your total royalties from them exceed some fixed cap (it would need to stay fixed - asking to let you change the cap monthly is unreasonable) <S> the excess would go into promotion, might be doable. <S> Alternately, you could simply spend that amount directly promoting your books yourself, and not bother the publisher. <S> Then it would be a deductible business expense I'd assume <S> and so wouldn't be "income". <S> That is probably the simplest thing. <A> The ebook distributor won't do that. <S> Make arrangements for another person to receive your royalties and disburse them to meet your needs. <A> Answering adequately your question would at least require anunderstanding of the reasons for the limitation you seek. <S> If thelimitation has a legal origin, some solutions may not be legallyacceptable, while they would be if it is simply a decision based onsome metaphysical belief or choice of yours. <S> The book distributor (publisher or reseller) is unlikely to accept acomplicated scheme, for practical implementation reasons, and becausecostomers might react negatively to unpredictable availability... though they apparently tolerate a lot of aggravation. <S> One thing your distributor might accept is to keep for himselfwhatever income is in excess of your set limit. <S> For exemple,you could decide to be your own publisher. <S> Some indie authors do that,I believe. <S> Then your company can make arbitrary profit, but you, asits manager, will decide each month how much you deserve. <S> But I woulddo some checking to make sure that such a setup is legal wherever youlive.
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Another possibility is to set up a small company that manages yourbooks, and deals with the publisher or the retailers.
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cloud-based epub reading system with offline reading AND collections -- what are my options? Google Play books is getting to be cumbersome on so many levels. Most importantly, the android app has no way to organize ebooks by collections or different shelves. Yet Google Play Books is really the only cloud-based epub reader I know of -- and its epub support is good. I end up preferring to import files to the Kindle android app because Kindle's collections are so easy to create and edit. Am I overlooking any other options? In other words, are there any cloud-based epub reading systems which allow offline reading, importing your own epubs and the ability to create collections? Having a store connected to it would be ideal, but I buy DRM-free epubs generally or get things from Project Gutenberg. I am looking for a software solution (i.e., an app) rather than a device solution I realize that Kobo or ibook devices might have a cloud component, but I would prefer not to be locked into one hardware family. Thanks. <Q> Aldiko book reader is a really good app that has the most of the features you require. <A> BookFusion is what you are looking for. <S> More at https://www.bookfusion.com/reading/cloud-library <S> It is device agnostic and as a result you can read and access your books on any device. <S> You are also able to select the books that you would like to be made available offline from your library in our iOS and Android apps. <S> Disclosure: I am the founder of BookFusion. <S> Please feel free to take it for a spin and let us know if you have any additional feedback <A> I use neat reader to sync and read epub books. <S> https://www.neat-reader.com <S> It has Android,win, Mac and web version and the iOS version would coming soon. <S> You could import your books and read it everywhere.
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BookFusion provides you with a cloud based platform and native Android and iOS apps to allow you to easily upload , organize and read your eBooks across all devices.
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Where to go for ebook suggestions? I'm aware of Goodreads but would be interested in recommendations for where to go for book recommendations, across categories. Certainly there were many articles and lists of books from the end of the year, but I'd be more interested in discussion forums. I'm not entirely adverse to advertisements, but more interested in what books people suggest and discuss online. Tastes vary, of course, and algorithms have their place as well (or AI if you prefer). To take one website at random: the Gutenberg press. In theory a fantastic idea. Yet whenever I've looked at their website it's just a needle in a haystack. I'm sure they have an official blog or announcement system, but I'd be more interested in discussion or review . Not specific to the Gutenberg press, again, conceptually interesting, but just looking for things to read. (I'm a bit Kindle-centric having drunk the Amazon DRM kool-aid, so that would be my preference for focus should that be an issue.) <Q> Your question is really too broad and unprecise to respect the usualrules of Stack-Exchange. <S> However, I will try to answer it in a wayconsistent with such rules. <S> There are many places where books are discussed, but they are usuallyspecialized in some way. <S> And no one is going to list thepossibilities, not here. <S> This should occasionally lead you to sites that have commentedthese books or authors. <S> Then you can explore the site to see whatelse they offer and suggest, and whether you want to use it as acomment and reference source. <S> We all differ in our tastes and ways of doing things, and no one canreally do that for you. <S> You comment on Gutenberg Press <S> does not carry a link (which itshould have). <S> I tried to see which site you mean, but found onlyProject Gutenberg. <S> Its purpose is not to suggest e-books, but to makethem available. <S> The choice of a retailer (Amazon) is a strange focus for suggesting books, and I am not sure I understand the connection with DRM. <S> DRM areuniversally toxic, not just with Amazon, if that is what you enjoy. <A> I don't necessarily endorse using it for all your reading, but there are some fine subreddits to suggest book titles. <S> https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/ . <S> Also check out the booklists subreddit. <S> Also, fivebooks.com is creating a whole universe of book suggestions by subject area (though more for academic topics). <S> Finally, I agree with what you are saying about Gutenberg. <S> I've been volunteering as a proofreader, and we've been digitalizing a series of books (BOOK REVIEW DIGEST) which provides useful summaries of books. <S> Most are still in process, but I have a feeling that these summaries will be incorporated into the book pages eventually. <S> Finally, if you don't know it, the PG Bookshelf page is good for finding books on a certain topic. <A> MobileRead has forums for book recomendations and discussions. <S> https://www.mobileread.com/
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My best advice is for you to search the web with a generaly searchengine, for comments on books or authors you have been interestedin.
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Not able to edit the html of an ebook file I have created an epub in Indesign. That ePub has been converted to a mobi file for kindle readers. Any ideas on how to edit the HTML/CSS of an epub or mobi file created in Indesign to make direct changes such as linking footers and making formatting changes to content? <Q> If you want an easy way to do it, probably the easiest solution is to use the Calibre program. <S> It lets you convert almost any format into an .epub file, which the (separate) Calibre editor can then edit. <S> If desired, you can use Calibre to convert the edited .epub file back to the original format as a final step. <S> The .mobi format simply can't be edited in any meaningful way, so it's necessary to convert it to .epub, which seems to be the most flexible format of all. <S> One reason I'm particularly enthusiastic about .epub files <S> is that the Calibre editor has so many tools to automate many functions of editing that type, making it fairly easy to make changes. <S> And the Calibre developer guy is actively making improvements to it all the time. <S> The editor has a particularly nifty search-and-replace function, and even has a button for checking the .epub file for errors. <S> The thing to bear in mind is that Calibre is 2 programs, one is a manager program for organising your ebooks regardless of what format they are, and which can convert a book from one format to another (a huge range of different types); and then there's a second, separate program for editing .epub format files. <S> Calibre's philosophy is that you'll convert your ebook to .epub format, edit it in that format, then convert it back to the original format (though in fact you can choose any output format you favour, from a huge range of choices). <S> And Calibre's a free program! <S> It copes with almost any type of ebook, as long as it's not a locked (DRM) format. <A> You can edit epubs generated with InDesign with Calibre Editor and Sigil . <A> An EPub file is a zip compressed container. <S> Just unzip it <S> and you will find the HTML files that you want to edit.
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You can also use an EPub editor like sigil.
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VGA Output from Arduino Is there any method to output VGA with Arduino? <Q> This is quite difficult to do well <S> but there are a couple of examples. <S> The main difficulty is in the speed of the CPU. <S> Here's one doing direct VGA output: <S> Make: <S> Arduino VGA Demo <S> If you Google "Arduino VGA" <S> there are a few demo projects. <S> A couple options are the "TellyMate" shield that lets you output Composite rather than VGA (the single yellow connector you find on your TV. <S> Another is the "PICASO Universal Base Board" and "PICASO VGA/SVGA Graphics Controller" - this is not a direct shield but probably the best option I have seen. <S> Both the above items are available from Sparkfun and Little Bird Electronics among other places. <A> Yes, but getting the VGA timings right is all about carefully timing your instructions. <S> It handles everything under interrupt, so you can just write your application in C and not worry about VGA timing. <S> http://avga.prometheus4.com/ <S> It even does sound. <S> I built a little pong game using it: http://blog.hodgepig.org/2009/08/17/510/ <A> I'd suggest using a PockeTerm kit from Briel Computing to interface with the serial port of the Arduino. <S> It's a Parallax Propeller-based system that acts like a VT100 terminal, with VGA output and PS/2 keyboard input. <S> Plus, when you're done with that project, you can reuse the PockeTerm or even load other Propeller software on it for experimentation.
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I'd recommend the AVGA library, it can output VGA and CVBS/Composite PAL and NTSC from a humble ATMega168.
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Correct DC Adapter type to use for Arduino What's the correct DC adapter to use with an Arduino? Voltage, etc.? <Q> You can find some documentation related to this on the Arduino Website here: <S> http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardDuemilanove <S> Essentially.. the thing to know is that it is a 7805 regulator.. <S> any excess voltage is being converted into heat. <S> The Arduino runs at 5V.. and in order for the regulator to work it needs to be a minimum of around 1.5 volts above that.. <S> so your "Minimum" is about 6.5V DC. <S> You want to try be as close to that as possible - <S> so 7.5 and 9 volts DC are fine .. <S> you can run at 12 volts DC.. but the regulator will get a little warm.. and I wouldn't do this if you are powering much from the Arduino board as that will increase the heat output. <S> The bottom line: <S> 7.5V DC is best, 9V and 12V DC are OK. <S> Anything about 12V is probably pushing it. <S> 12V is the most common you will find "lying around". <S> The Arduino uses a Barrel-style connector .. <S> it is compatible with most reasonably sized plugpacks.. <S> I am not sure what the size in millimeters is. <A> The spec sheets for the Arduino Duemilanove says it is a 2.1mm barrel jack, if anyone needs to know (See the Power heading): http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardDuemilanove <A> It depends on what Arduino you are talking about. <S> The Uno has a barrel connector and recommends 7-12v. <S> It's not clearly indicated but this is for "unregulated" and will be passed through an on board voltage regulator to turn it into 5v. <S> If you are using a Pro-mini or Lilypad then these require a regulated 5v. <S> You can couple the aforementioned 7-12v wall wart with an LM7805 or equivalent regulator. <S> Don't just hook a "5v" wall wart up to these platforms. <S> They often put out in excess of 5.5v and the output can vary a lot.
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So any "Wall wart" with a center polarity positive connector that fits marked between 7v-12v should work fine.
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Arduino as AVR Programmer Can you use the Arduino as an AVR programmer? <Q> I use the mega-isp solution mentioned above - the Arduino <S> avrisp sketch is here http://code.google.com/p/mega-isp/downloads/list <S> I do not use the shield they have - I made up a simple cable using two 6 pin dual-in-line header sockets to fit the programming ISP connector on your Arduino. <S> (I did not have two dil sockets <S> so I used standard single in line and superglued two 3 pin sockets together. <S> You then need a piece of ribbon cable or some wire. <S> Connect each pin on one socket the the corresponding one on the other, with the exception of pin 5 <S> = Reset. <S> Connect one end of the cable to pin 5 - this is the end that will connect to the target AVR that you wish to program. <S> Connect the other end of the pin 5 wire to a floating pin connector. <S> To use connect the cable to the arduino by placing over the ISP programming connector and connecting the floating lead to digital 10, connect the other end to the target ISP connector. <S> You need to ensure that the pin 1's match up. <S> Program with avrdude using avrdude <S> -P <S> com7 <S> -p t2313 -c <S> avrisp -b <S> 19200 <S> -U flash: <S> w:fred.hex <S> wherecom7 - the com port that the Arduino based programmer is ont2313 - the type of AVR you wish to program (m328 for <S> ATMega328).fred.hex - the name of the hex file you wish to progam into the target. <S> I have used this to program Tiny2313 with no problems. <S> Note: The cable will carry 5v to power the target - if the target is already powered then do not connect pin 2 of the cable. <A> This solution works great too: <S> Kimio Kosaka avrdude-serjtag method <S> If you have assembled you own computers you may have spare case mounted USB cables/connectors that often come with new moherboards. <S> Just wack off the USB end <S> and you can use the motherboard connector as the ISP connector. <S> A batch file like this can be used: (This is for the 328 chips, will set the fuses for high speed transfer and then upload the bootloader, and setting the lock bits when finished. <S> avrdude -c diecimila -P <S> ft0 -p <S> m328p -B 4800 <S> -U lock:w:0x3F: <S> m -U efuse: <S> w:0x05: <S> m-U hfuse: <S> w:0xDA:m -U lfuse: <S> w:0xFF:mavrdude -c diecimila <S> -P <S> ft0 -p <S> m328p <S> -U flash: <S> w:ATmegaBOOT_168_atmega328.hex <S> -Uefuse: <S> w:0x05: <S> m -U hfuse: <S> w:0xDA:m -U lfuse: <S> w:0xFF: <S> m -U lock: <S> w:0x0F <S> :m <A> Take a look at the mega-isp project. <A> If you need hi-voltage programming (you have an otherwise dead chip) <S> you can try this solution http://www.mightyohm.com/blog/2008/09/arduino-based-avr-high-voltage-programmer/ <A> The answers from 2009 are a bit outdated now that the standard Arduino IDE includes ArduinoISP which was based on Mega-ISP but is now officially supported by Arduino.cc.
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Yes, you can use the Arduino as a AVR programmer!
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Is there a way to make your own conductive thread for wearable electronics? I am a poor student, was wondering if anyone has any home-brew recipes for making conductive thread for use in wearable electronics? <Q> 150 yards of conductive thread is only $20 at sparkfun. <A> Instructables has a post on how to create conductive thread using very fine wire and thread, that combined together to create a strong, low resistance thread. <S> The principle idea is that you spin the the thread and the fibre together. <S> As Andrew Parnell said, 150 yards of conductive thread is only $20 at sparkfun. <S> Cheers, Marcus <A> while it's not so much about making conductive thread, here is a good post talking about the different types of commercially available conductive thread. <S> Gives a good run down of various comparisons, where to buy and what they cost. <S> hope this helps! <S> http://www.fashioningtech.com/page/conductive-thread
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Well you could use some really low gauge wire, but I can't imagine that would save you any money.
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Saving Arduino sensor data to a text file How can I save data retrieved from a sensor to a text file on the computer? <Q> you can write the sensor data to the serial port using serial-lib and write a small processing program that reads the data from the serial port and writes it to a file. <S> in the arduino code initalize the serial lib in the setup method Serial.begin(9600); and write your sensor values to the serial interface using Serial.println(value); in your loop method on the processing side use a PrintWriter to write the data read from the serial port to a file import processing.serial.*;Serial mySerial;PrintWriter output;void setup() { mySerial = new Serial( this, Serial.list()[0], 9600 ); <S> output = createWriter( "data.txt" );}void draw() { <S> if (mySerial.available() > 0 ) { String value = mySerial.readString(); <S> if ( value != <S> null ) { output.println( value ); <S> } }}void keyPressed() { output.flush(); // Writes the remaining data to the file <S> output.close(); // <S> Finishes the file exit(); // <S> Stops the program} <A> Yet another option is to use an SD Card reader / writer, and write your file to a SD card. <S> When you're done collecting data, swap out SD cards with your workstation computer. <S> This approach will allow you to run your project disconnected from a computer, and will provide for non-volatile storage of large amounts of data. <A> The program gobetwino will log sensor values from an Arduino to a text file or spreadsheet with minimal effort. <S> It can also automate things on the computer, add timestamps (so you don't need to program them into the arduino), etc. <A> You can then capture the output to a text file using a terminal program. <S> Hyperterminal is available on Windows, Teraterm on Linux and Z Term on OS X. Melanie <A> If you want to write sensor data directly to a file on your computer without having to copy and paste the output form the serial monitor window, then try reading the data stream directly from the serial port (which is what the serial monitor does anyway, I suspect). <S> On mac/linux do something like: cat /dev <S> /cu.usbmodem1d11 <S> God knows what's the equivalent on windows machines. <A> You can create a python script to read the serial port and write the results into a text file: ################ Script listens to serial port and writes contents into a file################ requires pySerial to be installed import serialserial_port = '/dev/ttyACM0';baud_rate = 9600; <S> #In arduino, Serial.begin(baud_rate)write_to_file_path = "output.txt";output_file = open(write_to_file_path, "w+");ser = serial. <S> Serial(serial_port, <S> baud_rate)while True: <S> line = <S> ser.readline <S> (); line = line.decode("utf-8") <S> #ser.readline returns a binary, convert to string print(line); output_file.write(line); <A> I found easier and safer to use a Python script. <S> I usually use this one based on the serial library . <S> It's very common to use also the datetime module to add the timestamps: import serialfrom datetime import datetimesensor = <S> "DH11"serial_port = ' <S> /dev/ttyACM0'baud_rate = 9600path = "%s_LOG_%s.txt" % (str(datetime.now()), sensor)ser = serial. <S> Serial(serial_port, <S> baud_rate)with open(path, 'w+') <S> as f: while True: line = <S> ser.readline <S> () f.writelines([line.strip(), " t = %s \n <S> " % (datetime.now())]) <A> The next step is to use either the ethernet shield or something like a WIZ810MJ board and internet enable your arduino. <S> You can then write data to that and send it to say a web server to collate it. <S> I do this in my vivarium temperature monitor .
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The simplest method is to use the Serial library and output to that.
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DSP recommendation for beginners I am considering a project involving a fair share of digital signal processing. As far as I know, the best type of IC suited for this are the Digital Signal Processors. I have never worked with them before - can you recommend me any model that is simple enough for beginners? The project involves filtering hi-fi digital audio (44100Hz, 16 bit stereo) in several ways. Also, do I need an additional uC to for example control an UI with an LCD panel and some buttons, or can the DSP handle this along its signal processing task? <Q> The dsPIC30F line of microcontrollers from Microchip are excellent introductory DSPs. <S> They are programmed in C or assembly in the same way that other PICs are, but include DSP libraries that help with filtering, etc. <S> They have all the necessary peripherals for most projects (ADC, DAC, serial communications, timers, the list goes on and on). <S> They are fairly cheap (no more than $10), can be sampled in through-hole packaging, and can be programmed with standard PIC programmers and debuggers. <A> A couple good beginning DSP's are the C5505 DSP from TI and the C6713 also from TI. <S> I like the first cause it is only $55.00 <S> and I like the second because there are whole books written around the chip (Digital Signal Processing and Applications with the C6713 and C6416 DSK ) <A> If you go with one of the dsPIC parts, you can have both interface and processing in one ( <S> the make great general purpose MCU's as well). <S> They come in SOIC and DIP packages which makes prototyping easy, and some of the dsPIC 33 range have almost all their pins re-mappable which makes routing a board a breeze. <A> Check out Analog Devices DSP page . <S> And the free development tools . <S> No programing required, just drag and drop GUI objects. <A> you really, really, don't need a DSP to do even advanced audio filtering on a 44.1kHz 16bit stereo signal. <S> An ARM core will be just fine for the filtering and running the LCD/buttons. <S> I'd just grab a beagleboard , toss RT linux on it and have at it. <S> If you get really desperate for performance there is a TI 64x+ DSP on board the SoC as well. <S> There are very few applications for which a DSP is needed today, especially in the audio world. <S> If you were dealing with 32 channels of 192khz 24bit audio thats latency critical, yea go for the DSP. <S> But what your working with is well within the capabilities of modern microcontrollers. <A> I'm looking for the same thing. <S> This thread has some suggestions. <S> Converters and everything are built-in. <S> The chip itself is about $5, but the eval board is about $500 . <S> Sheesh. <S> (You can get a single TAS3204 for about $10 . <S> TAS3202 <S> I can't even find in low quantities.) <S> There's also the AK7742 , which has a very convenient GUI , but you'd need to buy the eval board. <S> I'd love to find a hobbyist-dedicated open source DSP board like the BASIC Stamp, Arduino, Chameleon, etc. <S> In order to learn the high-level fundamentals of DSP, though, you'll want to start with your computer, using tools like MATLAB or its free clones Scilab , Octave , Freemat , etc. <S> to do simulations. <S> I've been playing around with SciPy a lot lately. <S> That way you can learn the theoretical stuff without being bogged down by the implementation details. <A> To answer the second part of your question, yes, you'll probably need a general-purpose microcontroller to handle your user interface. <S> DSPs are dedicated processors: <S> they do one thing very well (signal processing) but don't do anything else. <A> <A> Two alternative options might also be worth looking at: Microcontrollers with mixed signal abilities like MSP430. <S> 44k <S> * 2 * 2 is a lot of samples <S> so you might not have a lot of time for processing them on the speeds these run in. <S> Standalone PC, PDA or such. <S> You probably get more or less HI-FI (and upgradeable) AD/DA and audio stuff builtin and will have massive cpu power plus display capability. <S> Good dev software is often free and hardware can be cheap or even free. <S> Latencies might be high, though, and you'd have to work with a big power-hungry ineffective machine.
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There's also TI's TAS3202 System-on-a-Chip, which seems to have everything you would need for filtering stereo audio. You could also use a BeagleBoard available for only $150 from sparkfun Most Dsp evaluation boards have built in support for LCD's.
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PIC Microcontroller Programming on Mac OS X How can I start PIC Microcontroller Programming on Mac OS X. Can I use an Arduino connected to my Mac has a programmer? Or do I need to buy specific programmer board and serial adapters? <Q> The MPLAB X (runs on Java, based on Netbeans) is available here for Mac OS 10.X. <A> You can use the PICKit Flash Starter Key (USB!). <S> Check this website: <S> www.teammojo.org/PICkit/pickit1.html <S> There used to be a Cocoa GUI to program the PICKit made by someone at Microchip, but I can't find it now... <S> (source code was available!). <S> You can compile your code using gpasm (gputils.sourceforge.net), and then flash it into the PIC using the PICKit. <S> I found also this simulator that runs perfect on the mac: www.feertech.com/misim/homepage.html <A> You will need a special programmer and you can use SDCC and xcode which you can get from apple. <A> I don't think you can do it from an Arduino board. <S> you should find most of their offerings under development tools, including USB based programmers. <S> I'm not sure what software there is available as an IDE for the Mac <S> but Google is your friend in situations like this.
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There are various specs around the internet for serial based pic programmer boards, or you can get them from Microchip (the manufacturers of PIC chips), if you go to their site http://www.microchipdirect.com
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What happens to Lilypads in the rain? If you have a funky Lilypad clothing and it gets rained on or you spontaneously decide to go for a swim in it :) what happen? <Q> If the circuit is powered when you put it in water Water would add random paths where the current can flow in your circuit. <S> Most probably something will short out. <S> If you're lucky, the circuit will just not work, in the worst case you can damage the chip on the Lilypad. <S> If you predict that your circuit will have contact with water, you can experiment with: enclosing it in something <S> waterproof(some synthetic material, maybe?) <S> using waterproof fixatives from art supplies (these are in spray and coat your electronics with a thin waterproof film of chemicals). <S> There are also some specialty products for coating electronics, although I haven't tried them. <S> to make your LilyPad really safe, you can cast it into epoxy resin or something of the like. <S> be sure to insulate every exterior wire, too. <S> (For example wires that go to an LED somewhere) If the circuit is not powered when you put it in water <S> It shouldn't be a big problem. <S> The circuit will be okay AS LONG as you let it dry completely before powering up again. <S> Most cell phones can survive trips to the bottom of the lake (the batteries don't). <S> It is a good idea, if you consider spontaneous swimming, to put the battery out. <S> The problem you may have is the circuit rusting prematurely, but that shouldn't be the case of arduino and lilypad. <A> Not owning one myself, I'd need to guess. <S> According to the arduino website , the pad itself won't get harmed: <S> Washability Wash at your own risk - we do ;). <S> We recommend washing projects by hand with a mild detergent. <S> Drip dry. <S> Make sure you remove your power supply first! <S> Electronics and water don't mix usually for two reasons: <S> short circuits: <S> the ions in the water short circuit the board, rendering it infunctional or even destroying it. <S> The latter happens when power from the supply voltage goes to places it shouldn't go. <S> This is especially important for high voltage devices. <S> rust: <S> water reacts with certain materials and corrosion occurs over time <S> I'd guess that a coated PCB designed to be washed won't rust (that easily) and probably also don't react to short circuits that easily. <S> (hence the warning in above quote) <S> You have to make similar reasonings about the other components of your clothing. <S> If they are designed to withstand washing they'll probably work in some rain, too. <S> But only really waterproof connections will work with that much water you have when swimming. <A> I'd vote for corrosion, here's a photo from my collection:
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Submerged under water, however, I'd expect it to fail (primarily due to the open pins on the outside) and you should specially protect your power supply and leads. So in rain there is a good propability that it will work as expected.
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Best humidity/temperature sensor for a nappy? Special needs kids have big troubles with potty training. A 'wee-wee' alarm would be of a lot of help. What would be a good way of detecting 'it' without electrocuting anybody? A possibility would be to detect humidity or temperature but it really has to be a sturdy sensor. Any ideas? <Q> <A> I would just use a surface mount temp sensor on a piece of cloth and some conductive wire. <S> Actually, I would go a non tech route. <S> With my son, we made him go every hour, <S> then every 1.5, then every 2 until we found where his max range was. <S> Then 10 or 15 minutes before he hit that max, we would prompt him to pay attention to how his boy parts were feeling. <S> In pretty short order (month or two) he got used to what it felt like when he needed to go and potty training was done. <A> I remember visiting a young relative once who had a similar issue (was very young at the time). <S> I recall 2 electrodes that would snap into each other with part of his underwear in between. <S> When it would get wet, it would conduct and a little buzzer would go off. <S> Perhaps you could do something similar?
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Conductivity is the obvious choice - running the electronics with a 1.5V battery and connecting the electrodes through a high-valued resistor should stop anything bad happening (though don't take that as a guarantee ;)
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How to drive brushless motor with Arduino? Is it possible to drive a brushless motor directly with Arduino? Or should I revert on controlling a brushless motor ESC with PWM pulses? <Q> Actually sometimes you just MUST make your own ESC. <S> ESCs sold on the maket are "commercilized" and have their own control codes for RC stuff like airplanes, helis, cars... <S> For example sometimes you need to have a double side regenerative brake. <S> From back to stop and from forward to stop. <S> There is NO RC ESC that has that feature. <S> They either have only one regenerative brake from forward to stop or none. <S> Or you may need a sensor control BLDC <S> but there are only a few sensored ESCs in the market, and they only have (the same for common sensorless ESCs) built in features that you do not need and don't have some that you absolutely need! <S> Designing your own ESC is a perfect choice and much cheaper even than the cheapest $10 one with HUGE power. <S> It is true that the control code and the hardware can be a pain but after some reading it is just a toy. <S> There's a good tutorial here on how to make a BLDC controller with an arduino using 6 mosfets and some other stuff you can easily find at Jameco's site (very nice)This is where I buy my stuff for cheap but spurkfun can be a nice alternative if you don't find some sensors like gyros, etc. <S> http://www.instructables.com/id/BLDC-Motor-Control-with-Arduino-salvaged-HD-motor/ <S> very nice and easy to follow guide. <S> You can make ANY power from low to ultra high ESCs using this guide and almost any combination of regen brake, using resistance, motor windings or battery charger... <S> Using mosfets is just a toy, you can do almost anything. <S> The prob is that you can't control this mosfet very efficiently with an MCU like an arduio board which outputs only 5V <S> I think and the gate voltage of the mosfet for medium voltages is pretty much higher in the range of 16-30V easily. <S> So you must use some other tansisor to step up arduino's voltage. <S> Good luck. <A> You should definitely use the ESC. <S> Brushless motors works best when driven with a sine wave (or as close as possible to a sine wave). <S> They also require a fairly accurate and complicated set of signals. <S> Generating the proper wave forms and timing from an arduino would be difficult, and unless you really need to it, is probably not worth it. <S> You can always arrange to control the ESC from your arduino, which would give you programmatic control plus the efficiency and power of the ESC. <A> I have gone back and forth on this for like 30 minutes. <S> To properly control the motor would tie up more resources from your arduino than I could imagine justifying. <S> Plus you would be limiting the responsiveness of the motor to that of the adc polling. <S> I wouldn't think of using an ESC as reverting, that is the way it is supposed to be done. <A> Since no one else has said it - you wouldn't be able to practically drive a motor directly from an arduino simply because the AVR chip won't put out enough current to supply any useful amounts of power. <S> So at the very least, you'd be looking at creating a three-phase H-bridge arrangement (read: three 'half H-bridges') to drive the currents needed, requiring six digital lines just to operate the drive transistors. <S> Assuming you had this drive capability problem solved, and that's not trivial, then you'd have to get into the control code. <S> These motors have permanent magnet rotors, so you can't just blindly spin the stator field and get useful torque. <S> You have to know the orientation of the rotor in order to keep the electrical phase angles adjusted so that you get uniform torque. <S> So like others have said, unless you want the specific learning experience, there's no dishonor in just buying an ESC. <A> I think it would be a great learning exercise, but ESCs use back EMF to detect rotation, although you can use optical or magnetic sensors for this. <S> Basically you have to generate 3 AC phases and activate/deactivate them in the right moment. <S> The speed of the rotation of the magnetic field needs to be the adapted to the motor's, i.e. if you want to accelerate, the field has to run a bit earlier and quicker. <S> You can also break, doing the opposite. <S> For a thorough explanation: http://www.embedded.com/columns/technicalinsights/196701832?_requestid=137540 <S> For a practical job, get an ESC. <A> Besides, Arduino can sink but not source current yet you'd need both for a brushless motor. <S> However, if you use a very simple H-bridge driver IC in addition to the Arduino, you can implement pretty much every function of the ESC. <S> In fact, depending on the application you might not even need an E* SC <S> * meaning that you may not need a closed loop speed control - if the load is not too great, you may be able to just get away with simply trusting the motor to respond in sync with energizing of the winding, and the rate of the winding current changes would come from the Arduino. <S> Check out this very simple brushless (BLDC) motor control schematic and Arduino sketch that you may be able to adapt to drive your motor. <S> That one is based on SN754410NE quad H-bridge IC which is maxed at 750mA if memory serves. <S> The code is not too trivial and makes use of PWM for smooth rotation <S> but it's not too difficult to parse either to adapt to your application. <S> The actual Arduino sketch for the BLDC motor is here .
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I think you probably want to use an ESC unless you are just doing it as a learning experience. You can drive it directly with Arduino if by driving you don't mean literally supplying current for the windings - any MCU would be much too weak for that.
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Ideal WiFi to Serial (or SPI) bridge? What are some recommendations on an ideal WiFi to Serial bridge? My ideal qualities would be: Simple connectivity, SPI or Serial Reasonable fast speed, at least 1mbit/sec ideally (though probably wouldn't always need that fast) Inexpensive, I'm thinking under $50 Low power -- it should use at most 100mA, if we could get it even lower like say 20 or 30ma, even better. Built-in protocol stack -- I want it to handle the WiFi protocol, along with DHCP, TCP/IP, DNS, etc, so that all I have to do is tell it what IP/port to connect to, and then handle the data myself. If at all possible, 5V-tolerant I/O's...to make it easy to interface to our old-school microcontrollers. So far I've found: Matchport b/g Rovingnetworks Wi-Fi modules Anyone have any experience with other possibilities? <Q> Have you considered using a Lantronix Wiport <S> (Wifi to Serial Module). <S> Little Bird Electronics used to sell the Little Bird Brain Arduino Wifi Shield. <S> Which wasan Lantronix Wiport on an Arduino shield. <A> It uses 100 mA when awake, and 10 <S> uA asleep. <S> I'm using a related system on a project and it works quite well. <S> The C variant is commercial temp range, the G is industrial. <S> I think they have RS-232 as well as SPI/I2C versions as well. <S> I'm not sure if this is the WiFly GSX you mentioned in your original question. <S> Also, we looked at the modules from Redpine Signals . <S> I'm not sure what their power consumption is, but the Connect-i-on series of products has the other functionality you're looking for. <A> Microchip/ZeroG <S> Wireless Module <S> I haven't used this module, but we are planning on using it. <S> I have used the Microchip TCP/IP stack and it works pretty well. <S> It's inexpensive and interfaces to uP via SPI bus. <A> If you are using Arduino, the WiShield works very well with a free software stack. <S> SPI interface between the Arduino and the WiShield, but the Arduino could turn that into serial if you want. <A> It's a bit unclear what this project is for <S> but I think your best bet is a premade WiFi router with OpenWRT or some similar other open-source firmware. <S> WiFi routers have the WiFi interface and they usually have a pinheader on the board for (TTL level) serial. <A> I've used the Lantronix XPort Pro (Ethernet) before...very straightforward, and excellent support staff. <S> If you use the Matchport, call them! <S> In my research, I also found the Digi Connect Wi Me , but I did not end up selecting it. <S> It does have a smaller form factor than either of the above, and lower power consumption than the Matchport, but the price was much too high. <S> ($130) <S> Also, it runs on an ARM chip, rather than x86 like the Matchport, so receive/idle/sleep power requirements are lower. <S> Transmit power is similar for both devices. <S> It's dictated by the antenna power requirements. <S> While you can easily get average current that low (Short, high-density packets and long sleep times), you won't find one that will transmit at the required power with less than a couple hundred mA. <S> Virtually all of the 650/750mA of current that the Matchport and Wi Me draw during transmit is due to the amplification of the antenna. <S> The WiFly GSX is an option that I didn't find. <S> Low power due to ceramic antenna, and designed for battery powered applications. <S> Good and bad things stick out to me about this chip. <S> Good: It has general purpose digital <S> I/ <S> O, analog inputs, and the firmware is upgradeable wirelessly, which are awesome features. <S> Bad: it only includes the TCP/IP stack, not an embedded server and included OS like the others. <S> More configuration will be required to see this module online, I think. <S> Ask mtrw. <A> As pointed out by Dago, I personally use a Fon (La Fonera) or Meraki router (with OpenWRT) for connecting Wifi to a serial connection. http://www.geocities.jp/arduino_diecimila/wifi/a2p_ddwrt_en.html <A> This might not be conventional thinking, but Raspberry Pi fits your requirements pretty well. <S> It isn't expensive, you'll get it up and running in minutes, it has an expansion header, there are Linux drivers for board peripherals. <S> I've interfaced an MSP430 to RPi's UART without any problems, which gave me not only WiFi connectivity, but also serious processing power (think not just an ethernet interface but a web server that displays computed statistics of data gathered using the MSP430). <A> Sparkfun RN-XV- 40USD <S> Used in most hobby/Arduino projects.
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I've been trying to solve a similar problem and finally noticed that the Raspberry Pi is a pretty good Ethernet <-> {SPI, I2C, GPIO, UART} converter. Roving Networks offers the RN-131C and RN-131G for $45/$40 WiFi - UART. Has UDP, TCP and HTTP capabilities
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Pins on an Arduino If I'm running out of pins on an Arduino, short of buying a second one or getting a Mega board, is there a way to get more connected to the one board? Do I need to worry about overloading it? <Q> Have you used up all your analog pins as well? <S> They can also be used as digital input/output by just referring to them as digital pins pins 14 to 19. <S> After you used all of them as well you might consider using a shift register IC. <S> These chips will convert serial data into parallel data. <S> The 8 bit versions will take serial data on three pins and output parallel data on 8 pins, giving you 5 extra pins. <S> A very nice explanation is done by Dave Clausen at NYC Resistor . <S> There is actually a possibility of overloading your arduino. <S> Not by using too much pins, but by drawing too much current from the pins, by hooking up too much stuff to your pins. <S> The Atmega168 datasheet says that the pins have an absolute maximum current of 40mA. <S> This would be equivalent to two LED's in parallel. <S> Anything more than one LED (20mA) should be switched through a transistor or transistor array. <S> This is also explained in the video mentioned above and by Tom Igoe . <A> Sparkfun sells a digital/analog multiplexer that allows 16 pins to be controlled by five on the Arduino. <S> It is bidirectional <S> so you may also use it for input. <A> There are many options for expanding the number of inputs and outputs you have available. <S> For an analog input it is common to use analog multiplexers (like the 4051 , available as 74HC4051 and CD4051) <S> which allow you to switch between 8 analog sources using 3 digital lines and 1 analog input. <S> One commonly used option for digital IO is to add TTL (or CMOS) shift registers. <S> Shift registers come in two main varieties, the "serial in, parallel out" (like the 74HC595 ) which are useful for extending the number of digital outputs your project has and "parallel in, serial out" (like the 74HC165 ) which allows you to add more digital inputs. <S> Tom Igeo has a nice write up on Controlling Lots of Outputs from a Microcontoller <S> You can overload the Arduino's output by trying to 'fanout' too far. <S> Each IC you connect to an output draws current from that output. <S> To remedy this problem you can place non-inverting buffer chips (like the 74LS07) between some of the ICs. <A> I've been toying with using this... <S> http://www.neufeld.newton.ks.us/electronics/?p=241 <S> Arduino <S> I/ <S> O expansion using I2C. Looks real promising, I havent gotten around to ordering the chips yet. <S> It's also a really good tutorial on using I2C. <A> If you do end up getting another microcontroller, I like the sanguino for at least four reasons <S> : it has a bunch more <S> I/ <S> O than theAtmega 168/368 (32 general purposepins, up from 14). <S> Like theArduino, 8 pins can do ADC, 6 can doPWM, but there is an additionalhardware serial port. <S> it's $5 cheaper <S> *, with 64K of flash, I never even come close to running out of memory, and you get to put it together yourself from a kit. <S> The Arduino Mega does have more PWM pins -- 14, but I don't think you'd multiplex those. <S> -- <S> *Sanguino seems to go for $25, Arduino for $30, although you'll need a $20 USB-to-TTL cable if you need to use a USB port to program it, where the Arduino has USB built in. <A> I wrote a library to control DS2406 1wire switches. <S> With one of these, you can use a single pin to switch a much larger number of devices. <S> It'll be slower than flipping the IO pin directly, of course, and it'll use more memory since you have to address the devices over that port (this can be traded off for more speed if you'd like). <A> If you are driving LEDS, you might look into charlieplexing. <A> This product is a simple and cheap way to add pins to your Arduino.
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If you load lots of ICs onto the same output (or set of outputs) they might try to draw more than the Arduino's outputs can handle. There is an easy-to-use open source library for accessing the new pins: http://nootropicdesign.com/ez-expander/
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How to use 3.3V and 5V outputting sensors with Arduino? To get full resolution from Arduino ADC when using 3.3V sensors you must do two things. Connect 3.3V power supply to AREF pin. Call analogReference(EXTERNAL) in the code. But what about if I must mix 3.3V and 5V outputting sensors. What are my options? <Q> Suitable divider would be to use a 18k from the sensor to the analog input and a 33k from the analog input to ground. <S> This would translate the 5v input to a 3.23v input. <S> Use of higher precision resistors would get this closer to 3.3v if needed. <S> You need to ensure that the sensor can supply the current needed for a given value - in this case about 0.1mA.The input resistance of the ATMega analog inputs is about 100M ohms <S> so you could increase these values (reducing the load on the sensor) significantly before worrying about the effect of the input resistance. <A> Two things, live with the reduced resolution from the 3.3v sensors and keep your reference at 5V. <S> Thats what I usually do and its good enough. <S> You can also switch your analogReference on the fly when reading each respective sensor. <S> I do recall reading about mixing external references and internal references and having a series limiting resistor on your AREF, so <S> read that part of the Arduino reference carefully. <A> You may also consider looking for newer versions of your sensors. <S> It would require buying a new chip, of course, but they're not terribly expensive and not only would you eliminate the problem, but you would likely provide your project with a greater level of precision since you don't have to worry about noise in your circuit. <S> Short of redesigning your entire project to fit new chips, John C and the ham provide excellent, simple solutions. <S> In my experience, I have run a 3v3 sensor with a 5v supply and reference and have had larger issues with noise than with lost resolution for casual projects. <S> This is the easiest way out, but does require you to do some math, and I have voted ka1kjz's post up accordingly (do check the reference sheets). <S> As far as the voltage divider solution goes, as long as you use higher-precision resistors you get the advantage of having all of your measurements be in the same voltage range <S> and you get the ratiometric correction benefit of using AREF to follow any voltage ripple. <S> In practice, however, I've found that noise and lack of calibration techniques in my projects have contributed more error than a little voltage ripple or 10% resistors could reasonably cause. <S> For that reason I have voted JohnC's solution up as well, since he covers all this in more detail.
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You may be able to acquire sensors that both work with the same voltage limits, or you may find out that newer versions of the sensors are available which will give you digital outputs and can be polled with I2C or other simple serial communication protocols. A simple solution is to use a resistor divider (ratio approx 1:1.94) and reduce the 5v signal to a peak of 3.3vThat way you would retain full resolution whilst not needing to switch reference.
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How would I get a full range voltage reading from a pressure sensor? I am making an application using the DIY Force Sensitive Resistor (FSR) taken from this instructable . The resistance of this sensor typycally ranges from 20kOhm when at rest to 9kOhm when pressed. How would I convert these resistance values to a signal where 0v corresponds to the rest condition and 5v corresponds to the "pressed" condition so that I can read it with an Arduino? <Q> You want a signal range from 0V to 5V. <S> Don't we all :-)? <S> Let's go for a different approach and see where that gets us. <S> Starting point: cheapest and most simple solution. <S> That would be a series resistor to create a voltage divider. <S> That's the absolute minimum. <S> I've noticed that people don't give that resistor much thought, the just pick a nice round value like 10k\$\Omega\$. <S> But I found that there's an optimal value for this. <S> The curve shows the voltage difference between the minimum and maximum reading (9k\$\Omega\$ and 20k\$\Omega\$ resp.) <S> as a function of the series resistor (in k\$\Omega\$). <S> See, it indeed has a maximum. <S> That's easy to find if you remember that \$ \left(\dfrac{f(x)}{g(x)}\right)' = \dfrac{f'(x)\cdot g(x) <S> - f(x) <S> \cdot g'(x)}{g^2(x)} <S> \$ <S> The difference \$V_{MAX}\$- \$V_{MIN}\$ has an extremum for \$ \dfrac{d}{d R_X} \left(\dfrac{R_{MAX}}{R_{MAX} <S> + <S> R_X} - \dfrac{R_{MIN}}{R_{MIN} + <S> R_X}\right) <S> = 0 <S> \$ <S> Solving for \$R_X\$ gives <S> \$ R_X = <S> \sqrt{R_{MIN} \cdot R_{MAX}} \$ <S> A beauty! <S> So in our case the series resistor will be 13.42k\$\Omega\$, you can check this on the graph. <S> That's the maximum range you can get with 1 resistor(*). <S> Is it enough? <S> The Arduino has a 10-bit ADC, so this range will give you a range of 200 discrete levels. <S> That should give a sufficient accuracy for a DIY sensor. <S> So no other components like opamps needed. <S> (*) <S> The accepted answer gives a 1.9V range, but it has the wrong equations . <S> It's impossible to get a higher range than 1V with 1 resistor and only a +5V supply. <A> You need a negative voltage to be able to make a resistor voltage divider going to 0V. <S> I'll assume you have +5V and -5V available. <S> Place your variable resistor \$R_X\$ between +5V and GND. <S> Now you need to find the value for a pull-down resistor between GND and -5V. <S> Now that's easy; you want 0V out when the variable resistor is 20k\$\Omega\$, so the pull-down also has to be 20k\$\Omega\$ because the whole thing is symmetrical. <S> Next we have to find out what the output voltage of the divider will be when \$R_X\$ is 9k\$\Omega\$. <S> We note that the current through \$R_X\$ is the same current as the current through the pull-down resistor, so \$ <S> \dfrac{5V - V_O}{9k\Omega} = \dfrac{V_O <S> - (-5V)}{20k\Omega} \$ <S> Working this out gives us \$ <S> V_O = 1.9V <S> \$.Now <S> all that remains to be done is scale the 0V.. <S> 1.9V to 0V.. <S> 5V. <S> For this we use an RRIO (Rail-to-Rail I/O) opamp as a non-inverting amplifier If you select \$R1 <S> = 18k\Omega \$ and \$R2 = <S> 47k\Omega\$ you'll get an output voltage range of 0V.. <S> 5V for \$R_X\$ of 20k\$\Omega\$.. <S> 9k\$\Omega\$. <A> I think the simplest way would be a voltage divider that gives you 5V at 9k and decreases as the resistance increases. <S> You can play with various resistor combinations in this voltage divider calculator . <S> It's going to be a linear progression, however.
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Placing the resistors between 0V and +5V this will give us an output range of [2V, 3V].
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Is there a way to print / draw a circuit on to clothing? I'm looking for an alternative to conductive thread (since I lack some sewing skills). I have seen silver conductive pens but I'm wondering if they could be used for clothing? <Q> See http://www.plusea.at/ for all kinds of wearable electronics. <S> Gluing strips of conductive fabric is probably better than conductive glue . <S> How To Get What You Want by the same people <S> has more details: Traces Conductive materials <A> It is definitely cheaper than the CirquitWriter pen <S> so if it doesn't work, there's not much harm :) <S> " Wire Glue " is being sold in the US <S> but you can also try to make your own by mixing graphite and glue. <S> There is an instructable that explains the process. <A> I think it's a bit early to use in your projects. <S> The Silver Pen is an interesting idea. <S> I don't know if it'll work! <A> The Arduino Lilypad is a microcontroller board designed for wearables and e-textiles. <S> Google this one and you will find tutorials and details. <S> Also here is a good book about making electronics click with clothes: Open Softwear 2nd Edition <S> ISBN: 978-91-97-95540-9 <A> I'm not sure how practical this would be, but screenprinting might be an option. <S> Using a screen with a coarse mesh you can print with silver paint. <S> You would need to do a test to make sure the paint is conducting in the way you expect. <S> I have some articles and notes on my blog pages that might help. <S> Screenprinting has the advantage that you can quickly make many prints of your circuit or make t-shirts to promote your event/exhibition/party. <A> Here is a source for all sorts of conductive paints. <S> http://www.lessemf.com/paint.html <S> Some of them would probably work for painting directly on fabric. <A> Yet another alternative to conductive thread: wire. <S> wire-wrap wire (30 AWG) or magnet wire is pretty lightweight and flexible, although constant flexing will eventually make it break. <S> stranded wire is a bit thicker and heavier, but it will survive flexing longer. <S> I imagine you would lay it out in a sort of zig-zag or sinewave curve, gluing the midpoints, so that there's a bit of slack between each glue spot to allow the fabric to stretch a little. <A> Depending on the conductivity you need, there might be a solution with fabric made for clothing worn in ESD-protected areas. <S> They contain conductive fibers to discharge static electricity. <S> They do not necessary have a very low resistance, but might be conductive enough to sport some signal path. <S> You could buy such a fabric which has a conductive thread <S> every cm horizontally and vertically. <S> Then you can cut those threads at specific points so that it builds a kind of schematic. <S> A different problem is, how you can connect the threads to other circuit elements. <S> I think conductive epoxy used in small drops might do the trick.
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Maybe conductive glue will work on fabric. Xerox has just announced a silver ink for wearable and throwaway electronics.
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How do I detect the pattern of the knock on a door, and use it as a signature to unlock a door? How do I detect the pattern of the knock on a door, and use it as a signature to unlock a door? <Q> This site has fairly detailed answers to how they did it http://grathio.com/2009/11/secret-knock-detecting-door-lock.html Method description from that webpage, for permanence: <S> A microphone (okay, really a speaker) presses against the door and listens for knocks. <S> If it hears the right number of knocks in the right cadence it triggers the motor to turn the deadbolt and unlock the door. <S> If the sequence isn't recognized, the system resets and listens for knocks again. <A> From Make magazine's blog : RFID card readers becoming passé? <S> Maybe what you need to guard the door to your high-tech lair is a secret knock detecting door lock . <S> Using an Arduino and a bunch of parts found around the lab, Steve Hoefer built a device that unlocks your door when it receives a certain knock pattern. <S> It works by counting the time between successive knocks, and can be re-programmed at the touch of a button. <S> Of course, this system is susceptible to a replay attack , because anyone can listen to the knock pattern and then know how to get in. <S> If you are planning to use something like this, I would recommend either incorporating a timestamp into the message, or using a series of one time knocks , in order to make it harder to break into. <S> Actually, that might make it more secure than a regular lock. <A> I think the easy way would be to measure time between knocks using a microcontroller. <S> The monostable output then is connected to a "Capture And Compare Pin" of the microcontroller. <S> All the rest is just coding.
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To detect the knocks you can use an electret microphone connected to a Diferential Amplifier, and its output shuld be the trigger of a 555 timer configured as monostable.
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Connecting the Wii remote to a computer via Bluetooth How do i connect a Wii remote to my Mac via Bluetooth? <Q> Looks like you just need to pair the Wiimote to the Mac via BT, but you need an application to actually read the data. <S> http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2008/02/use-your-wii-remote-on-your-mac.html <A> You didn't say where the data would go after it got to your Mac, but there is Osculator http://www.osculator.net/wp/ which outputs OSC and MIDI messages if it's for musical applications (as well as <S> others)If you program in Python <S> there are a number of implementations thereIf <S> you are using micros here <S> is an interface board for Arduino that connects to the numchuck <A> connecting the remote to via bluetooth at the driver level is rather typical. <S> but the question is how you wish to use the remote. <S> as others have suggested you can use python, arduino or etc. <S> I would suggest using processing, if you are atune to a little programming and bit twiddling. <S> I have some code over here that will give a 3D representation of the current orientation of the wii remote (see image). <S> This was written in Processing and the code is documented so that beginners to Processing can understand it. <A> I then use MAX MSP to handle all the data, you could just access the bluetooth port directly, but there's a handy object called aka.wiiremote <S> , it's available for free here -> <S> http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~aka/max/ <S> this object will allow MAX MSP to receive and send data to the remote, without any ugly scaling or formating, it makes the whole programming process 100x faster. <S> I've got a whole bunch of programs I've made to turn the wiiremote into a music controller, I mostly use it to wiiJ <S> (wii DJing) using Ableton live. <S> I also use the wiiremote as an infra red camera for a digital graffiti setup, you just pair it with the mac then download the whiteboard software from here -> http://www.uweschmidt.org/wiimote-whiteboard <S> it's free and works really well, the setup is simple.
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I use a wiiremote with my mac mini, all you ned to do is pair the device.
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Coating a Lilypad in resin Has anyone got an example of coating a Lilypad or some other electronics in resin to make them waterproof. I'm wanting to make something that is really resilient -> Being lazy i want to be able to chuck it in the washing machine...hand washing is far too much effort. <Q> Is there a reason you want to use resin as opposed to a product made for the purpose? <S> Conformal coating is what we use in the electronics industry. <S> One advantage of this is that some types of coating are made to be removable with solvents, which would allow you to modify or repair your board after it was coated. <A> Simply searching for "resin" in Instructables provided several good results. <S> I would recommend using Resin as well. <S> I honestly can't think of any other way to cover a circuit board, and have it clear at the same time. <S> http://www.instructables.com/id/USB-casting-in-transparent-resin/ <S> Also, if you have a need for a lot of resin, here's another good link: http://www.instructables.com/id/ [Video]-Mixing-Polyester-Resin/ <S> One last thing. <S> Different types/amounts of sanding will result in the resin becoming foggy. <S> If you don't want this, both links discuss how to make it clear. <A> They are cheap and easy to use. <S> The pellets can be melted with a low heat and molded directly onto the circuit board. <S> The liquid electrical tape adds a degree of waterproofing and extra knock protection. <S> Washing machines can be pretty hash. <S> Have you considered a quick release system for the main board? <S> It might be easier than trying to make it rugged and waterproof? <A> I have one very hard earned piece of advice to share. <S> It is very easy to make something water proof, but water vapour can ruin your world. <S> This can cause catastrophic failure that is near impossible to track down. <S> If you would like more information, just ask and I will go into greater detail.-Max Murphy <A> This is kinda along the lines of what i'm thinking..... <S> This is going even further with the idea of the electronics actually working while in water! <S> http://www.plusplasticelectronics.com/SmartFabTextiles/Wearable-electronics-in-swimming.aspx <A> I don't know how well conductive thread holds up when washed, but the resin part is certainly doable. <S> Check out this guy who cast an entire arduino in resin. <S> http://dotmatrixdesign.tumblr.com/ <S> You could certainly make a smaller mold that would give you a streamlined cast Lilypad. <A> I think one common solution is to make the electronics be able to unplug from the clothing, so that the only thing left on the clothing are stuff like wires or resistors or other simple things that wont be hurt by water or by rolling around inside the washing machine. <A> Altho <S> its not very strong, I have had great results with liquid latex. <S> It can be found at costume shops and dries to a latex coating not unlike a condom. <S> The coolest thing about it is if you need to modify anything it is easially peeled off and reapplied with as many coats as you think you require. <S> In australia its about $8au for 30ml which has so far done 3 4 by 6" pcbs and 2 zombie costumes... hehe
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If you put clothes through the drier and there are rapid temperature changes you can very quickly get water to condense on your circuit board under coating. I've had some luck with these two products: liquid electrical tape and polymorph pellets .
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What kind of laser should I get to cut fabric? I'm brainstorming a new project with my wife and was wonderingwhat type of laser I could use to cut multiple layers of fabric? F.Y.I.I'm a total noob when it comes to lasers and integrated electronics. Update The laser would be mounted on something that moves it on the x and y axis. I want to cut through stacked layers of fabric. I want to build a machine to cut out patterns on fabric to make cloths and what not. P.S.You should really let new users create tags.I wanted to tag this question "lasers" and couldn't. <Q> I built a home made CO2 laser that would work. <S> It's only 40 Watts but it can cut through thin plywood, luon, basla, and fabric as well. <S> It can also score granite marble etc. <S> I had an old pair of jeans <S> I cut the legs off with the laser to make a pair of shorts. <S> It worked ok, but this is before I had a XY table <S> so I had to move the jeans by hand. <S> (dangerous!) <S> The trick is to focus the beam to a very small spot. <S> At that point its soo hot (>3000 F) <S> that the fabric just vaporizes and there is no chance for it to singe or catch on fire especially if the beam is traveling. <S> I am just finishing an XY table with a flying beam design to go with the laser. <S> It's controlled by a AVR microcontoller that talks to a PC through a serial port, and will interpret standard "NC G-Codes". <S> Then I can play with cutting patterns in all sorts of things. <S> If your intrested go to sams laser faq <S> http://repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm <S> and you will find more information about building fixing using lasers than you ever tought. <S> Also you can post to ALT.LASERS <S> Just BE CAREFUL <S> if you want to do this, lasers and their equipment can put a real hurting on you. <S> And remember "Don't stare into the beam with the remaining eye!" <A> That definitely sounds like a CNC laser cutter. <S> I'm afraid I don't know about the specifics. <S> They can be used to cut wood, paper, cardboard and composite, so it seems reasonable that they could be used on fabric. <A> One of the most well known is Epilog. <S> You can also try putting one together yourself. <S> Although, if you want to cut stacked fabric, you are looking at a quite complicated project. <S> Here are a couple of links that might help. <S> On the low and simple end http://www.instructables.com/id/Laser-cutter-start-slicing-stuff-for-under-50-dol/ <S> On the high complicated and expensive end http://www.instructables.com/id/SXX5616F18DW8Q7/ <A> Cutting a single layer of lightweight fabric should be easy at 20 watts. <S> Cutting stacked fabric will take significantly more since the focal point of the laser won't be optimum for all the layers. <S> Still, fabric is easy to cut, so a 60 watt or so should be able to handle it. <S> There are people with laser cutters all over the place - poke around in your local maker hotspots, or ask on makezine.com to find someone that is willing to do some tests for you. <S> You may even find someone willing to do the laser cutting for you much more economically than you could build/buy a machine for yourself, at least to do a proof of concept, and get enough business to decide whether the machine investment is worth it.
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There are a variety of manufacturers who make laser cutters that would work well for cutting fabric. A YAG laser might work too and there is a lot less plumbing.
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How do I find an E.E. to partner with for a product? I am a software developer and need to work with a partner who will design and develop a device (SIMPLE device) to interface with the iPhone hardware port. I am not sure of the best place to find such a person. This would be a part-time thing - it won't take much to develop it. I already have the Apple hardware spec (through the Apple program) and now just need someone willing to design this. <Q> Depending on the nature of the project you might also be able to partner up with the uni to offer it as a project to students for some aspect of their course. <S> Just my tuppence worth. <S> Amos <A> You're going to need more than just an EE. <S> You'll need someone who's experienced at packaging electronics (housing, connectors, etc NOT cardboard boxes and plastic blister packs), and someone who can shepard a device through the FCC approval process. <A> I would suggest doing this with an electrical department at a university or with a company. <S> Work out a deal for IP first <S> (ie. talk about the reward you want for your time), and if it is a good project, the university will normally take over the FCC and patenting process. <S> This means less money for you if it is a good product, as you share rights, but the university effectively acts as an investor, giving the money required for the process and in return expecting some profit. <S> You will need a larger university, although I cannot be specific on what size as this type of thing varies with location, but if you are in Oklahoma <S> I can get you in contact with a professor for OSU. <S> Hope it helps.-Max
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You could approach a local University's, electronics (or electrical engineering or computing) department to see if they might have some reasonably competent students who might be interested in a part time project of this nature (think hands on work experience which pays).
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Using a RealTek Ethernet Switch I'm starting a project using the Realtek RTL8305SC ethernet switch. Does anybody have a good idea of how to use it, some code for it, or even a flow diagram of how it should be used in conjunction with an Ethernet enabled PIC? Any help would be appreciated! I'm currently wondering what I need to do to get it working with the PIC, specifically the order of events. Do I need to reset the switch before enabling the ethernet in the PIC, or do I enable the ethernet on the PIC while the switch is in reset mode? <Q> The RTL8305SC doesn't require any actual code, but you need to read through it's datasheet for a good description of how to wire it up. <S> Connect the rest f <S> the RTL8305's ports to ethernet jacks (w/ magnetics). <S> While I haven't used this particular switch, it's usually easier if you release the switch from reset, then enable the PIC's ethernet core. <S> But if you do things the other way, it will just look like an unplugged cable to the PIC. <A> Switch is just a switch. <S> You plug ethernet connected device to it and it automagically starts to route packets. <S> It does not matter if the device is a Powerbook, PC or a PIC gadget with ethernet. <S> Your gadget <---> <S> Switch <--- <S> > <S> Intenet <S> For you gadget to talk to the Intterwebs your PIC gadget of course know how to handle the TCP/IP layer. <A> Microchip offer a free licensed TCP/IP stack for certain chips. <S> More information from their website is available on the TCP/IP Download and Support page. <S> This specific page is in the middle of a group of pages discussing PIC and Ethernet connections.
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In general, connect the output of the PIC's ethernet to one of the RTL8305's ports in a cross-over (or enable auto crossover on the RTL8305).
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Measuring force developed by a robot I've been playing around with a Lego Mindstorms NXT robot, gearing it for speed and power. To my dismay, when geared for power, it wasn't any harder to stop than when geared for speed -- I suspect that it doesn't have very good traction (as there really isn't much mass pushing down on the wheels). It would be nice to be able make quantitative statements about how much force (and thus, how much torque) a robot puts out. Does anyone know how I can do this? Would, for example, a spring scale or force gauge work well for this purpose, and if so, what is a good maximum rating to look for? <Q> I've always used a standard spring kitchen scale rotated. <S> Put the scale between the robot and a wall (or another fixed object) and let the robot push... <S> BTW: This is one of the tips that are also suggested in the robotic sumo chapter of "Building Robots With Lego Mindstorms" book by Mario and Giulio Ferrari (two italian RCX gurus). <S> So, it's really "in topic" with the original question. <A> <A> It would at least provide a starting point, but if your Robot has poor traction you don't want the weight of your Newton Balance to affect your results in either direction, if possible. <S> There are devices which measure breaking strain on ropes etc (I'm not sure what they're called), they measure up to a value but don't decrease until you reset it, that might be more use, but I don't know whether they come in a small enough (or accurate enough) version. <S> Edit: <S> Strain Gauges? <S> Edit(2): <S> Maybe a Secondary School Physics Textbook might have some suggestions for experiments that could be adapted to measure this.
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A cheap way to do it would be to have the robot pulling on a string which runs over the edge of the the table (or to a pulley), and gradually add weights (such as washers) to the end of the string until the robot can't lift any more.
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Implementing I2C to analog How can I implement (or maybe there is an IC that already does that) a board whose input would be I2C and output would be analog voltage (0V - 5V) ? Eventually I would like to connect a couple of those to the IO pins of an arduino effectively creating digital to analog outputs. <Q> Consider the Microchip TC1321 <S> it's an I2C digital to analog converter (DAC) with 10 bits of resolution (4.88mV/step), available in <S> SOIC8 <S> (you'll need an easy to solder adapter board <S> [eg <S> sparkfun's or futurlec's ) and operates from 5 volts. <S> If you're OK with only 8 bits (19.5mV/step) consider the TC1320 . <S> Both chips are available from Mouser or Microchip Direct for around $2. <S> If you can use SPI instead of I2C, your options are easier, the MCP4821 and MCP4822 are <S> single and dual SPI DAC chips that come in nice PDIP8 packages. <S> Again they cost about $2 from the usual places (mouser, digikey, microchip direct, farnell). <A> Depending on what you are driving, if you have an Arduino you already have three to six Analog outputs, as you can use the AnalogWrite function to set the duty cycle of the PWM pins. <S> The frequency is approximately 490 Hz, more than sufficient for LEDs (again, it depends on your application). <S> You can set the value from 0 to 255, giving you a resolution of (5v / 256 <S> =) .020V. <S> You need to determine if 490 Hz is a sufficient rate, but PWM is used to simulate analog voltage for many applications, and it may fit yours without extra parts or programming. <S> You may also consider using a filter (capacitor-resistor network) to smooth out the square wave. <S> It'll give you more leeway in the applications you can control, and passives are cheap, but depending on your application it may not even be necessary. <S> http://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/AnalogWrite <A> You'd need an I2C based digital to analog convertor (DAC) of some type, a quick search turned up the following: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8736 <A> It's not quite as high resolution as a dedicated DAC chip, but it is good enough for many needs. <A> Here is a Wikipedia entry on digital Potentiometers. <S> These digital pots can act as analog output on the arduino. <S> It would act as a regular potentiometer sweeping across all voltages from 0 - 5V through serial(of some sort) commands. <S> If you didn't have to have I2C then you could use this digital pot from Parralax or this chip from Jameco. <S> The only I2C chips I have seen are all surface mount instead of through-hole, this makes them harder to work with and. <S> Here is the link to all of Jameco's I2C digital potentiometers. <S> I hope this was helpful and the best of luck!
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Just so you know, an AVR (the chip used in an Arduino) can already produce 'analog' voltages via using PWM + a capacitor to smooth the waveform (capacitor is not even needed in some cases).
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Arduino chip wipe on reset Does the Arduino chip get wiped of any (uploaded) code when you press the reset button? and Can you retrieve the code that is currently on the chip? <Q> No, nothing gets wiped and yes you can read the code and data currently on the chip. <S> You do lose the contents of RAM when the chip loses power. <S> Avrdude is a useful program that will allow you to read and write the chip contents. <S> The Arduino IDE uses avrdude to program the chip. <S> Lady Ada has a very good tutorial on Avrdude - indeed her tutorials are all very good. <A> <A> Nothing gets wiped on reset. <S> To answer your first question. <S> Whether the code, or the eeprom data can be retrieved depends on the fuse settings. <S> These determine if the flash and/or eeprom can be read.
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You can retrieve the compiled hex code from the chip (like an exe file for the microcontroller), but reconstructing the original Arduino sketch from it is nearly impossible.
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How to reverse engineer I2C and SPI protocols? If I have an unkown device which talk I2C or SPI how can I reverse engineer the protocol. Basically I am looking for something similar as snoop or tcpdump . For software Mac is preferred but can also run PC under parallels. <Q> I think that you have to consider using the Bus Pirate , an open hardware project that costs just 30 dollars including worldwide shipping. <S> It works with a GUI for Mac OSX and Windows. <A> Just about any of the modern USB-based logic analyzers also have protocol analyzers for common serial protocols like RS-232, SPI, & I2C. <S> I know of none that have shipping Mac OS X drivers. <S> However, the Saleae Logic logic analyzer has been getting good press and they promise some cross-platform drivers in the future. <S> I have an Intronix LogicPort USB analyzer <S> and it's okay. <S> I run it out of either a VMWare WinXP VM on my Mac or on an old throw-away laptop running WinXP. <S> If you're a Mac user doing hardware hacking, I highly recommend getting VMWare or similar <S> so you can run the occasional bit of Windows-only software. <A> First off you need something to capture the signals. <S> The standard way of doing this is with a Logic Analyzer . <S> I've collected a list of PC-based logic analyzers , basically how they work is they capture the signal data and transfer it for display and processing on your PC. <S> Most of them include software for decoding SPI and I2C, showing you what bytes were sent and received by the devices. <A> It supports the Sump client that runs under Java and it has I2C & SPI protocol analyzer plugins. <S> I run it under OS X & Linux http://dangerousprototypes.com/2010/02/25/prototype-open-logic-sniffer-logic-analyzer-2/ http://www.sump.org/projects/analyzer/client/
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The OpenBench Logic Sniffer is open source hardware and retails for around $30-$40
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Encryption Library for Arduino I am using an Arduino to read a keypad and open an electric strike upon keypad PIN entry. For this sketch I wanted to use some sort of lightweight encryption to store the PINs in EEProm.Does anyone know of such a library? I have heard it may be possible using TwoFish. <Q> You don't want to encrypt passwords (PINs) -- you want to hash them. <S> When someone enters a password, you hash that password, and compare the hash against the stored hash. <S> The advantage to this method (used for over 30 years) is that even if someone gets hold of the source and the hashes, they still can't tell what PINs match the hashes, as long as you choose a strong enough hash function . <S> You don't want to implement encryption yourself -- you want to use someone else's library, particularly one with an open implementation that has been tested by a large community. <S> Encryption is hard, testing is hard, and testing encryption is damned hard, so get someone else to do it for you. <S> You should checkout the AVR Crypto Library , which is licensed with GPLv3. <A> That link Hristos posted, while possibly useful, certainly doesn't count as "encryption". <S> It's really only "obfuscation". <S> Proper cryptography is notoriously easy to get wrong, even for people who know the math. <S> In response to the original post - what are the attack methods that would let someone get access to the PINs in the EEProm? <S> Surely if they've got that far into your electronics they can just "snip the red wire" and open the door? <S> If you somehow do have a system where attackers might get hold of the EEProm contents without already having enough access to open your door, you probably want to redesign it. <S> You could look at one-way hash functions similar to Unix password hashing - that way the EEProm doesn't need t contain a decryption key - the problem is the search space for PINs is very small - if I can download the hashed version of the PIN, I can pretty quickly try all 10,000 possible PINs, I suspect any modern-ish laptop will run all of them in a few seconds. <A> Here is a method of simple encription in C that could easily be ported to the Arduino. <S> This seems like the easiest way to encrypt data with the arduino's limited resources. <S> -EDIT- <S> To keep the key out of your program you could make half of the PIN the key. <S> This means that your program takes the key half of the PIN to decrypt the encrypted 1/2 <S> PIN stored in EEProm. <S> If the decrypted key from EEProm match the part of your pin that is not the key, the door would unlock. <S> This would only work in a situation where it is not possible for the intruders to break down the door or reprogram the Arduino. <A> The problem I forsee is that if they can see your pins they can also see your program which encrypts/checks/decrypts your pins. <S> Plus if they have your chip, can they not just alter the program to always give a positive result (effectively bypassing the check) for any pin entered. <A> How do you plan to decode the encrypted PINs, in order to check if the user entered a valid PIN? <S> You'll need to store the decryption key... <S> at which point if the attacker can read your eeprom, he can also read your flash to find the encryption key. <S> Basically rendering your entire encryption completely useless. <S> Also as the other people said, if he already has the ability to read your chip, he could just write a new program. <S> Much simpler to just kick the door open, I doubt anyone would ever go to the trouble of trying to hack your chip. <A> These comments are really spot-on. <S> There's nothing wrong with trying to experiment to learn about encryption, but this isn't really a good project for learning such things. <S> You really want a good textbook and a computer, and as @bigiain says, the math is notoriously easy to get wrong. <S> For a better understanding of how cryptography works and what you're up against, the Handbook of Applied Cryptography is excellent and free: <S> If you just want to secure your project, this is an inefficient way of doing so. <S> If you're interested in cryptography, start with this book and a computer. <A> I hate not answering the question while asking another, but ... <S> Is there some reason why your device is not tamper proof? <S> I've seen push button switches in screw holes implemented 'on the bench' to detect the kind of tampering you are worried about. <S> Then .. here comes the kid with a butane micro torch that manages to get your chip without unscrewing anything (or damaging the chip).. <S> somehow, he knew the design of your tamper proof system which (also, hopefully) includes detecting changes in ambient light and / or sound. <S> When the cover comes off, both become quite different .. <S> day or night. <S> If that's the case, it should be a two part system where the exposed pieces communicate with something where encryption is more easily implemented. <S> Plus, checksums (help) account for the kid with the torch. <S> I think you are asking a screwdriver to be a hammer.
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There's also an implementation of Skein for AVR .
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3pi Robot with Bluetooth I want to use bluetooth to grab the info off my 3pi rather then have it display on the small LCD.Pololu provides a lib for serial communication. I'm wondering what the best bluetooth/serial module to use is? A friend recommended the Xbee module - Any thoughts? <Q> All you need for bluetooth is the module such as the BlueSMiRF from sparkfun and a Bluetooth usb dongle. <S> Then all you would do is use the serial capabilities on the 3pi to communicate with the computer through the Bluetooth serial connection with a program like Hyperterminal. <S> On the other hand, with the xbee you would need two transmitters and a way for the data to be read by a computer. <S> One way to do this is through the Xbee Explorer . <S> Both options would be the same cost but the Xbee route takes more components and is more complex. <S> This page shows you how to establish the virtual serial port, and this page shows the connection, although it is for the Lillypad. <S> You connect the VCC and Grounds of the 3pi and the Bluetooth then connect the RX and TX of the 3pi to the TX and RX of the Bluetooth module respectably. <S> Hope this helps. <S> Also Here is the tutorial for the 3pi serial communication. <A> For the most part I agree with Hristos, but must disagree about Xbee. <S> I have done this with both devices and there was not a significant difference in complexity. <S> I would point out, there is a good rule to remember here, like occam's razor for electronics, try to stick with the most common and accessible technology. <S> Many computers have bluetooth removing the need for a dongle, it is a very common tech, and by that fact has more available in development. <S> Range relation, most people think Xbee has greater range, but bluetooth also can have radiated power of up to 100mW in class 1, although saying a device is class 1 does not imply this to be true, it just defines a maximum, if you want range you MUST read about the devices actual radiated power. <S> Most people also overlook receiver sensitivity, you will find out with testing it often has more to do with range than the radiated power, although both are important. <S> Hope I helped. <S> -Max <A> Depends on your requirements but Xbee's wouldn't be a bad choice. <S> They have a better range than Bluetooth
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I would use bluetooth, it is easier to communicate with a computer.
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VGA monitor as the display for VHS player How do I connect an LCD monitor to be the display for a VHS VCR? <Q> If your VCR has RCA video out <S> you will need an RCA to VGA (d-sub) converter . <S> I never tried these but there are many out there. <S> Depending on your budget and video quality needed. <A> There are any number of video to VGA converters like these . <S> Google around and you can find more. <S> Prices vary widely and I don't have any direct experience to recommend one over another. <A> I think you need a TV Tuner card, because monitors are designed for a higher refresh rate so the picture would have to be digitized. <S> The bonus though is that you would get to also watch tv on it. <S> I picked one up on eBay for about $15 and I set it to record all my shows as a DVR.
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If your monitor has composite cables on it, you could hook it up through those, but the pic quality is not going to be so great coming off VHS.
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Switch between 5V power supplies? I'm designing a board that can be powered either by USB or an ATX power supply. They can both be plugged in at the same time, independently. I'd like the ATX to provide 5V if its plugged in, but fall back to the USB if possible. The chips in the circuit will all be running at 5V. Any ideas? <Q> Usually, if you can stand the voltage drop, you use a diode from each supply to the circuit. <S> This way the supplies won't back feed into each other. <S> If you can't stand the voltage drop, then you would use FETs to switch them into the circuit, using a little logic to turn on whichever FET you want based on which combination of supplies is attached. <S> But if you're just starting out in electronics, and are not sure of power supply design then go for the diodes. <S> Each diode will have a voltage drop, a current rating, and a wattage for dissipation. <S> Since you're drawing from a USB port, your current isn't going to be over 500mA, and that current with the voltage drop is less than a watt in power dissipation, so as long as you choose power diodes you should be fine. <S> The voltage drop for a standard 1N4001 diode ($0.30 each at Digikey ) is about 1 V at 1 A, so the output to your circuit would be 4V. <S> If you wanted to get a lower voltage drop you would move to Schottky diode, such as a 1N5817 which has a drop closer to 450mV at 1 A, so the voltage on the output side would be 4.55V. <S> That diode is only a few cents more. <S> If, however, you require exactly 5 volts to the circuit, you'll have to look at other switching methods, such as FETs. <S> Keep in mind, however, that it'll be more expensive, and nearly every other simple option still includes a voltage drop. <S> Most 5V devices and circuits will run fine at 4.5V, though, just check their specifications carefully and do some testing. <A> You should be able to use the same circuit that an Arduino Duemilanove uses; you can get the schematic in PDF or as Eagle files . <S> The Arduino designs are licensed under a Creative Commons license Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 . <S> Here's a description of the Duemilanove's power options: <S> The Arduino Duemilanove can be powered via the USB connection or with an external power supply. <S> The power source is selected automatically. <S> External (non-USB) power can come either from an AC-to-DC adapter (wall-wart) or battery. <S> The adapter can be connected by plugging a 2.1mm center-positive plug into the board's power jack. <S> Leads from a battery can be inserted in the Gnd and Vin pin <S> headers of the POWER connector. <S> The board can operate on an external supply of 6 to 20 volts. <S> If supplied with less than 7V, however, the 5V pin may supply less than five volts and the board may be unstable. <S> If using more than 12V, the voltage regulator may overheat and damage the board. <S> The recommended range is 7 to 12 volts. <S> The power pins are as follows: <S> VIN. <S> The input voltage to the Arduino board when it's using an external power source (as opposed to 5 volts from the USB connection or other regulated power source). <S> You can supply voltage through this pin, or, if supplying voltage via the power jack, access it through this pin. <S> 5V. <S> The regulated power supply used to power the microcontroller and other components on the board. <S> This can come either from VIN via an on-board regulator, or be supplied by USB or another regulated 5V supply. <S> 3V3. <S> A 3.3 volt supply generated by the on-board FTDI chip. <S> Maximum current draw is 50 mA. GND. <S> Ground pins. <A> Take a look at ORing MOSFET controllers like the <S> LTC4412 <S> ( http://www.linear.com/pc/productDetail.jsp?navId=H0,C1,C1003,C1142,C1079,P2220 ) <S> and Maxim's MAX5079 ( http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/4606 ). <S> A little more complicated (and expensive) <S> then using diodes in parallel. <S> However, the supply voltage drop and power dissipation will be minimal. <S> If you do go ahead with the diodes, remember that no two diodes have the exact same forward voltage. <S> So, the tolerances could work out such that the circuit is powered by the USB even if ATX is plugged in. <A> Then have an AND gate that if it sees 5V from both the USB power (before the buffer chip) and 5V from the ATX power supply, 1 and 1 = 1 (and chip selects are typically active low meaning that a '1' will turn OFF the USB supply). <S> edit: <S> I didnt mean buffer chip. <S> I meant to say some IC to 'clean' the voltage coming from the USB. <S> Really any chip you can use to supply the power and has a chip select pin
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What you may need to do is hook up the USB power through some sort of buffer with a chip select pin or something.
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Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) to USB Adapter I have an old Apple keyboard that I would like to use but it uses the ADB bus instead of the newer USB bus. Griffin used to produce a product called the iMate which was an ADB-to-USB converter but have since discontinued it. So I've decided to build one. It shouldn't be that difficult right? pinouts.ru has the bus specs. The pinouts are pretty straight forward: Pin Name Description----------------------------- 1 ADB Apple Desktop Bus 2 PSW Power Switch 3 +5V Power +5V 4 GND Ground How would I go about building something like this? Would I need to get a FTDI chip to do the interface? <Q> The Apple Desktop Bus is well documented on Apple's website ( http://developer.apple.com/legacy/mac/library/technotes/hw/hw_01.html ). <S> It's a single wire communications bus - the other wires are for power and ground, and the computer polls the devices continuously for data after an initial setup period. <S> Microchip's app note TB056 has a PS2 to USB keyboard adaptor. <S> Replace all the PS2 code and circuit interface with ADB code and interface, and you should be able to accomplish exactly what you need without a great deal of effort. <S> http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1824&appnote=en011984 is the current page for that app note, but if the link stops working you can search for TB056 and find it. <A> Are you expecting it to act as a normal keyboard, or just as something that works with special software? <S> If you are using an Arduino (say) with an FTDI cable, it will act like a device talking over a serial port. <S> You can send interpreted keypresses, and any application listening will see them. <S> (You would probably be best off to use ' screen '). <S> However, an application will not be listening to the serial port for keyboard input under normal conditions, and you may find yourself disappointed. <S> If you want it to pretend to be a USB keyboard, you'll need a chip in there that has a USB registration code as a keyboard device. <S> (I don't remember the proper term; probably some sort of HID -- Human Interface Device -- thing.) <S> In which case, the question, " I’d like to learn how to make my own USB gadgets " has some relevance to you. <S> If you are using a standard AVR chip, you can use the V-USB firmware to make it talk like a USB device. <S> See their examples of human input devices . <S> Alternatively, you could use an AT90USBKey and check out their USB Keyboard Demonstration [pdf] . <S> Bumble-B sounds somewhat similar. <A> If you want it to behave like a USB keyboard, you're going to have to have a microcontroller that translates between the ADB protocol and the USB protocol , and which implements the keyboard profile for the HID class.
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It would be relatively straightforward to do this with a variety of microcontrollers, and most USB capable microcontroller manufacturers have at least one application note on how to make a keyboard HID device (ie, USB keyboard).
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What sort of things can an Arduino do? Sorry for the question, I'm just starting out in robotics - as a hobby- and I was just interested in what I'll be able to actually do, please let me know, <Q> Arduino is very flexible. <S> You can do a lot of neat stuff with it. <S> It's one of the best tools for interfacing software to the real world. <S> However, it might be useful to also ask " What can <S> an Arduino not do? ". <S> Arduino has very limited memory <S> and I/O <S> compared to modern computers. <S> So some of the things the Arduino cannot do or cannot do easily are things that require a lot of memory or access to complex peripherals, like: video recording, processing & output high-fidelity audio recording & processing act as USB host for USB devices like flash drives, disk drives, cameras, keyboards, etc. <S> So, you can't easily make a video game system that hooks to your TV with an Arduino. <S> That doesn't mean people haven't done it, but that level of hacking is in the realm of deep voodoo, and the results still end up looking like a 1980s videogame. <S> Often you see Arduino boards hooked up as peripherals to a larger computer. <S> The computer does the A/V and the Arduino handles all the other physical world interfacing. <S> Another common use is the fully embedded system where a more mundane device is made "smart" with a hidden Arduino. <S> ("Your coffee table now knows when you set cups on it and buzzes you if you don't use a coaster") <S> This is where Arduino seems happiest. <A> It depends on whether you're only talking about the bare Arduino, or Arduinos with shields or other augmented bits attached. <S> One great thing about Arduinos is that it's relatively easy to design shields that add capabilities to the Arduino. <S> Without anything attached, the Arduino is pretty useless. <S> It has no way to interact with the outside world other than USB serial. <S> The sky's the limit. <S> I especially like being able to put an entire microcontroller development environment, including programmer and an assortment of components (jumper wires, resistors, etc) in my laptop bag and go off to a coffee shop to hack on it. <S> What the stock arduino doesn't do well: <S> heavy processing - like face or motion detection from a camera. <S> It just doesn't have the processing power or RAM for it. <S> super low power consumption - the stock arduino tends to draw too much current for really long-lived battery powered applications. <S> For those you have to switch to an arduino compatible device (e.g. Arduino Pro Mini), at which point running for months on some AAs is easily achievable (and you can still prototype with the stock arduino). <A> The Arduino is good at a particular class of problems. <S> These are situations where you receive a bunch of inputs, make a decision based on them, and as a result output something. <S> It can do many things, but is especially good at this. <S> Fortunately this is a very wide class of problems. <S> Another way to understand this is " What is the Ardunio NOT good at ". <S> There are two main classes of problem it does not do well at: <S> It is not good at processing intensive applications, or Where a general purpose system is required - one that can switch between many different applications on demand. <S> So it has more in common with your washing machine than it does with your laptop. <S> You can think of it as a computer appliance , not a PC. <A> Arduino's can do a variety of things for robots, including but not limited to: process data from sensors and control servos/motors. <S> For some general examples take a look at <S> Freeduino.org <S> Arduino.cc Examples <S> You can connect other modules to an Arduino using what is called a shield . <S> Shields are available from several small businesses like LittleBird Electronics , AdaFruit Industries , Sparkfun , etc. <A> have a look at: http://tronixstuff.com/tutorials :) <A> check out the arduino playground http://www.arduino.cc/playground/ , and for robotics in particular http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/InterfacingWithHardware#Physical_Mechanical <A> Go to instructables and search on arduino. <S> Lots of hits.
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Once you've got peripherals added to your Arduino you communicate wirelessly, read sensors, trigger motors, audio outputs, light shows, etc.
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Starting out PIC Programming I've been looking into doing some PIC Programming, but unlike some of the other microcontrollers available the sheer number of different chips available has caused me some confusion. It also appears that some of the chips suggested on some sites as good choices for people starting out with PIC programming may have been superseded (or I may just be getting even more confused). So my question boils down to three parts: What would be a good PIC chip to start out with? I'm quite happy doing either assembler or some other language, so what IDEs/languages would you suggest for Linux? What would you recommend in terms of getting the code onto the chip, over a USB connection from a Linux laptop (PicKit 2? was one possibility) and what circuit/board configuration will I need to do this? Edit: After a long discussion with Kortuk (see comments below) on the merits of various bits of kit, I've decided to start with the PicKit2 Starter Kit. This comes with a PIC16F690 chip installed. <Q> I agree with PIC18s but for someone just starting they may be a bit intense. <S> I currently teach senior level electrical engineers PIC development and even within the same classes their range of backgrounds can be astounding. <S> I currently teach people with the CCS PIC-C compiler <S> but it costs money. <S> It is unbelievable simple and was chosen as most of our students have only worked in a lab setting with basic assembly or x86 programming. <S> I have a feeling <S> a very simple PIC16 may be a better fit, but it will depend on your background. <S> The PIC16F688 is a very simple PIC that we use for our first project to warm people up. <A> For the PIC, there is an open source compiler called JAL (Just Another Language) <S> Like other programming languages it allows the possibility to use hardware libraries to greatly simplify the process of attaching your chosen PIC to other hardware. <S> The software also will allow you to compile and upload programs via your PIC2 (or a clone of this programmer) <S> JAL is a Pascal based language and is free software (always nice if your just starting out) JAL Wiki Entry As for books, "PIC Microcontrollers, 50 projects for beginners and experts" By Bert Van Dam is worth a look at as an introduction to JAL <S> Pretty cheap and lots of ports available. <A> For chip look at the 18F series, allmost as cheap as the 16F a lot more guts. <S> 18F2550 is a nice chip and includes USB, there are others in the same series. <S> Take a look at microchips selection charts on their website. <S> Free IDE from microchip including C which you should use over assembler IMHO. <S> Not sure if microchip IDE runs on Linux but it may. <S> PicKit may be good for programming, may want to burn a bootloader the first time then bootload over usb. <S> The Bitwacker ( google it ) is a nice setup to use or copy. <S> There are a ton of forums and other sites, just google. <S> One problem with the PIC is that there are so many languages and none are quite the same ( even within c compilers ) <S> If you can write a good question ask on piclist.com, but do your homework first. <S> Forums are not the best place for learning, look for tutorial sites for that ( again the bitwacher site is good, also google "Embedded Adventures" <S> the guy has done a lot in C ( but not the microchip one ) <A> The Dwengo board is based on the PIC18F4550, they also have a low-cost PICkit2 clone and some very good tutorials to get you started: http://www.dwengo.org/tutorials <A> For references to some stuff, I have done a little programming with the PIC using <S> Pik Kit 2 Pickit 1, I would recommend the 100 microcontroller projects for the evil genius, I also have some blog posts that are dealing with such things http://blog.onaclovtech.com/2010/01/interrupts.html <S> http://blog.onaclovtech.com/2010/01/analog-inputs.html <S> http://blog.onaclovtech.com/2010/02/pic-16f913-quick-reference-guide.html <S> http://blog.onaclovtech.com/2010/02/pic-16f913.html <S> I plan to post a SPI update as well as when I figure out how to deal with CAN bus traffic using some microchip chips, I'll have updates then too. <S> Thank you, onaclov <A> If you want to use PICs I would seriously consider the PIC24 series of 16 bit pics or the very similar dsPIC33. <S> They are faster, more powerful, in many ways easier to program, and don't cost any more than the most basic 8 bit ones. <S> The lower end ones are available in breadboard friendly DIP socket packages too. <S> It's a lot harder to find examples on the internet though, but as far as i can see that's the main disadvantage.
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So far I have used just the 16F877A chip from PIC, a good beginners chip apparently.
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Is Arduino ideal for making a HRNG (hardware random number generator)? I'm putting together a design for a hardware random number generator that will utilize multiple sources of entropy ( combined ): Ambient light Ambient sound (and sound levels) Ambient temp Ambient humidity Position of the device itself (upside down, tilted left, titled right, etc) Other sources in the future, possibly even GPS data (marked possible because two users may be standing next to each other, hence possibly deterministic if you know them.) My idea is to make an entropy pool 'recharger' that people can carry around with them during their day while it continues to write to a USB drive. After a few hours, the user will have a nice ~4GB entropy pool that can be plugged in to a PC and used. I can't afford the really expensive QRNG's based on light or radioactive decay, so I'm trying to come up with something cheaper. In your opinion, is Arduino the best choice for prototyping this? If not, what would you recommend? <Q> I think you'll want to go down the path busz suggests. <S> Search for the concept "diode noise". <S> The PN junctions in diodes and transistors can produce close to perfect Gaussian white noise. <S> Sampling that should be a source of entropy that's better than any environmental source. <S> The problem with most environmental/ambient data is the values just don't change that much over time: temperature, humidity, light and sound all have less than an order-of-magnitude of variability with really strong modes. <S> An accelerometer to measure motion might be a good source of variability if mounted on a person, but you'd likely have to do a bit of signal processing to remove the normal modes of oscillation that are present in how humans move. <S> An ambient light & sound source might have some pretty high variability if placed in an high-density urban space, but again I think there would be a lot of repetition. <S> I still think the best source of entropy would be going down towards fundamental physical properties of materials like diode noise than going up in scale and looking at environmental factors capable of being read by a microcontroller. <A> There are some interesting circuits for HRNG without the need for ambient entropy sources: http://www.cryogenius.com/hardware/rng/ http://robseward.com/itp/adv_tech/random_generator/ and more... <S> It's definitely possible to adapt one of these circuits to an Arduino shield . <S> The Arduino would then act as a gateway between the HRNG and a PC. <S> If you really need ambient entropy input, the arduino has 6 analog input channels <S> so you can read out almost any sensor that you can think of and use the data as a source for a random seed. <A> Two comments: Look into Bruce Schneier's Yarrow PRNG algorithm. <S> The main point is that you can have a really lousy source of "true" random information; as long as you accumulate enough of it over time, the resulting uncertainty can be combined with software pseudo-random number generation techniques to yield decent random numbers. <S> On the other hand, I have to agree with most other answerers. <S> Make sure you use something that is based on intrinsic device noise, and it will be insensitive of environmental changes. <A> I just spotted this Random Number Generator : Hourglass Random Number Generator http://makezineblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/usbsand.jpg?w=600&h=703 over on Make: <S> Blog and thought you might be interested. <A> I agree with the above two responses. <S> Human activities and ambient readings will make a terrible random pool. <S> But it sounds like you will only be convinced of this by trying it and checking the resulting randomness yourself. <S> It will be a great learning experience for you! <S> Arduino is fine for this application. <S> Check out these tutorials on connecting sensors to Arduino: http://www.ladyada.net/learn/sensors/ <A> This may be an option for you. <S> Its from sparkfun and not cheap, but it will probably be excellent as a 'true' random number generator. <S> It uses a geigercounter to generate the random numbers. <S> https://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/tutorial_info.php?tutorials_id=132 <A> A number of the white noise generators in the analog music synthesizers (Moog and Arp) wouldavalanche a transistor. <S> If you query online for the Minimoog schematic or the <S> ARP4027 youshould find the schematics. <S> I did a PCB layout for the ARP4027. <S> If you can't find the schematic send me an email. <S> National had made a digital random number generator -- the MM5437. <S> IIRC there weresome programs for an AT-tiny that would do this too. <S> Could be a fun little project. <A> I have read recently a very interesting discussion of using resistors to generate random noise. <S> Due to quantum effects, a resistor will produce a very small voltage. <S> This can be amplified with an op-amp to produce a high quality source of random noise. <A> You could use the sensor input as seeds to a pseudo-random number generator. <S> The Linux OS uses input from the keyboard/mouse as seeds to /dev/random. <S> Just an idea.
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Slowly-changing signals from environmental sensors are lousy sources of entropy, and could easily be influenced. All of the sensors you are interested in can be attached to Arduino and there are Arduino libraries available for those sensors.
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Why the resistor in this op-amp circuit? Here's a circuit diagram for a signal response test circuit from the spec sheet for a HA-5195 op amp and looks like a non-inverting amplifier circuit with a gain of 5, plus the 200Ω resistor between Vout and ground: It's the canonical (I assume?) non-inverting amplifier circuit with R1 = 400Ω and Rf = 1.6kΩ, plus the resistor I'm asking about. Can someone explain the purpose of the 200Ω resistor? <Q> It is a load resistor probably. <S> The current an op-amp drives can greatly increase it's non-ideal property. <S> The finite gain becomes more apparent as you drive more current, along with the output resistance. <S> When simulating an OP-amp you should always attempt to place a load resistor across the output for the effective load you are connecting to. <S> If you want to look up a method of doing something like this, Thevenin equivalent circuits are a good example. <S> Community Wiki is on if anyone wants to expand. <A> Right above that diagram, in the NOTES section, it says R L = 200Ω. <S> "R L " means "load resistor". <S> You'll see that they show it in all the other diagrams, too. <S> This op-amp is specified for high-frequency video applications, and in these cases you generally have low impedance loads like this <S> so the sources and loads can be matched to avoid reflections back up cables. <S> In Recommended Test Procedures for Operational Amplifiers they describe using a load resistance when measuring transient response, and have a table of recommended values for each part (0.2 kΩ for this part). <S> I guess the high-speed transient response is affected by the load (I don't work with high-speed stuff), so they're showing it in-circuit to show a real-life application. <S> The overall gain will also be decreased, since the output impedance of the op-amp is 25-30 Ω (as shown in page 2 of the datasheet), and the maximum output level will be decreased, as shown in Figure 13. <S> In the application notes , it says: In Figure 19, R IN is usually the terminating resistance for the input cable, and it is usually 50Ω or 75Ω . <S> R M is the matching resistance for the cable being driven, and R T is the terminating resistance for the driven cable. <S> R T is often shown here for gain calculations while it is physically placed at the cable end. <S> In this case, R T is the same as R L in the datasheet. <S> So it's being shown "here" for its effect on the gain. <S> So, in general, they're showing the load in the circuit to demonstrate that their measurements were tested in a real-life video situation. <A> Test specifications always go into great detail describing test conditions and the test environment, otherwise you the test wouldn't be repeatable with the same results. <S> For this case the test spec apparently says load must be 200\$\Omega\$. But since the 1600\$\Omega\$ + 400\$\Omega\$ are parallel to the 200\$\Omega\$, the actual load is 182\$\Omega\$, and it's not likely that this is what they wanted. <S> They simply could have used 160\$\Omega\$ + 40\$\Omega\$ instead of 1600\$\Omega\$ + 400\$\Omega\$, and they would have exactly 200\$\Omega\$ without needing the third resistor. <S> In a test environment this is not so important, but in a design for production the third resistor would be an extra cost.
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Often op-amp circuits have the "load" placed as a resistor.
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Controlling DC (Pager) Motor with Audio Signal I'm trying to control a DC (pager) motor with a sound signal so that I can use an audio synthesizer to control the speed of the motor. I'm hoping to modulate the speed of the motor at audio rate (1-200hz). I need to do a few things. Convert AC -> DC. A rectifier will chop the negative or fold it up, but how can I shift the waveform up, per se? What is the circuit equivalent of f(x)+1? (or will a rectifier be good enough) I could send the rectified signal straight to the motor, but this might be a waste of energy. Two strategies present themselves: Use a comparator to send only the peaks Use PWM (Frequency -> Pulsewidth) Which do you think will work better? Can you think of other strategies? Should I implement this with, say, a small AVR chip, or with analog electronics? An additional constraint is that the circuit has to be small. Ideally my motor + battery + circuit would be quarter-sized. Any advice would be appreciated. (I'll also need to do some lowpass filtering to avoid overwhelming the motors with information they can't respond to. Thoughts on this would be appreciated as well.) I will be using this pager motor from Solarbotics possibly in conjunction with this one from Precision Microdrives, who specialize in vibration motors . <Q> Use PWM to drive the pager motor, at a frequency above human hearing (so you don't get audio whine from the PWM). <S> You'll need to choose pager motor, and then characterize it to find what duty cycle produces what approximate frequency of spin. <S> Each motor will be slightly different, but motors manufactured at the same time should be close. <S> You won't be able to get an exact frequency without some form of feedback. <S> They are the same type of motor used to run hard drive platters and CD/DVD discs. <S> If you rip apart a CD burner you should be able to take this motor, and you may be able to hack the motor drive circuitry to do what you need - <S> but then you have to attach your own eccentric weight to the motor, and the whole assembly is going to be much larger than a pager motor. <S> But if you're just looking for a close approximation, you may be able to characterize a particular pager motor and be satisfied with that. <A> Quarter-sized is pretty small, you're going to need to go all surface mount components on a PCB to get to that. <S> Basically you want to create vibrations that is related to sound... <S> you know there are actually some devices out there that already do this, but they aren't exactly PG-rated, so I'm not sure if I can link to them here. <S> Do you want to go based simply on the volume of the audio signal, or something else? <S> Volume is pretty easy to sense, you simply measure the voltage peaks, you could do this with the ADC on an AVR for example, then use PWM to drive the motor, as you suggested. <S> They have some pretty small AVR chips (like 8-pin TSSOP is the tiniest I think), but the tiny tiny ones might not have both ADC and PWM, so you might need a tiny bit larger. <A> Do this:NPN trans or two (wired parallel for current)Resistor for base (100 ohms or so)Pager from 5V to Collector of NPN trans (or whatever max the motor can handle)Bring Audio through diode with capacitor to smooth voltage out <S> This charge will feed to the resistor to act as the base bias. <S> This will allow you to use volume control to determine when the pager motor turns on or off. <S> You can play with resistor and capacitor sizes with this setup too. <S> Just be careful not to go too low on the resistor size. <S> You could use a bridge to rectify audio, but one diode seems to work fine. <A> Are you trying to spin the motor at a rate proportional to the volume of the sound, or the frequency ? <S> The amplitude is easy, just rectify, integrate, and amplify (diode -> cap -> amplifier). <S> Speed proportional to frequency is more involved. <S> Way more involved. <S> All I can think of is trying to implement a FFT in a micro, and using the FFT's output to control the motor via PWM. <S> This would involve a lot of math, and a micro fast enough to do the calculations.
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The basic idea is you use the diode and capacitor to create a variable DC level in the capacitor. If you can get ahold of 3 phase pager motors then you can set the exact frequency of vibration, but they aren't easy to find, and are harder to drive properly.
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How can I convert the output from a momentary switch to a pulse on push and a pulse on release? The title pretty much says it all. I have an idea to try out involving a op-amp differentiator circuit and a diode bridge, but I am flying blind. Also I am trying to accomplish this without a micro-controller. <Q> If you'd like a nice analog solution, there's this circuit that's used by flight simmers: <S> (source: simprojects.nl ) <S> The schematic shows the arrangement for a toggle switch, but it could be easily substituted for a momentary. <S> Each time the switch changes positions, the capacitor has to charge and discharge. <S> During this time, a voltage is developed across the relay contacts, closing the switch. <S> Once the capacitor has charged, the relay turns off again. <S> More info here: http://www.simprojects.nl/toggle_to_momentary.htm <A> XOR gate: <S> I've used the NC7SZ58 for this, which is cheap ($0.04) and tiny and has Schmitt trigger inputs <S> so the pulses are roughly the same length (which can be set by the RC values). <A> Depending on how much you want to invest in learning, the debouncing, xor, flip-flop solution would be the most "basic". <S> The 555 is a great circuit to learn about though. <S> Here is a page that walks through about a large number of applications for it: http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/555timer.htm <S> If you look for "Edge-triggering" under the monostable section you will find what seems to be the solution you are looking for. <A> This works OK as an "edge detector", but it doesn't do any debouncing - you didn't ask for this :-). <S> It's probably the cheapest way if you already have an unused xor gate in your design. <A> Allowing a 555 but rejecting a microcontroller is silly, you can get a microcontroler in the same or smaller package than a 555, and as a bonus you can do debouncing in software, saving some extra components which would be required to debounce the signal for the 555. <S> Same thing goes for D flip-flop and XOR gate... <S> that's 2 ICs you need, in addition to the debouncing components. <S> What is your reason for wanting to avoid a microcontroller? <S> The simplest ones are $1, probably much less in high quantities. <S> If it's space, there is an 8-pin TSSOP AVR which is like 3x5 mm, pretty tiny. <A> There might be a way to do it with a 555 timer set up as a one-shot. <S> One D flip flop and one XOR gate will also do it. <S> Exact logic left as an exercise to the reader.
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You may use a simple xor gate, and one of the inputs connected to the switch directly, while the other input through a R-C circuit which provides the delay.
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Arduino Text to Speech has anyone used the arduino to convert text to speech? <Q> You could also interface with several speech synth chips available. <S> Devantech SP03 module has been popular but it is hard to find. <S> What makes it especially cool is the I2C interface. <A> I think it should be possible to use the PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) to playback audio samples - but at very low quality. <S> I've heard this done on the BBC Micro game Exile , on a 6502 CPU way back in the day. <S> Text to speech seems like quite a lot to ask of an ATMEGA series chip. <S> But who knows what clever people are out there to prove me wrong! <A> speechchips.com sells a few IC's programmed to handle text-to-speech for you. <S> Depending on your application though...you can probably get much better quality simply using pre-recorded audio stored on a SD card or something. <S> Sure it might take a couple hundred MB for all your different speech recordings, but that's just pennies at today's SD card prices, and SD cards can be interfaced via SPI. <A> Just discovered this blog post on LMR. <S> Looks pretty cool. <S> SpeakJet
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Cantarino is a work in progress software speech synthesizer for Arduino.
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Where can I source extra long headers from I have recently purchased a sparkfun protoboard that I wish to stack above an ethernet shield. (I have 2 different ethernet shields, an Arduino one and a seeed studio enc28j60 shield.) The problem I have is that if I use the supplied headers, or even the longer "Arduino Stackable header" then the magjack from the ethernet shield below contacts the protoboard. This happens before adding the components at the front of the board, I suspect that if I solder those in the header won't even make reliable contact. So, I'd like to source some extra long headers, either male-male or male-female would be fine. I did notice that the Arduino ethernet shield has extra long headers - does anyone know where to source those or any other 1.5cm long headers from? It would be awesome if the supplier had a reasonable shipping rate to Australia, but I'll take whatever I can get. :) I have searched farnell without luck so far, but the number of products is a bit bewildering so there is a chance I have overlooked the perfect header. <Q> <A> Is this the sort of thing you had in mind or do you need longer ones still? <S> They appear to have other options too, I searched for Headers on the site these were on the second page. <A> Digikey has lots of different sizes . <S> Here's a really really long one: SAM1067-50-ND <S> (not exactly cheap though, $18 for 10pcs, with 50 pins each) <S> (source: davr.org ) <S> No idea on Digikey's policy of shipping to Australia though, but it's quite reasonable pricing for in the USA. <A> Are these long enough: <S> In one salvage job I found some "double ended" headers, long pins on both ends. <S> These can be very handy because once plugged in they can be used to let you plug in female connectors ( like those on hard drive cables ( but just one of the two sides ) to the board. <S> Hard part to find. <S> But wait, you can solder two regular headers back to back. <S> http://www.opencircuits.com/Solderless_protoboard#More_Tips <A> Samtec make every kind of header you can imagine, and have a very good sample service <A> On eBay use search criteria "Arduino 15 mm Headers"... <S> You'll get some 16 entries, very reasonably priced with free shipping... <S> They have 10 piece and 100 piece entries for 10 8 and 6 pin headers... <S> If you're using ICSP, either cut & double, or buy the 2 row 5 piece - 2 x 18 sets, which you will need to slice out 3 pin sets, sacrificing 1 or 2 pins in-between, and be carefull at what height <S> you solder them in, to excatly match the other heights... <S> I also noticed the new ones from Arduino come with printing on the sides... <S> All pins individually identified... <S> GREAT...! <S> Arduino should add some dozen new products... <S> These 15 mm labeled header sets, UNO R3, Due, Tre, Mega, Pi, etc...
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I use a second set of long headers, push them into the ethernet board and then push the protoboad into them.
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LEDs for full daylight I'm working on making a sign that will be outdoors in full sunlight and I want it to have the longest range visibility. This is a project for university and I will probably need 100 LEDs or so - I need the cheapest possible but I really want people to be able to see it from afar! <Q> I haven't bought from them much, but they have LEDs in pretty much any size and output you'd want. <S> Make sure you pay attention to viewing angle as well as output power - for a sign you probably want something with a wide viewing angle. <A> The super bright white LED may be a good bet, only 20 ma or so to light. <A> I've had good luck with ledshoppe.com. <S> 100 5mm super-bright LEDs them should come in around $5-$8, shipping included. <S> They can take a couple weeks to arrive (they ship from Hong Kong or Taiwan), but all 3 orders I've done with them have arrived reliably. <S> I'd suggest buying some extras - for only twice as much <A> If you want to go a slightly different route, you can buy LED fixtures from Philips Color Kinetics (www.colorkinetics.com). <S> They make string lights ("Flex" is the name of the series), and you can talk to them using one of their power supply/controllers via Ethernet or DMX (an RS-485 based protocol). <S> Its an option rather than hardcoding it yourself. <S> You could then mount the Flex lights how you want them. <S> They should be bright enough to see far away in daylight. <S> Just another option... <A> To be seen from a long distance you have to compromise. <S> Increasing visibility from a single point or a certain direction is possible by reducing the angle of radiation without adding a huge amount of power. <S> The narrower the cone the radiation is confined by the housing of the LED the more power will be directed to the eye of the beholder. <S> This works well if your sign has to be seen from a linear road, i.e. if beholders follow a certain path approaching the sign. <S> Another method to increase visibility without investing lots into high power LEDs is to increase contrast by surrounding all LEDs with dark non-reflective matter like cardboard with black paint. <S> These are methods which do not depend on the progress of LED production in terms of power and efficiency, so I dared to add them to this old question.
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SuperBrightLeds.com have a wide variety, at least. you can get 200 LEDs and have plenty of extras in case you toast a few along the way.
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Synchronise multiple Mega boards to run multiple servo motors My friend Jules asks: The aim is to get as many servo motor controls as possible - looks like the maximum an Arduino will output is 14? Digital I/O Pins54 (of which 14 provide PWM output) I guess then it becomes a software issue to synchronise multiple Mega boards?- ie 14 x 14 array using 14 boards <Q> I would also go for same route todbot suggested. <S> However since I am a big fan of I2C I am using SD21 servo controller which can drive 21 servos. <S> If you need even more there is SD84 servo controller which can drive (you guessed it) 84 servos. <A> There are many open source examples of servo controllers out there, but you can also buy fulling built ones. <S> For instance, here's a Polulu 8-servo controller and a Pololu 16-servo controller . <S> Get a few of those, hook them up to any digital pins of the Arduino and use the SoftSerial library to send commands to them. <A> I use a SSC-32 Servo Controller from Lynxmotion. <S> It uses an ATmega8 or ATmega168 and can control up to 32 servos. <S> You can find everything (circuit diagram, firmware) to build it on their page. <S> I built one myself and it worked fine. <A> I agree with the other guys, use a dedicated servo controller. <S> I'm in the process of building my own for my hexapod robot, see here source code and schematics available. <A> Another approach is to use "digital" servos, such as OpenServo . <S> That way you can drive a dozen or so servos using 2 Arduino pins, and a dozen or so more servos using 2 more pins.
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If you want to drive multiple servos, the better route might be to hook a few dedicated servo controllers to a single Arduino.
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Custom PCBs... what can go wrong? I'm anxiously awaiting the delivery of my second set of custom designed PCBs from BatchPCB. The first board I designed was pretty darn simple and didn't have any problems. This second set includes a full on arduino compatible board plus two shields for it. Somehow I suspect I made a mistake somewhere. My question is: what sorts of things have other folks gotten wrong? When I start debugging why that board doesn't work, what kind of things should I be looking for? What are the first things that you check? As it turns out, my boards have two problems. The first is that there's a cap too close to the ISP header. I just didn't allow enough space. The second is that the holes I specified, while large enough for all my normal through-hole components, are too small for breakaway headers to fit into without manually reaming them out a little bit (almost like it's just the thickness of the plating layer that covers the copper). Other than that, everything is good. I very carefully checked all the power connections before doing anything to make sure I wasn't about to short something badly, and held the various boards up to the light and verified alignment of stacking headers. <Q> After you make sure power/ground aren't shorted, make sure that any silk screen or pin 1 markings for polarized components are correct - you don't want to go soldering that kind of stuff in backwards. <S> After that it's really kind of random. <S> I was involved in bringing up a number of multi-layer boards over the years (not my designs) and we had pretty much any kind of screw-up you could make - traces that didn't go where they should, traces that simply weren't there, <S> pads that weren't connected to their traces, etc, etc. <S> I once even saw an issue where a broken trace was caused by the guys who built up the board gripping it wrong with pliers to break off a break-away section. <S> We were doing high layer-count designs, so we also had a lot of internal layer foolishness that you aren't going to see on a 2 or 4 layer board (registration can be...interesting when you've got 10 or more layers). <S> Once you get past the power/ground thing, you're probably not going to have too much trouble. <S> Just take your time, test each bit of functionality one by one, and you should be good to go. <S> If you're feeling paranoid, you could try building up the board one bit at a time (first put on and test the power, then the CPU and it's communications. <S> If you're feeling REALLY paranoid, you can sit down with the schematic and a meter and buzz-out the entire board. <S> But unless the board is really small, that's gonna take a while. <S> You definitely want to get the main board working before you start on the secondary boards. <S> Good luck! <A> Common non-obvious problems that crop up specifically with Arduino shield PCBs: <S> Not connecting the Gnd pins on the analog side with the Gnd pin on the digital side Component placement makes them short against metal of Arduino (USB jack & ISP connector usually) <S> Headers flipped 180º (digital 7 -> 0, 6->1, 5->2, etc.) <S> Bad header spacing so it the shield doesn't plug in to Arduino Board larger than Arduino, making Arduino+shield assembly not fit enclosures Many of these errors can be discovered by printing out the PCB (both top & bottom) on paper at 1:1 scale, cutting it out, and laying it on top of an real Arduino. <S> It makes it physical. <A> First thing I'd check is make sure Power and Ground are not shorted. <S> Should probably check this again after soldering the components, just to be sure. <A> Next thing you want to do is to measure every "output" pin on chips that they are not shorted to anything because that will kill them. <S> And generally building everything in sections and making sure every section works by itself is a good practice. <A> I have been pretty lucky with PCBs that I have sent to fab houses, though I verge on the paranoid when I am preparing the design. <S> Big rule as said before is begin with a schematic. <S> Once that is correct, the software will to an extent look after you. <S> I personally use DIptrace which includes error checking tools, even in the free editions. <S> I am pretty sure that most of the packages do. <S> If you are designing Arduino shields it might be worth looking at the Fritzing Project . <S> It is software that allows you to design either in schematic, breadboard or PCB layout specifically for the Arduinio. <S> Templates are already there for board sizes and pinouts. <S> I have not done more than play with it, and it does seem at first glance to be a little basic PCB design wise. <S> However it also seems very convenient. <A> A schematic will give you a better representation of what you're trying to achieve. <S> Then you can check the PCB against the schematic which will be easier and many PCB apps now can check against your schematic to make sure that you have everything connected properly (or at least the same way it was in the schematic). <A> Make sure all the mounting holes are in the correct location. <S> Also check all the components that need to poke through the enclosure such as LEDs and switches and connectors are in the correct location.
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When you start populating the board the first thing you want to do is to make sure all the chips get power (build the PSU section first and then make sure it is not shorted, then measure all the power pins for the chips get power). One of the best methods to creating an error free PCB is to create a schematic first.
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Is there a single IC that can control a 8x8 RGB LED Matrix I was wondering if there was a single IC like the MAX6960 that could control a whole 8x8 RGB LED Matrix because the MAX6960 can only control a RGY. <Q> I'm not sure how easy they are to get hold of. <S> Also interesting RGB application of the TI <S> TLC5490 here . <A> I found no easy and affordable way to do this with a single IC, so I've "used" a project like this as an "excuse" to learn the use of FPGAs. <S> I've managed to handle a single array of 20x16 led with 16 "gray" levels, driven from a PC via RS232 port with 50 Hz refresh rate with an Altera CycloneII EP2C5 and a transistor for each row and column. <S> I don't think it costs much more than a dedicated IC. <A> Yes, well sort of The Maxim MAX7219 or MAX7221 <S> IC's can be cascaded to give you control of up to 8 8x8 LED matrix via SPI Not perfect, but code examples are available... <S> That should make it least the programming a bit easier. http://www.arduino.cc/playground/LEDMatrix/Max7219 <A> Driving large LED arrays is one of the "killer" applications for XMOS devices Leon <A> You can use 8 of the TLC5947. <S> http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tlc5947.pdf <S> TLC5947 is 24 channels of PWM controlled by shifting in 12 bits of brightness data for each channel. <S> This would give you would give you a nearly continuous spectrum of color for each LED (3 channels per LED -> 8 LEDs per 24-channel IC). <S> The 8 of them could be controlled in series (look at the example on page 1 of the datasheet), so you can essentially treat them as if they are a single IC with 192 registers each of 12 bits. <S> Though note that this will divide your refresh rate by 8, given any particular clock speed.
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The Holtek HT1632 chip controls a 24*16 panel of LEDs - so it would control a 8*16 matrix of RGB leds.
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PCB etching with transparent film After etching a PCB I discovered a big spot across some of the traces - probably from a finger. I transferred the PCB layout from a transparent film. What would be the best way to remove "finger" and others from both the PCB and the film before etching without destroying them? <Q> After this point, we use gloves. <S> The gloves are an attempt to keep our body oils off of the board. <S> The board is very clean and nice for the photo-resist at this point, and it has paid off well. <A> I would say it is impossible <S> and you just need to expose a new board or try to fix the old one after etching. <S> I'd just try etching the board and then just scraping the traces off from each other with a dremel or some other tool, depending where the fingerprint is. <A> Make sure you have the transparency in direct contact with your photosensitive board. <S> Any distance between them will cause distortions. <S> Similarily, you will want a glass plate on top of the transparency to keep it flat. <S> Remember, your etching will only be as good as the artwork. <A> We have had a lot of luck subsituting regular white paper stock for the transparency. <S> We have found that the process ends up with less broken tracees and "blob" spots. <S> You have to increase the exposure time for the time under the UV light. <S> This only works for photo-etching. <A> Tracing paper in a laser printer is better than film you get better toner adhesion. <S> Use the thick stuff <S> >=90gsm to avoid crinkling in the fuser.
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We wash with a mild detergent and then put the PCB through a very quick bath in etchant.
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Good book for non-beginner firmware development I do a lot of firmware work at my job, but I'm looking for more advanced books on the topic. Things not like the basics of "what is an interrupt". I'm reading the O'Reilly book on embedded systems development which is OK, but not advanced enough. For instance, its rare for books to discuss things like Flash pages (which can be really useful), how to put a section of code in a specific area of memory. Perhaps something with some tips and tricks. I do primarily PIC programming. <Q> Jack Ganssle's The Firmware Handbook has some good bits and pieces. <S> Best of all you can find a lot of the good parts from the book (and more) on his website . <A> I wish I had a good suggestion, I will watch the thread hoping a great book shows up. <S> As a side not, the manual that comes with your compiler is one of the most important books you can read. <S> In general this is where you learn the nitty-gritty of placing code in certain areas. <S> Learning about how to use flash at a basic level, like what pages are, you can learn from the datasheet. <S> If you need to learn more advanced topics, well, I guess looking for a good book is the right way to go. <S> I will let you know that there is a very very large amount of educational materials on the microchip website. <S> Most microcomputer sites put a lot of material up to help boost new users to learn their system. <A> I like "Practical UML Statecharts in C/C++, Second Edition: <S> Event-Driven Programming for Embedded Systems" by Miro Samek. <S> The previous edition was called "Practical Statecharts in C/C++: <S> " <S> I read the previous edition of this book cover to cover, and in some ways I prefer that edition because it was more C++ based. <S> The latest edition is more C based, which makes sense for embedded development because even the smallest micros have a C compiler. <S> Don't be scared by the UML part. <S> The important thing to learn is how to use state machines to make your code more robust and reliable. <S> UML is just one way to express a state machine, and the subset of UML required is very minimal. <A> For the 16-bit PICs, I recommend "Microcontrollers: From Assembly Language to C Using the PIC24 Bit Family" by R. Reese, J. Bruce and B. Jones, ISBN 978-1584505839. <S> It has a lot of hardware (including schematics) mixed in with the firmware discussions and is not just a rehash of datasheets. <S> I don't have that one myself though. <S> Both books are quite recent (published in 2008). <S> -- <S> Tom <A> Linkers and Loaders by John R. Levine (ISBN 1-55860-496-0) is quite good. <S> It's about the low-level details of memory, code relocation, symbol management, and the like, but not exclusively for embedded development. <S> Still, it's the best book on such low-level details that I know of. <S> At this point, it might be a little dated-- <S> I don't think it has anything about modern Flash file systems, for example. <A> For ARM chips I have learned a lot from: ARM System-on-chip architecture by Steve Furber <S> It is a well-written book with a lot of technical background and will probably be useful even if you work on other architectures. <S> I had a PIC32 book which is ok and focuses on PIC: <S> Programming 32 bit Microcontrollers in C <A> An Embedded Software Primer and Programming Embedded Systems in C and C++
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If you're using one of the newer 8-bit PICs (PIC18F family) the following book looks fairly good: "Advanced PIC Microcontroller Projects in C: From USB to RTOS with the PIC 18F Series" by D. Ibrahim, ISBN 978-1584503781. Quantum Programming for Embedded Systems.
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Wire to use with Sensors I am trying to minimize interference in a sensor project. Can anyone recommend a good shielded wire I can solder into my board? <Q> I am assuming you are sending the sensor data some distance. <S> May not be the best but easily available is cat5 networking wire. <S> You may be able to find some audio wire set up this way. <S> If you can some processing of the sensor data prior to transmission can help. <S> For example converting to a differential signal, or taking a voltage and converting to a frequency. <A> Depending upon the length of the wire, and the type of signal you could try either twisted pair or shielded coaxial cable (coax). <S> If you want to experiment you can find solid-core twisted pair in cat-5 cable (as russ_hensel says), and small diameter coax can be scrounged from microphone or headphone/earbud cables. <S> The coax has a braided shield that you can connect to ground which shields the inner wires from interference. <S> With twisted pair you use one wire for signal and the other for ground which minimizes (but can't eliminate) interference). <A> Simple twisted pair (with no shielding) might be all you need. <S> The twists in the wire make noise common to both wires <S> be out of phase with each other and thus cancel each other out.
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Ideal wire probably has twisted pair with a shield, just enough conductors to get by.
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DC boost for low voltage? I have a project where I'd like to convert a 0.5 V, 800 mA supply (a solar cell) to at least 3 V with as much efficiency as possible. I've seen DC boost converters, but all the ones I've seen are designed for a higher voltage. Any tips on a good low voltage one? <Q> You're going to struggle with only 0.5 V. Look for a different solar cell or array that can supply at least 1.5 V. <S> There are a few existing solutions aimed at running off a single 1.5 V cell. <S> Have a look at the LTC3400 from Linear Technology. <S> Note that it's hard to even turn on a transistor with only 0.5 V, so <S> even if you could get the converter running correctly, it would be pretty challenging to bootstrap itself into starting at such a low voltage. <A> You're not the only one who has this problem, given the recent interest in solar energy. <S> Check out the <S> TPS61200 from TI. <S> It needs 0.5V for startup, but once started can operate down to 0.3V. <S> I haven't used this part myself <S> but TI's a very reputable player in the power management <S> IC business (among many others). <S> Clint is correct, though, in that you'll have better efficiency (and more part choices!) <S> if you string several cells in series to get to 1.5V or 2V. <A>
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Over at Electronics Exchange , Rex Logan had a great answer - the LVBoost is exactly what I'm looking for.
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What are the best beginner project using an arduino I'm looking for some cheap beginners projects that show the uses of an arduino. things like turning on and off an LED getting back sensor data ... if anyone has come across useful youtube video tutorials that would be perfect! that sort of thing <Q> Start with the sparkfun tutorial here and do a google search. <S> There are tons of different options for starting out with the Arduino, you can try a starter kit . <S> Go on to the Arduino website there is a ton of information there. <A> You could also check the soon to be release book "Practical Arduino" by Jonathan Oxer and Hugh Blemings. <S> Check out the blog to see some cool projects that is going to be on the book ( http://www.practicalarduino.com/ ). <A> Yes definately the sparkfun tutorial. <S> Another source of good starter projects is the free e-book <S> "The Complete Beginners Guide to the Arduino <S> Also worth downloading (or you can buy a hard copy) of the Arduino Programming Notebook . <S> It is a very good walk through of the main code. <A> I like the "How to Tuesday" projects from Make: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYUYbN2gRuQ&feature=related <A> Linux Format had 4 or 5 issues with some Arduino Tutorials in. <S> There are versions of the first two available on Tux Radar here and here . <S> The first one gets some LEDs blinking, whilst the second one showed you how to create <S> a simplified Simon Says game (only 3 LEDs and no sound). <S> Unfortunately they don't appear to have the later ones which extended the project to include sound and a score counter. <S> The same articles also appeared in a Linux Format Special called You Can Code!, <S> so if you can find a copy of that maybe you could follow it there. <A> I have also been thinking about this. <S> I had thought to give a arduino kit of some sort to family and friends for christmas but wanted to include an interesting project. <S> This is by no means full answer but here are my current thoughts. <S> The project should be limited to use a sensor and control (motor). <S> Hence, not something that teaches you the basics of controlling components, but something that tells you how to apply them. <S> For example, a temp. <S> sensor that logs the data to your computer so you can monitor energy efficiency of various parts of your house. <S> Or, an IR sensor and motor to detect when your child gets home late at night. <S> Audio sensor that detects when your partner snores and has a string attached to it which pulls their toe. <S> Etc. <A> Arduino.cc is the place to go, it has a lot of different tutorials and information. <S> The arduino is very easy to work with. <A> Jeremy Blum also did a 10-part YouTube series on the basics of working with Arduino that I found extremely informative, if a little slow-paced at times (but never lacking in detail).
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Electonic's very own tronixstuff has a huge, very informative Arduino tutorial at his website . Rig a sensor so that you can monitor when your baby moves in their sleep, and log this. I'd like to have a project which can be applied in every day use.
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Maximum sample rate of Arduino Duemilanove? G'day all! I have an Arduino Duemilanove hanging around spare at the moment and thought I might try a few audio interfacing projects. I'm just wondering what sort of sampling frequency I can achieve using a single analog input and applying some simple algorithms on chip, then reporting using a few digital outputs tied to LEDs. I'd like to sample in at ~44.1 kHz if possible. For reference the first thing I want to try is a simple guitar tuner. <Q> I don't think you can sample that fast at full resolution. <S> The ATMega168 can only sample at 15 ksps at its full resolution. <S> Having said that, you should be able to get a suitable sample rate to get a functioning guitar tuner. <S> 44.1 kHz is most likely a fair bit faster than you will need given that the fundamental of the high E string an a guitar is around 330 Hz. <A> http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/AnalogRead Rob. <A> Google for 'AVR guitar tuner', there are a couple projects out there that do this already, and they seem to be able to do it without too much trouble with the speed of the AVR. <A> If you use an analog comparator (either the internal one in the AVR or an external opamp one) that turns the analog input into a square wave, you can sample oscillations at much higher speeds. <S> While this isn't true audio sampling, for building a guitar tuner <S> it's often all you need since all your code would be doing anyway would be counting zero crossings per unit time. <A> There are a number of ADCs available <S> that are serial, I2S is NXP's standard based on I2C. <S> They allow you to pretty easily pull in analog even at much higher speeds. <S> This link should get you to an NXP part that is designed for audio: UDA1361TS Free samples are your friend :) <A> First, for your particular application, you really only need 1 kHz or so sampling rate, assuming you're tuning the fundamental frequency and not one of the inharmonic partials ... <S> Anyway, as for the maximum possible sampling rate, the Arduino manual says: <S> It takes about 100 microseconds (0.0001 s) to read an analog input, so the maximum reading rate is about 10,000 times a second. <S> This would imply 10 kHz sampling frequency is the max. <S> However. <S> You can get higher sampling rates by accessing the ADC registers directly . <S> The Arduino Realtime Audio Processing page uses two channels at 15 kHz, for instance. <S> So the 10 kHz max is only while using the built-in AnalogRead() function, because it has a lot of overhead. <S> The ADC is optimized for best operation with a clock speed of between 50 kHz and 200 kHz: <S> By default, the successive approximation circuitry requires an input clock frequency [ADC clock] between 50 kHz and 200 kHz to get maximum resolution. <S> Since an ADC conversion takes 13 clock cycles, this would be a sampling rate of 4 kHz to 15 kHz. <S> According to AVR120: Characterization and Calibration of the ADC on an AVR : <S> For optimum performance, the ADC clock should not exceed 200 kHz. <S> However, frequencies up to 1 MHz do not reduce the ADC resolution significantly. <S> Operating the ADC with frequencies greater than 1 MHz is not characterized. <S> 1 MHz clock frequency = 77 kHz sampling frequency, so that's the realistic max. <S> The forum thread <S> Faster <S> Analog Read? <S> has more about this. <A> The on-chip converter will work for this application as others have pointed out, but you should really look into using an external ADC. <S> This will save you a lot of trouble, and free your micro to sample over SPI or I2C at much, mich higher data rates, with less noise from the micro's clock, and with greater precision than using the internal ADC. <S> If you want more resolution and/or a higher data rate, then use something like the LTC1867 , which will let you sample at up to 175kHz (Although you can clock it however quickly you want to) and then read out the 24-bit data at up to 20MHz over SPI. <S> See what a real ADC can do? <S> :) <S> With that kind of power <S> (And a 24- or 32-bit DSP), you can compress and store your audio, filter it, modulate it, play it back... <S> the possibilities are endless. <A> Are you interested in a 64K sampling <S> rate?Have a look here <S> Now raised to 150 kHz, 10 bits, no additional components! <S> Have a look there
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It takes about 100 us (0.0001 s) to read an analog input, so the maximum reading rate is about 10,000 times a second.
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