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Kindle conversions

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Kindle conversions

Postby Gillthepainter » Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:13 am

Is there a way to convert image files to a kindle "book".
I want to thin out my physical book and recipe collection, as a steady project. Putting my newspaper and book pages into an online format. Not Word.

I really like getting recipe books onto my ipad mini.
In fact, I've just bought a Thai book, I've never possessed one before. But want to make some fire and hot dishes, inspired by Clive's Mexico travels and also Rick Stein's latest travels, that I thought were great ......

Until he got back home to his own kitchen that is. They looked far better in Mexico ;)

Anyway, I was wondering if one can make a kindle version of your own favs. Or if there is another approach or app.

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Jan 22, 2018 2:14 pm

I've never done it but I know you can get apps that convert PDFs or Word docs to Kindle format

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Sakkarin » Mon Jan 22, 2018 3:02 pm

I could write a whole book detailing the pitfalls, but in short, the work needed to create manageable books for yourself would be prohibitive. In effect you would have to recreate the publisher's original artwork in a high end publishing programme, as the lower down the "DTP" scale you go (Word being the bottom of the list), the fewer options there are for managing the final output. At the bottom end, just making pdfs of scans of pages would end up with huge files.

Text-only books are a different matter, but you need raw text, not scans of pages. Again, to extract raw text from a printed book would entail OCR scanning all the pages, and the resultant text would need to be thoroughly checked as OCR (optical character recognition) is not perfect.

For reference, the entire Bible as raw text creates only a 2.5MB pdf file. I just downloaded this one, it took a few seconds for 700+ pages.
http://www.turnbacktogod.com/king-james ... le-as-pdf/

...whereas even at the lowest resolution, my single A4 page weekly timesheet ends up as a 1MB pdf file as it include a very crude very simple background pic.

I'll send you an example of part of a book I'm working on for a friend, it's fairly small (1.5MB for 24 pages), but it disguises the amount of work that has been done to create the original artwork (done in Indesign).

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Gillthepainter » Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:49 pm

Ah, it all sounds very bloated.
I'll give it a miss, then. And stick to printed out scan pages. That I then tidily laminate.

Still a big kindle fan!

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby mark111757 » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:29 pm

I will print out what I need and put in a sheet protector then into a three ring binder. I can add notes as I wish. Can take to the store too. Tho with the smart phone I can use Google drive and save things and access as needed as I did with the surinamese chix curry recipe.

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby mark111757 » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:36 pm

Something like this....


6c2f3606-6b68-43de-a0c8-9a2fa0041ae8_1.01845a2a02a8b7fb08b71c5e5d8032d6.jpeg
6c2f3606-6b68-43de-a0c8-9a2fa0041ae8_1.01845a2a02a8b7fb08b71c5e5d8032d6.jpeg (18.36 KiB) Viewed 3893 times

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby DEB » Mon Jan 22, 2018 9:38 pm

I would think about using a laminator for this.

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Sakkarin » Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:18 pm

Free cookery eBooks here, :
https://www.bookrix.com/books%3Bcooking,id:10.html

and here, more if you google "free ebooks":
https://www.free-ebooks.net/category/food-recipes


I am also signed into a thing called "Eat Your Books" which theoretically gives you access to loads of cookery books, but without a paid-for subscription, the free service doesn't seem to allow me to do much. To be honest it isn't clear to me exactly how it works. Maybe I'm missing out on something.

www.eatyourbooks.com

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:41 pm

As I understand it, Eat your books works as a sort ofsuoer index

You tell it which books you have and then when you want to cook something, say vichysoisse, you enter it as a search term, and it tells you which of your books has a recipe and which ingredients each recipe requires so you can eliminate any that are unacheivable and make your shopping list

You can also search for, say sea bass recipes.

But you usually go back to your copy of the book for the actual recipe

Where it falls down a little is that if you have an obscure book not already in the database they ask you to enter the data yourself, thenit is available for the whole

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Sakkarin » Tue Jan 23, 2018 12:17 am

I was goint to have another look at that Eatyourbooks, but their website is down. Hmmm.

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Gillthepainter » Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:31 am

Yes, I already have laminated sheets to be honest.
And I would like to move on, and away from hard copies.

I shall have a good look at eat your books.
Potentially seems like a good idea.
And the free books, thanks for the links - although I want to declutter, which includes the digital side of it.

If I can sort out my physical books it means getting rid of a large bookcase, solely for my cookbooks.
And more room.
Yes Gill, that's what declutter means!

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Alexandria » Tue Jan 23, 2018 11:35 am

Check Out Pdf Digital On Line Platform Flipping Magazines:

http://www.issuu.com ( no more than 100 megabytes for Free, that comes to less than 100 pages )

http://www.joomag.com ( unlimited size Pdf magazines Free )

http://www.flippingbooks.com

Is Kindle a Corporation ? If it is, I would contact them directly ..

Another option is: Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com ( I believe they have these services too )

Good luck,

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Gillthepainter » Tue Jan 23, 2018 11:48 am

Interesting sites, Alexandria.
I have to steer clear of publishing. As these aren't my recipes. I had thought of my blog - which I set up the BBC wouldn't allow written recipes.

The copyright isn't mine though. Plus the images have another copyright.

Maybe I just need jpeg files, scanned. 1 page, 1 recipe, 1MB or less.
I can get raw format with my camera.

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Sakkarin » Tue Jan 23, 2018 12:59 pm

Raw format are the biggest files imaginable, Gill! They are "raw" because they have no compression, which means they are cleaner files for photoretouching.

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:44 pm

Had a play with Eat your Books

Quite impressed, will probably go for the paid version so I can use all my books


Some oddities, I used "Recipe category: side dish" and search term salad, and got a load of main course salads, had to add a filter if "Course: side dish" and then of course "Ethnicity: Asian" to get what I wanted (an Asian salad to go with my leftover Burmese chicken curry). But not difficult, and it delivered the goods, I could actually have selected Burmese as a subcategory

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Re: Kindle conversions

Postby Gillthepainter » Wed Jan 24, 2018 10:07 am

And there's me thinking raw meant less.
What I know about photography can be written on a stamp though.

Like you Sue.
I've had a look at eat your books, and really am impressed. I've searched a couple of my books.
And voila.
I cannot subscribe to full membership, those fees add up when your a member of Amazon Prime, Cineworld, and my art associations. But I can certainly manage with what it offers on free.

Good call, Sakkarin.

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