[OLPC library] questions about PDFs

S Page info at skierpage.com
Fri Oct 3 05:32:30 EDT 2008


Samuel Klein wrote:
> A few notes on books:
> 
> please check out the latest wikibooks bundle in
> [[Collections/G1G1/8.2]] -- unfortunately, those are still pdf's.
> This should change for the next release, hopefully in time for 8.2.1.

Indeed.  E.g. Big_Cats.pdf doesn't fit rotated, its TOC doesn't jump to 
pages, and all its enticing blue hyperlinks to Wikipedia don't do 
anything in Read (and you can't copy their URL or determine it in any 
way) :-(
Browsing to a PDF means Browse and Read are both open, and about 30% of 
the time in 8.2.0 candidate builds I get a memory lockup.

But just go to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior_Big_Cats , click 
HTML Version, click Printable version, then (in Firefox 3) save as Web 
page, complete.  All the PDF woes go away, it's faster to page up and 
down, it has a smaller resident memory size.  Is that what you're 
thinking of doing for 8.2.1?  How can I help?

AFAICS, content from wikis only needs two things to be awesome as HTML 
pages on XO:
1. An HTML complete version that puts in a TOC,
2. A stylesheet appropriate for on-screen reading, something halfway 
between what you see and the print stylesheet (there may be a skin 
already for this, &useskin=chick is close).
Should I file tracking bugs at dev.laptop.org for these 
MediaWiki/Wikimedia issues?
I think people involved with Wikibooks and Wikijunior would be more than 
willing to work on these issues knowing that their content is featured 
in OLPC.  And even in its current state, the _Printable version_ link in 
Browse makes an acceptable eBook.

P.S. 
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A-level_Physics_(Advancing_Physics)/Print_Version> 
with the animated GIFs for waves! That would have blown my mind back in 
the day.

--
=S Page   user:skierpage


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