Keeping control of your e-texts

New download
As promised there is now a new converter for Gutenberg texts available to download.
It does the following:

• Starting from a Gutenberg.org text file - mostly with manual line breaks
• Create the same text without the unnecessary line breaks
• Create an html file from the text for your handheld

It requires:

• A Java runtime environment (free download here)
  

It's free!

You can:

• Keep control over your supply of your texts because the text file without line breaks is so simple to search, copy and paste, look at.
• Read Gutenberg ebooks in an easy to read html format
  
• Put the text file and the html on your handheld - use Plucker for the html and Documents to Go for the text.
• Easily read and edit on the move
• Get thousands of free books from Gutenberg.org and keep control over the format.
• Avoid being stuck with e-texts which you can only read, or which you can only read in pieces on-line with ads all around them.
  

Editing with ebooks

I wrote recently that one of the advantages of ebooks was that text can be copied and pasted into other applications. This is not true. If you download an ebook you don't have access to its text source file.
A good way to work around this limitation is to use the eliterature converter to make your ebooks and keep a copy of the original text (txt) file to copy and paste from.
When reading an ebook formatted for Plucker, bookmark a search term and use this to search in the corresponding text file for the text you want to copy and paste.
Use sunrise to send your html files to Plucker on you palm, and Documents to Go to send your text files.
Shortly I will make available a new version of the converter for Gutenberg texts, which can make both html files for Plucker and text files without manual line break. These are more favorably presented on your palm without unnecessary white space.
This approach is preferable to dowloading already formatted texts which can only be read in specific applications and cannot be edited.
Using the eliterature formatter with original Gutenberg texts, you keep maximum control over you texts and independence.
One other advantage of etexts over paper books occurred to me. You can read them in the dark. Ideal for insomniacs who share a bed, or for those who like to read outside at night.