[ale] [OT] how do I convert this web based book to pdf or doc

[James Sumners]

What you linked to isn't really an "ebook". Yeah, it's digital content
and they call it a "book," but eBooks have very specific formats.
Those formats _are_ just HTML/XHTML, but the files are organized
according to a standard. This website does not follow that standard at
all. The links I gave you should have made the process easier. 1)
Convert the CHM to HTML, 2) convert the HTML to PDF, and 3) print the
PDF. I believe you could have converted directly to PDF with the first
tool; but I've never used it.

As for people making eBooks easier to print -- good luck. The standard
isn't designed for such, and it's a copyright violation. DRM free
eBooks (e.g. all O'Reilly eBooks) are only DRM free so that you can
use them on any _electronic_ device you wish to read it on. They're
not DRM free so that you can print them.

That being said, using the second tool I linked to, Pandoc, you could
probably have made it even easier to print. Use Pandoc to convert the
HTML to LaTeX, which should strip out the circular links, and then
render the LaTeX to PDF.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE)
<atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Just thought I'd post an update.  My main objective was to be able to download and print the ebook.  They provide it in a CHM format, but I could never read it for some reason.  I installed Calibre, then imported the chm file and then saved it back out.  Now, for some reason, I'm able to read it natively in Windows.  I printed it from there, which was somewhat of a nightmare.  I had to go to each major topic page in the table of contents then print it.  Fortunately, the print screen has an option to also print all linked documents one level down in the hierarchy.  So, by printing each main topic, I was also able to get almost all the sub topics.  Of course, each page also linked to the previous and next topic, as well as things like the company home page, etc., so I had a lot of redundant content that I threw into the recycle bin.  But, over a period of a few hours, I got it printed.  I took it to office max and had it bound.  It turned out to be 5 volumes each about 3/4" th!
>  ick printed on my laser printer single sided.  Now I have to set about learning the topic that's documented in the book, which relates to a specialized currency trading platform.  There was no way I was going to try to read all that on my computer monitor.
>
> Maybe later, I'll get around to finishing converting this to PDF, RTF, or EPub, but I couldn't figure that out with a cursory review of the Calibre menus.  If any of you are thinking of publishing an ebook, PLEASE PLEASE make it printable in one simple procedure.  I still have to go through and hand number the pages and correlate that to the table of contents.  I'm glad this info was provided to me free on the website by the software maker, but it has not been free in either time or supplies to get it into printed form.
>
> Thanks for the help and suggestions.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ron

-- 
James Sumners
http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts
pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it
is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become
drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

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