Re: NTLK Peanut Press - att: S Weyer!

From: Steve Weyer (sweyer@bellatlantic.net)
Date: Fri Mar 17 2000 - 09:38:00 EST


>Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 22:48:32 -0600
>From: Bill Davis <newton@ecity.net>
>
>On 3/16/2000 8:11 AM, Mark Rollins [mailto:mark@mrollins.com] wrote:
>
>>I'd love nothing more than to read a Peanut Press (subset of HTML,
>>there's a reader for Palm & WinCE) version of Stephen King's "Riding the
>>Bullet".
>>Has anyone heard of any progress towards this, from either PP themselves
>>or the incomparable NewtsCape from Steve Weyer?
>
>
>Peanut Press was working on a Newton version of their book reader (they
>are all Newton fans) but I wrote them again recently about it and they
>told me they'd discontinued work on it.
>
>The Peanut Press bookmaker stuff may be a subset of HTML....but the files
>themselves almost certainly are not, at least for the books they SELL as
>they require you to type in a code to unlock it, and i'm sure it's all
>encrypted and such.
>

>On 3/16/2000 8:46 PM, RWall42064@aol.com [mailto:RWall42064@aol.com]
>wrote:
>
>>I assume everyone is aware of this so I am probably being redundant, but
>>converting Palm books (*.prc) to Newton books is not that difficult. There
>>is a public domain program called Make Doc (Macintosh, not sure about
>>Windows) that is designed to convert text files to Palm books (prc files).
>>However, the same program also converts prc files back to text files. So,
>>assuming there are not copy protection or copyright problems, you could get
>>the King prc file, convert it to text and dump it into Newton Press to
>>make a
>>Newton book. Make Doc should be available on the Aportis web site.
>
>While you're correct about AportisDoc books, the Peanut Press books are
>NOT AportisDoc books. So that solution won't work.
>
>I'm afraid there is NO way to do what you're after (besides, the Peanut
>Press books ARE copy protected...the ones you pay for, anyway.)
>
>Incidentally, Steve Weyer also has a Newt's Cape plug-in to convert Palm
>Doc books (AportisDoc).

I think Bill Davis pretty much covered things,
though I feel I should summarize since I was directly asked.

AFAIK, Peanut Press still has a proprietary content format inside a Palm
.prc/.pdb file.
(their source format may be HTML or open eBook(XML) but that's not what
they're distributing).
I don't think there's documentation on their distribution format;
I had offered to work with them to create a Newton plugin, or a desktop
book package tool.
(and Sean Luke and other users have sent them requests for Newton support).

The (free) PilotDOC plugin for Newt's Cape converts and displays a Palm
Pilot DOC text or ImageViewer graphic file directly as a Newton book.
There is public documentation available on DOC and ImageViewer formats.
Peanut is not DOC format; AportisDoc (and a few other Palm readers) use
standard DOC format; TealDoc and RichReader use DOC but add special markup
within the content. I also provide some links to desktop conversion tools:
  http://members.bellatlantic.net/~sweyer/newton/newtscape/pilotdoc.htm

Steve
weyer@kagi.com
NewtDevEnv, Newt's Cape, Sloup, Crypto,...
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~sweyer/newton/index.htm
http://www.kagi.com/weyer

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