Lead Adventure Forum
Other Stuff => General Wargames and Hobby Discussion => Topic started by: Conquistador on July 27, 2014, 03:22:18 PM
-
Several eBooks at Osprey look interesting but I have a Nook - are EPub books usable across all platforms (Nook, Kindle, others) or machine specific in usability?
Gracias,
Glenn
-
Glenn,
There are two main formats - epub and kindle (mobi) - and they don't play together.
I had thought that ePub was readable on all devices that support ePub (ie your Nook), but it looks like it's slightly more complicated than that (I have a Kindle, so this isn't something I've had to deal with)
This thread (http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/NOOK-Talk/How-to-read-open-source-epub-files-or-others-without-drm/td-p/1412078) on the Barnes and Noble site may help and Osprey themselves (http://www.ospreypublishing.com/forum/general/1835/) mention the Nook, so you should be okay.
-
EPub is supposed to be the general purpose generic format for ebooks, so if a particular machine won't play it, that'd be a big black mark against that particular machine more than anything.
There's a lot of shinannigans going on these days with using proprietary formats to prevent other machines or apps from using a given companies ebooks (in attempt to force platform dependency on the users). Generally, it's to company A's advantage to make their own devices/apps able to use as many formats as possible, while simultaneously preventing company B's devices/apps from being able to use company A's native formats. Basically it's a big anti-competitive monkey knife fight over who gets to have their vigorous and sticky way with the end users. Since Epub is not attached to a specific company or device/app, there's no one to block other companies from using it and thus it should be compatible with nearly everything, e-reader wise.
Some of these formats, like Kindle format for example, are really just ePub with a DRM wrapper.
-
Get yourself of the Calibre E0book management programme http://calibre-ebook.com/about (http://calibre-ebook.com/about)
It will convert EBook files from most formats to most other formats.
-
The Calibre program is great. I have been using it for years to convert books to the format I need for my ereader. The best part it is a free program.
-
I've not a been a great fan of the Osprey MAA and Campaign serious books which I have bought for Kindle on my IPad. I think the graphic content of these books needs a little more care when formatting - especially the campaign and battle maps which have been split over pages and thus lose their impact.
I think Osprey has made a good job of the Bold Action books for kindle however. I have several of these and it's dead handy when playing a game. I've also got some rule sets which I view with IBooks and some sourcebooks on Scribd. All in all a digital library of useful stuff at my fingertips!
-
I agree with Derek, Calibre is excellent