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So you're a Newton user with some curious ideas on what you'd like to read. And now you want to make you own Newton ebooks - excellent! This page is here to help you!

There are four programs you can use to make books for the Newton. NewtonPress? and NewtonBookMaker? both make books that are readable with the built-in NewtonBookReader?, while PaperBack uses its own format. The fourth option is NewtsCape, the excellent Newton web browser. NewtsCape can convert HTML pages created on the Newton of found on the web directly into Newton eBooks (see description of process below).

Depending on what your goals for the book are, you will choose one of these applications. Read the pages for descriptions of each of the book creation programs to learn more about them.

Both NewtonPress? and NewtonBookMaker? read formatted word processor files and have very little formatting capability of their own. Both can make a Table of Contents for your book and produce books that can take advantage of the NewtonBookReader? features, such as annotations and bookmarking. NewtonBookMaker? also allows you to include NewtonScript in your book, for an interactive book. PaperBack allows you to change the font face and size on your Newton, and re-paginates on the fly. The PaperBack reader is not built in to the Newton; either the PaperBack format book must include the reader in the book package, or another PaperBack book on your Newton must have the reader included.

NewtonPress? is probably the easiest for first time users.

Newton Bookmaking 101

Check out Digital Dan's excellent tutorial, freely available from UNNA.

Dan shows you how to super-speedily remove hard linebreaks, how to make a book with Press and how to make books with BookMaker? and NewtonToolKit? (NTK), which again will be faster than Press, once you got the knack of it. He tells you all about doing tables of content, including images and especially the exciting secret of how multi-format Newton eBooks can be created (only 100b additional size per format). Thanks, Dan!

Project Gutenberg etexts to Newton: Fixing the line-breaks Woody-Style

"For Project Gutenberg books I use the "find and replace" & "replace all" features most word processors have.

Most true paragraph changes have double carriage returns(CR) and the line breaks have one, so I replace all double CRs with zzzzz. I then replace all single CRs with a space. Now replace all zzzzz with a double CR and you should be close to ready for newton press.

For many books I find it also helpful to use the spell check before going to Newton Press. I do my final editing as I create the Table of contents because the page advance in NP is slow enough to allow scanning for weird characters or unusual line breaks." (Woody Smith)

DJ Vollkasko's Quick Primer to Bookmaking with Apple's Newton Press

  1. Get raw text from somewhere.
  2. Preprocess text in text editor, save as .rtf; steps here typically include fixing breaks (for ALL Gutenberg-texts, I do this Woody-style, see above), I enter page breaks before new chapters start and give the chapter titles some formatting (centered + bold). Then I save the whole file and...
  3. Upload into Newton Press (File/Add). The nice thing doing it this way is that you can format and edit texts faster in a text editor, and Newton Press will convert many of the formatted things into its own format when it imports that Rich Text-file.
  4. Add new chapter headers, edit document title.
  5. Save .np!-file, you might need it at some later time again (e.g. to fix problems if your book doesn't work...)
  6. Create Newton ebook. Note that in Preferences you can choose many formats (sizes) for all Newton Platforms. It is nice to make several formats of one book so readers can pick their favorite one... (MP2000 Portrait, Emate Landscape and Classic are probably the three most important formats).
  7. Upload Newton book to UNNA and announce the new book at NTLK. Also you may want to mail it to me (DJ_Vollkasko*@*gmx.net - remove the *'s) for uploading it to the Temporary Newton Library (UNNA submissions take AGES to get published...).

-- DJ Vollkasko, 2005

Ron Parker's Tips for Avoiding Crashes in Newton Press

I almost can't believe it! I think I've found a predictable pattern for when (and how) Newton Press crashes while pasting a graphic into the source. That also means (drum roll please): I've found a fail-proof solution for avoiding it.

First, some important points:
I'm using a Power Mac G4/500AGP running OS X 10.2.8 with Newton Press running under Classic mode. OS X seems to be the most stable OS (between Windows XP, Mac OS 7-8, and OS X) when using Newton Press. The Windows version will crash when modifying tabs (unacceptable). Also note, Windows formats and Macintosh formats are not inter-changeable. The Windows version of the source cannot read using a Macintosh version of Newton Press and vice versa.

With the tips below, I have been able to completely avoid any crashing all together under OS X while using Newton Press.

Here's the first secret:
Newton Press crashes (consistently, but randomly) when pasting a picture into the source, if you are NOT at the END OF LINE for that page when you paste the graphic. It has something to do with Newton Press getting confused when trying to figure out how to page break, at that exact moment, when you paste.

There is an exception:
If there is no text on the page, technically, you are at the first line and the last line and it will also randomly crash.

The solution to avoid crashing:

Take a look the following screenshot here, it shows where to click the cursor, prior to pasting:
Click Here To Zoom
13884828_92a3cc0023_m.jpg

My experience has also shown that when Newton Press does crash, it sometimes allows you to Cancel and/or Save. Saving is not recommended; saving after a crash has corrupted a few of my graphics. If it crashes: Don't Save. Simply re-examine "where" you pasted the graphic, review the instructions above, and then make sure that you paste at the very end of line for that page where you are inserting the graphic.

Yet another type of random crash:
I’ve also experience another type of crash that is related to line breaks (and page breaks) around an area with styled text (bold, italic, etc.). Sometimes Newton Press will incorrectly break a line (between words in the middle of a paragraph) and then create (what appears) to be an extra carriage return. This is not really a carriage return and you should be careful when trying to fix it. If there is any styled text (bold, italic, etc.) on the next couple of pages, this funky line break will create unpredictable results including crashes, if you try to delete it directly.

Take a look at this series of pictures for an example of what I referring to:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raparker/13884829/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raparker/13884830/

The solution for this type of instability:

Other helpful tips:

RonParker, 2005

Ron Parker's Tips for Converting Large PDF's to Newton Press:

PDF’s are easy to transform into Newton eBooks. Most PDF documents contain a combination of selectable text and scalable graphics. Both elements are easily dealt with using the right tools.

  1. Use Adobe Acrobat and the text selection tool to "Select All" and "Copy" the text (only the text) and then "Paste" it into a new word processing document in AppleWorks? or Microsoft Word. This will be your master text document.

  2. Edit and modify the formatting within the master text document, using place holders for where you want graphics to be placed later. Do not place the graphics in this document, they will not import and will have to be pasted later.

    • You can set a custom paper size to match the Newton Press document so that it approximates how each page will look like in Newton Press.
    • Do a select all and remove all formatting (set to "Plain text")
    • Another "Select All" and set the document wide default font (Times or Geneva)
    • Another "Select All and set the default font size
    • Another "Select All" and set no margins and some default tabs (8 maximum) for the whole document
    • Do general formatting (bold, italics, chapter breaks, page breaks, etc.)
    • Avoid bold & italic together, it doesn't import well
  3. Save your master document as rich text (.rtf) for importing into the Newton Press source
  4. Use the "File" "Add..." option in Newton Press for importing the .rtf document
  5. Look it over for any formatting problems (some bolds & italics will import sort-of-funky)

  6. Use Graphic Converter to batch process all .PDF pages to .BMP graphics

    • First, set your Open PDF preferences to 72 ppi for smaller sized graphics or 100 ppi for larger sized graphics.
    • Next, use the "Convert & Modify" to batch process an entire PDF into .BMP or .PICT graphics, page by page.
    • Open each (converted) page and then trim/crop each graphic to the absolute minimum
    • Add some Sharpening
    • Set the colors to 16 shades of gray (or 1 bit for Classic Newton's)
    • "Save As" a .PICT or .BMP
  7. You can start pasting your graphics. Although using "File" "Add..." will work, it will only add your graphics to the very end of your eBook and not inline (within) the source.

-- RonParker, 2005

Create Newton ebooks on the Newton with NewtsCape

"Subject: Playing Around with Book-Making Function in NewtsCape

From: mkow1234 () aol ! com

Date: 2005-04-21 12:53:03

(...) One of the things I started looking at was the book-making function within NewtsCape. I remember reading that one could theoretically create small eBooks with Newtscape. "Okay", I thought, "seems simple enough."

First, I needed to write something in an editing program -- one that would allow the document to be saved as HTML so it could be imported into Newtscape for the book-making conversion process. Surprisingly, 'Works' did not have a command to save the output as HTML! Rather strange we both thought, as 'Works' seems to be the 'MS Word' of the Newton, as opposed to the 'Notepad' of 'Notes' (e.g. I'm comparing a heavy-duty editing program to a basic text file application). Thankfully, 'Notes' allows for saving documents as HTML. Kule!

I started writing out a simple 'Read Me' file for the 'VideoPhone?' application and saved the output as HTML. Then, I tried to open 'NewtsCape'. Oops! Have to close 'Notes' first, open 'NewtsCape', and then re-open 'Notes'. No problemo.

It took me a few minutes to stumble around and figure out how to open the 'Notes' HTML file through 'NewtsCape'. Still not sure exactly how THAT works. Once I got to that point, I chose the 'Create package' option in 'NewtsCape'. Took a moment or two of crunching to produce a simple eBook in my unfiled icons folder. It was labeled as 'Untitled', but I'm sure that could be remedied with a bit of foresight and practice.

My initial eBook creation had all of the text running together. Doh! I dimly recall learning very simple HTML code many years ago, but my reference book is on loan still. No problemo. Stuck in a few paragraph breaks <P> and everything came out looking much better! Nice. Now, I almost know enough to be dangerous...

What's the point? (...) Folks who have Internet access on their Newtons could theoretically create Newton eBooks from HTML source code. I say theoretically, because I'm not sure how 'NewtsCape' would handle scrolling web pages. Perhaps a page break or something has to be inserted every thirty lines of code or so? Not sure yet. But, this technique seems promising, from what I can see. A Newton user in Portugal, or France, or Russia, or wherever, could take a source file from the Internet (try to obey copyright laws, but I'm not to run screaming if you decide to copy Hemingway or Steinbeck to Newton eBook format) and create an eBook, no muss, no fuss!

The coolest thing is that the entire eBook production process takes place entirely on the Newton. (...)

So... If you're stuck on a long airplane flight, train trip, stranded in the doctor's waiting room, the DMV, or you're waiting for your wife to try on 'just one more pair of shoes', put your time to good use. Give the Newtscape / Notes eBook conversion process a try." (Source: Matt K.)

Sizes for images in MP2k Portrait format

See also:

HomePage : HowTo : MakeNewtonEbooksIndex : MakeNewtonEbooks