Mushroom eBooks Blog

Using the free BookletCreator.com you can print any PDF file as a booklet. It saves paper because you get four pages per sheet of paper instead of one or two if you print conventionally. You can limit the number of pages per booklet for long documents — I recommend a maximum of 48 pages per booklet. This is an ideal method for those of you who like to print out the ebooks you purchase — it is very quick and easy.

There are very clear instructions on the site.

BookletCreator - is a free online tool that allows to create a booklet from a PDF document. It reorders pages so that after printing and folding the pages you get a small book.

I got my new laptop yesterday, but I wasn’t happy with the font display. I turned on ClearType, but it wasn’t much better. So I did a search on Google, and found a ClearType Tuner provided by Microsoft to make your fonts look great. This is highly recommended, especially for reading ebooks on a PC or Laptop. It only appears to work with Windows XP, but there may be similar features or utilities for other platforms. Here is a snippet from the first step of the process (there are only three easy steps):

ClearType Tuner Step 1: Turn on Windows XP ClearType

With Windows XP, ClearType delivers improved font display quality over traditional forms of font smoothing or anti-aliasing. ClearType improves readability on color LCD displays with a digital interface, such as those in laptops and high-quality flat panel displays. Readability on CRT screens can also be somewhat improved.

Technorati Tags: cleartype, ebooks, e-books, xp, readability

After writing yesterday’s post I noticed on the Fictionwise site that Mushroom eBooks titles are marked “Printing Disabled”. I have made enquiries and will report back as soon as I get an answer. In the meantime, it seems that you are limited to eBookAd.com or Cyberread.com for printable PDFs.

We are often asked how to print an eBook. Well here is my attempt at an answer:

You are normally only able to print a PDF file, assuming that printing is not disabled (see below). All the other eBook formats cannot be printed. If you buy your book from somewhere like Fictionwise or eBookAd, you buy the title rather than the format (there is no DRM), which means that you can download any or all of the formats you want at any time. So for one price you can download, say, the Mobipocket to read on your PDA, and the Adobe PDF version to print. If you then decide to buy a new ebook reading device, even years later, you should be able to download the correct files for it from your bookshelf. Fictionwise, especially, will almost certainly support new formats as they are introduced (although the desire is to have less formats rather than more, so roll on the ubiquitous, non-proprietary, universal ebook format).

However, if the PDF file has any kind of DRM (Digital Rights Management) it is likely that printing is disallowed or limited in some way (for example, you can only print 10 pages per day). So if you buy one of our PDFs from Amazon, eBooks.com, or other eBook retailers that sell DRM’d books, it is unlikely that you will be able to print it.

It is worth pointing out that an eBook is meant to be read on a screen of some description, and not printed. It kind of defeats many of the reasons for eBooks, such as saving paper (and trees and forests), or searchability, or adjustable fonts…

The Mushroom eBooks Blog has moved to WordPress from Blogger. We were having too many problems with Blogger and WordPress came highly recommended. It took a while to set up, but I think the basics are working well now. It will allow quite a bit more functionality and I will keep you posted as new features are added.