2.0, eBooks & iPad

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
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I’ve really put zero effort into following the eReader trend of recent years, having an affinity for actual paper, but I’m up now for revision on a novel and having read these bits and pieces about highlighting and annotating in digital format, I’m finally getting interested. Kindle is the one I’ve heard about most–I don’t know anyone with any other kind of eReader–so it’s what I’m leaning toward, although I just saw the note in another thread about the 3’s keyboard being worse than the 2’s, which saddens me. But supposing I got around that and could use it decently for annotating, how exactly does it work to pull it back to the computer so I can most easily make the changes over in Scrivener? How are the notes “back-referenced”? I hate to be such a noob about it, but I’ve only ever handled a Kindle 1 for about two minutes, and looking elsewhere on the internet for tips on annotating on the Kindle gave me nothing encouraging. I’m trusting you guys that it can be done; I’m just wondering how exactly it will work and if it’s worth it for the eReader if that’s my primary purpose.

Of course, I imagine that once I’ve caved and gotten one, I’ll realize that carrying my library around on a slim little device that fits in a coat pocket is the best thing ever, so annotating may cease to be the primary purpose. But let’s pretend for a minute that when I get my new toy, I will immediately set to work and not goof around reading other people’s books… :wink:

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Ha, yes. Assuming that allure does not take immediately hold.

Getting the notes off of the device is just like plugging in a camera, iPod (if it isn’t touch based), etc. The device will mount on your system like a USB drive, and from there you can access all of your data. Good things to do periodically are to backup your books and the special sidecar note files that get created when you annotate—just in case it gets stolen or lost. Yes, all of that stuff is technically backed up on Amazon’s services (including the notes), but I’d rather long-term it myself.

The notes file will be a standard .txt file on this disk. The way back-references work are via locations, since there are no page numbers. Locations seem to be roughly every 10 words or so, so the granularity is pretty good—and since it is based on the content and not the form factor, it works to open up the book on the Mac reader and plug in the same location (though, if you are using that, you’ll probably have that same note accessible in the sidebar and available for single-click access). But for the most part, with Scrivener, integrating changes will be a bit more old school, like going through a stack of paper. Yes the notes and perhaps rewritten prose are already digital, but the look-ups will be manual since locations don’t mean anything outside of the compiled e-book. What I do is highlight and then note. This ensures it is easy to find the spot without having to back to the e-book in one way or another, as highlights get their own entry in the clipping file and copy the highlighted text into the data line, giving a search target.

Further on the keyboard: the part they cut on the 3rd gen model is the number row. If you don’t anticipate typing in a lot of numbers, then it might not even been a huge negative. Keyboarding on a Kindle is roughly the same in experience as typing on a Blackberry (I’d say a bit better since the buttons are spaced out a bit more). In short, it takes a little getting used to, but after a while you can hit a pretty good speed. Given that, for small numbers just typing in “ten” would probably be easier than calling up the symbol entry table and thumbing around with the joystick twice to enter 1 - 0.

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Ah, great. Thank you. Given that my other method of choice would be working on printed pages, the old-school bit doesn’t bother me, so long as it’s doable. Highlight + annotation sounds like the way to go then. Given that I’m looking more for something that’s just marking up the text vs. changing the text (literally going out of my way to make sure I can’t accidentally edit the text), the little extra work is probably good anyway. Once I want to actually make the rewrites, I can just use the laptop to cart my work around. So this is mostly an exercise in saving trees and money for printer ink, while giving me a reasonable excuse to buy a Kindle. :slight_smile:

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Then I think you’d get along quite fine with the process. That’s just about how I approach it, and for the same reasons. Avoiding a little hyper-convenience here and there can solve a lot of blindspot problems.

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I’ve got to throw in a plug for the iPad. Yes, it’s more expensive, but 1) the display is nicer 2) the keyboard is easier to use 3) transferring annotated documents to and from the desktop is effortless 4) when you’re not using it for work, you can play games, check your e-mail, read books (even Kindle books) and do a thousand other things with it.

Like you, I used to print out hard copies of almost every draft, then annotate them by hand. Now, I save all my drafts as .pdf’s, send them to my iPad wirelessly via DropBox and then use GoodReader to annotate. So many saved trees and so much saved toner! It completely erases the guilt of spending money on the gadget.

Also, in my never ending quest to be a paperless writer, I am finding that I’m very happy with the “Notes Plus” iPad app. I take a lot of hand written notes as I’m working on projects. (There’s something about writing by hand that seems to activate a different area of the brain.) The BoxWave stylus + the Notes Plus iPad app is the closest that I’ve come yet to simulating the feel of jotting down notes on paper.

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Subjective. I prefer e-ink for books—by a very, very long shot. I also like that if my thumb brushes the surface, it doesn’t flip out and think that I want to “do stuff”, I don’t. I was just rolling over in bed… oh—crap, forgot to engage rotation lock!

Again, subjective. I’ll take almost any tactile over glass. Almost, there are a few exceptions out there. The keyboard on the Kindle can be used with two thumbs while holding it comfortably. The iPad needs to be set down on something to type. Honestly, I don’t see how it is in any way easier to use, unless you are sitting there as if you were at a desk—and then it kind of defeats the whole purpose of changing your posture, environment, and form factor in order to better see past your prose blindspots. That’s my experience anyway. The stuff I don’t see at my computer tends to not be seen on an iPad either. On a Kindle or sheet of paper, they leap right out.

I find it to be the same for other devices. Phobia of USB cables aside, the number of steps is really not all that different, and the stability is far better. No sending PDF files to some datacentre in Colorado (or wherever) and then back again just to put them on your computer.

More subjective stuff: for myself, a raw text file with a predictable annotation format which can be programmatically extracted from is vastly more useful than scrolling through a PDF and fussing with the weird PDF text and annotation tools that are available.

I’d rather just read the book or manuscript I’m proofing, not play Block Balance or be bugged by e-mail chiming noises, or whatever. A single-minded device is really a feature, when all you want to do is what that device provides. I sat down to proof my writing, not do a thousand other things.

I get that’s probably not what you are saying. You don’t mean to suggest you should be playing games instead of working—it’s that the device can do a bunch of other things too, and so is overall more valuable. I don’t disagree with that, but as someone who can be easily distracted, I rather like working with something that doesn’t give me that option.

Hey, I think the iPad is actually pretty good for proofing manuscripts. It’s got some annoying attributes, like the hand-activated touch screen—a stylus would be better for this task (and yes, I know you can buy a stylus for the iPad, I have one, but you still can’t feasibly rest your hand on the “page”), the glowing, finger smudged screen, and it’s kind of heavy and only has decent battery life—but there are a lot of good things about it too, such as being able to use real proofing marks with a pen-like interface. E-ink has some annoying attributes as well: the refresh rate, the need for a candle somewhere.

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Uhoh. I never even considered the iPad. I have to be honest, I kind of dismissed it as ridiculous back when it came out and haven’t given it much thought since. Not to say that I can’t see how it’s excellent for some things, but as far as using it for writing, etc., I didn’t think much of it. But then I have a nice laptop and I don’t really go out many places where I’d think the ultra-portability of the lighter weight iPad would be an issue. And there’s something to be said–for me–for the fact that the Kindle wouldn’t let me check email and play games and surf the web! At least not as easily. :wink: They’re rolling out those new games for Kindle…

But! But! A stylus. I seriously love a stylus. That’s my main concern switching to digital from good old fashioned paper and ink. I like doing my drafts on the computer, but I like to edit and highlight and so forth with real pens–as you say, I think it switches on another part of my brain. Or at least the change becomes refreshing and energizing. I remember reading vaguely about some people making a stylus for the iPad, but I didn’t pay much attention. If you’re putting in a good word for using it for real writing, that’s something. Do you use it just for note-taking apps, or is there a way to use it for actual annotations on your drafts?

Along with that, my other concern with the reading/writing aspect is the eyestrain. Obviously it’s going to happen regardless and you should take breaks, exercise your eyes, etc. But in a general sense, I had the impression from hearing others that the eInk display of the Kindle is more pleasant to read for longer periods than LCD displays. Do you have an opinion on this? (Obviously you like your iPad. Have you had the opportunity to compare at all? Do you read for extended periods?)

Darn, guys. Now I’m getting all in a twist about this! And I really should just be editing… :wink:

…oh look, Ioa posted while I was blathering. Well, let me read that.

Okay, good points all, and I think I’m in the group where the page-brushing and hand-resting would be obnoxious to me. I do that all the time with the darn iPod–stupid rotation! :wink: And if I’m getting one of these suckers, it’s definitely so I can lounge around in terrible positions and read like I’m reading a book, which means I’d send it all out of whack constantly any time I shifted.

Also finger prints: this was part of why I didn’t much look into the Nook. I understand the whole “page swipe” is nice, but it also leaves a print on the screen and I think that would irk me more than using buttons. As it is I sit at my computer and wipe the screen all the time.

As for cables…yeah, whatever. I use cables more than wireless anyway, they’re all right here and handy, it’s not a big deal. That’s not really a factor one way or the other.

Right! Thank you for input as I mull over this!

Unrelated to anything, I use so many darn smilies these days on this forum. I need to cut that out. I hate smiles! On principle! (Shoot, there I go with the exclamation points. I think I had too much sugar recently.)

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Though I should inject one key note here: there is a rotation lock on the iPad, unlike the iPod and iPhone (maybe the new one has it?). It’s a little switch on the side that you can flip that will disengage the rotation feature, which is invaluable—but I always forget to turn it on, which leads to cussing and fiddling around for a small switch embedded deep in whatever case you have it ensconced within—and then later stupidly turning the thing sideways to read a newspaper article and forgetting again, to switch it back on.

The stylus was a mixed bag for me. The one I got is a little wand with a strange foam ball on the end (and from what I see on Amazon, that seems to be about par). You can’t use an ordinary pen-shaped stylus with these things because they are capacitance based. The screen relies on the electrical charge your finger holds, which is why you can’t use an iPod in the winter without taking your gloves off. To achieve a similar effect, the foam is springy and not exactly very slick. It’s better at tapping than drawing as it doesn’t slide very well across the surface, which is exacerbated by the degree of pressure you need to apply for it to register with the device, which in turn causes the foam to slide around and lose its shape faster. The “ball” becomes misshapen rather quickly, and because it isn’t a point it’s still kind of awkward in terms of “now where exactly is the line going to be under this ball of foam”. Don’t expect it to be like a Palm Pilot, in other words. It was pretty disappointing all in all, because I had big dreams of slashing red lines across my page and drawing little arrows and all of that fun stuff you can do with paper. You can do that, but it’s not like paper, especially not with the calligraphy posture that is required to avoid any other contact with the screen. It’s really, honestly, only a step above your finger in some cases, and in many other cases, worse than your finger.

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Just a note FYI: The physical screen rotation lock on iPad has been changed to a mute switch; the new screen rotation lock is done on the screen via software (with a double-click and a swipe on the screen). (Don’t ask me why–users are howling at Jobs to change it back.)

I don’t have a Kindle or an iPad, but am in the market for one or the other. I like the e-ink insofar as I’ve seen it, but hate the refresh rate. Don’t care for screen-typing much (on the iPhone–I’m terrible at it) but am concerned about Kindle’s lack of numbers and Ioa’s suggestion that it’s all thumb-typing. I still haven’t got my texting thumbs trained. The annotation info on the Kindle intrigues me. Does the Kindle app for the iPad save the notes in a .txt file as well? Or can you even annotate in the Kindle app on the iPad?

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In answer to your question, I currently use the stylus for note taking, not so much for annotating. I have yet to find a .pdf annotating program that will let you rest your hand on the screen and write (the way you would if you were annotating paper). As far as .pdf annotating apps go, the stylus is just as effective as your finger. You can use the stylus for large marks (draw a big circle around a passage, draw a star next to a passage, scribble a brief comment, etc), but if you want a long, detailed note, you’ll be happier typing on the iPad keyboard.

I do use the stylus for note taking by hand. For the iPad, I like Notes Plus. It not only has a palm rest feature (a sliding screen that will allow you to rest your hand on the iPad surface), but you can also bring up a text box. This is a large box in the middle of the screen which acts sort of like the handwriting area on a palm pilot. You rest your hand on the screen, then write in this text area (which is nice and large), and your handwriting transfers down onto the notebook page in a smaller size.

For other apps, when I want to be able to rest my hand on the screen and still use my stylus, I opt for a very low tech solution. I pull my sleeve down over the edge of my hand so that my hand is not resting directly on the iPad screen-- works like a charm.

So, currently there are limits to the annotating and note taking experience when using a stylus. But I do think that the iPad has a huge and voracious group of people developing software apps, so I expect that improvements will come quickly. And I’ve only tried out a handful of the hundreds of note taking and annotating apps out there, so there might be a better option. (Indeed, I am on a quest to find the perfect annotating app, so if you discover it, let me know).

Regarding your question about eye strain. I do think the Kindle e-Ink is probably better for reading- particularly if you’re reading in the sunlight or reading for hours upon hours at a time. Most of the things that I read on my iPad are scripts, which are written with a lot of white space and tend to top out at 120 pages, so I rarely find myself having to read for stretches longer than about 2 hours. Reading on the iPad in that time frame has never bothered my eyes, but if I were spending a whole day reading a novel, I might find it tiring.

I think your best bet is to test drive the devices that you’re interested in. If you’re a writer and reader, you’ll spend more time with this device than you will with your car, so it’s in your interest to go kick some tires and figure out what works for you.

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Thank you guys for your input; it’s all quite helpful. Even playing around a little with the devices in stores doesn’t really cover all this “how to really get the most out of them” with the annotations, other apps, stylus, etc. So this is great.

If I may beg your expertise (or at least experience) a bit further, I’ve been looking into library options for borrowing ebooks, and I’ve run into this whole “everything but a Kindle can read books pushed out from Overdrive” (ie, Adobe Digital Editions). I’ve read that there are ways to convert the files so they can be read on the Kindle, but I have yet to find instructions for the actual process. (Something vague about a python script and free conversion software?) Nor have I figured out if this is only for mobi files or if it applies to other formats as well.

Does anyone here happen to know anything about this or have a link to share so I can pursue this more? It’s not necessarily going to be a make-or-break for me, especially as my library at the moment is flipping out with its online database and the link for Overdrive media doesn’t even exist (grr), and of course it’s possible in the future that Kindle will open up the support especially with the impending Google library business. But buying it as it stands now, it would be nice to know I had the option to get Overdrive books from the library, even if it involves a bit of hackery.

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Another great way to annotate your documents on an iPad: UPad. I’ve discovered that I like this much better than NotesPlus. The handwriting interface is much more elegant. Here’s my review:

UPad (iPad app)
There is a keyboard and typing option, but this app is especially useful for taking handwritten notes. Use it with a stylus and you will come very close to the experience of taking notes on paper. There are two ways to “write” onto the page 1) Pull up the sliding palm rest screen and write directly onto the page. 2) Open “Magnify Input Mode.” This pulls up a large writing area at the bottom of the iPad screen. You use your stylus (or finger) to write in this large open space and the text gets transferred down, at a smaller size, onto the “page.” It’s a very comfortable writing experience and it allows you to fit a lot of notes onto a page. (This is a drawback that I find with Penultimate. I can comfortably write on a notebook page, but my script is very large relative to the page size. I can only fit a few sentences onto a page- not very practical for lengthy notes). Also, the “Magnify Input Mode” allows you to adjust the size and placement of your text on the page. This makes it handy for annotating .pdf’s. Simply drag the highlighted selection tool to the place that you want to start writing, then write. It’s excellent for making small notes in margins. I also like the highlighting and eraser tools, which work very well. I do have some wish list things for this app 1) Dropbox support (which the developer says is coming) 2) I’d like to be able to choose a default paper style for my notes. Currently the app makes you select a paper option with each new notebook. 3) The ability to export and mail/Dropbox a whole notebook as a .pdf (developer says this is coming, but currently, you can only e-mail individual pages as .png files). 4) An audio recording feature similar to SoundNote- one that would link the audio to the writing- not just page by page, but moment by moment.