Using Asus EEE-PC as E-Book reader

Lightweight and compact sub-notebook Asus EEE-PC is an ideal candidate to be used as an e-book reader. This how-to explains the simple steps which will make reading the real pleasure. I did it for my EEE-PC 701 with 800 x 480 screen resolution and Xandros pre-installed, but these recommendations can be easily adapted to any other sub-notebook model.

To convert the notebook into e-book reader we should perform some text changes to fill the whole screen and avoid scrolling. That means the text must be formatted into pages of the same size as your screen.

Let see how this could be done. As the example I will convert the book "All around the Moon" by Jules Verne, found on Project Gutenberg web site (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16457/16457-h/16457-h.htm)

1. Open the text in your web-browser. The HTML format would be the best option, but with its absence plain text is fine as well (it will make the final file smaller). Detailed steps are as follow:

• assuming that your notebook has already connected to the Internet, click Internet tab
• click Web icon, this will start Firefox Web browser
• copy the above link to your browser's address field or navigate to another book, if you like
  

2. Select the whole text (Ctrl+A) and Copy it into Clipboard (Ctrl+C) (do not close the browser yet).

3. Open OpenOffice Writer and paste (Ctrl+V) the text into empty document.

• click "Show Desktop" icon on the taskbar or minimize the browser
• switch to Work tab
• click Documents icon, this will launch OpenOffice Writer
• click inside the empty document (the vertical cursos should start blinking) and press Ctrl+V
  

4. Go to Format -> Page menu and set the new page size. Click Page tab and make the following changes:
Format: User
Width : 40 pi (picas) (it is 6.67 in or 16.9 cm)
Height: 24 pi (it is 4 in or 10.2 cm)
All margins (Left, Top, Right, Bottom): 1 pi (0.17 in or 0.42 cm)

Click OK.

Default Measurement Units can be set at Tools -> Options -> OpenOffice Writer -> General. You may obviously round the values in your preferred units, keeping approximately the same rate as 800 x 480.

5. Go to File -> Export As PDF and save the book in "My Documents/My EBooks" folder or anywhere you like.

6. Open Acrobat Reader, load your book, hide taskbar at the bottom of your screen, then press Ctrl+L to get to the full-screen mode and enjoy.

Some recommendations.

1. Between steps 4 and 5 I would change font for "Body text" style to something, what is easier to read, say DejaVu Serif (the default font can be set at Tools -> Options -> OpenOffice Writer -> Basic Font).
2. I would also suggest replacing heavy Acrobat Reader to Evince, this will free about 200 MB of the disk space.

If you have another laptop with different screen size, you will have to re-calculate your page width and height (step 4) to match your screen.