1. Mouthwash

    Mouthwash Senior Member

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    Making a physical book out of a web serial.

    Discussion in 'Writing Software and Hardware' started by Mouthwash, Aug 24, 2017.

    I want to make a physical book out of a web serial, for personal use (I can't find a copyright anywhere, so I assume it's legal). I don't own a printer, but I'm sure I could find one somewhere. What worries me is the word processor - I want the story in the same font, with the same italics, etc. Plus I would like to number the pages.

    Any advice?
     
  2. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

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    Pretty much anything anywhere as soon as it's written/drawn/created is legally copyrighted, but if it's just for personal use, I very much doubt pulling it off the web and printing it for yourself would get you in any trouble, but that's a moral conundrum you'll have to face for yourself. You can tell what font a site is using with the CSS editor built into (probably) all browsers or there are apps you can download for your browser. I'm not sure what word processor you have, but in Open Office, page numbers are handled by using footnotes.
     
  3. Mouthwash

    Mouthwash Senior Member

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    1. Would that show on the printed page?

    2. Italics are very important. Do they carry over?

    3. Do I just copy-paste the whole story, chapter by chapter, into the word processor? Or is there a better way to do it?

    4. It's a very long story, longer than many books. So it might be hard to keep it together with only staples. Any advice on that front?
     
  4. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

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    Back when I had to actually mail out physical manuscripts that were too big for paperclips, I used to have to bind them with little screw post things called Chicago Screws. I haven't seen them in a Staples in a long time, but you could use them to bind books that looked rather professional using some really fancy report covers they used to sell along side them.
     
  5. Martin Beerbom

    Martin Beerbom Senior Member

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    Doe you already have files of the individual segments? Or do you just read them online, so far? If you already have files, what file format are they in?

    Since it's a web series, you can always save an HTML file, which would contain everything you want, but also a lot of information you don't actually need. So I would convert the HTML file. I would use a command line tool called pandoc for that; not sure if you would feel comfortable to use that. You could convert all of the individual segments in one go. I would convert to markdown... that would strip all the unnecessary information contained in the HTML, but would keep stuff you would find useful (for instance, it would strip font information out there, but would keep highlighting that shows up as italics or headlines). Markdown files are just plain text (albeit with the aforementioned highlighting using special character sequences), so you could simply make one large file out of them on the command line. A markdown capable text editor would then make a nice printable file out of it, at which point you usually could select the base font and page numbers.

    If you want to avoid all the command line crap, you could do all of that (with lots of copy and pasting, i.e. manual labor) just with the markdown editor. Markdown was developed as a easy short cut to make HTML, so some editors can import the HTML and keep the highlighting. There are a ton of suitable markdown editors out there, each with their own specialty, so I don't want to make a recommendation for one unless I know more (such as, what OS are you working on?). ETA: I spoke too soon here. None of my preferred markdown editors imports HTML nicely. However, there's an online markdown editor – http://dillinger.io – than does seem to make a good job. Otherwise, the pandoc way works. I've done that myself. But, as said, you need to go to the command line. I know that's a big hurdle for a lot of people.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2017
  6. Mouthwash

    Mouthwash Senior Member

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    It's all online (here) and I use Windows 10. That all sounds horribly complicated though. Could you elaborate more on how you would use pandoc for this (there also appear to be indentations in the first chapter, would they be copied)?
     
  7. mashers

    mashers Contributor Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I don’t know the answer to your technical questions, but I did want to comment on this:

    If no copyright is stated, the correct thing is to contact the creator and ask permission to use their work. Assuming that something is in the public domain just because no copyright details are specified is not the right way to go about it.

    Now, printing it out for yourself so you can read it in paper form almost definitely comes under fair use, which renders the copyright issue moot. But nonetheless, assuming something is copyright free just because it is not stated otherwise isn’t correct and could land you in hot water (for example, if you made copies for friends).
     
  8. Martin Beerbom

    Martin Beerbom Senior Member

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    Uh-oh... I tried. Not nice. No quick'n'easy way that I could tell you using pandoc.

    The easiest way I see right now: Use a browser that has a reader view (Safari does, Firefox too). Switch to the reader view – that strips all of the other stuff (background images, comments, the side bar links etc.) and keeps most of the formatting (caveat: as far as I can see, not the indentations). Then use the print function of the browser to print to a file (mostly pdf). This pdf is already quite nice to print as is; maybe you need to set the font and size in the browser beforehand; the reader view tends to select large size. Firefox reader has nice options to change the look on the fly while you're in it. You can get page numbers when you use print to save a pdf.

    Anything further to change requires you get a program that can work with pdfs, which usually costs money.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2017
  9. surrealscenes

    surrealscenes Senior Member

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    Yes, using Win10 does sound horribly complicated :eek:

    It does have a copyright, anything you write and post to your site or blog does. On top of that, the author enters their stuff in contests, which sets author status more. (Let this be a lesson to all- make sure you add a widget of some sort to the bottom of your web pages with a copyright notice/years.)

    You can try using Calibre for formatting and converting between formats. Calibre is free to get and use.
     
  10. Mouthwash

    Mouthwash Senior Member

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    Okay, I have a PDF. I managed to number the pages. There are two issues:

    1. I have a table of contents, but the names of chapters don't have their respective page numbers by them. They serve as links, but that won't be any help once I print it. Is there a way to automatically add them? (There are literally hundreds of chapters, so manually adding them will be aggravating, to say the least).

    2. It is nearly 6,ooo pages (meaning 3,000 pieces of paper) total. I was thinking of binding the papers with string, but this is just enormous.

    Maybe the answer to both questions is the same - go without a table of contents and split it into multiple books.

    EDIT: Also, how much will it cost to print? I can't get an answer from Google.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2017
  11. Martin Beerbom

    Martin Beerbom Senior Member

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    That's a huge amount of paper*. If it's just for you, I would seriously consider using an e-reader. I have done this before – you're more than halfway there to prepare the file using calibre if you have a decently clean formatted PDF. If it were for just for me to read easily, it wouldn't have to be perfect, either.

    *ETA: On a home laser printer, the cost runs somewhere in between 2 and 5 cents per page, depending on the printer/toner/drum costs, paper, and print mode (like your two-sided printing). Means your 6000/3000 page document costs between $60 (best case) and $300 (worst case) without binding. You get very nice e-readers at the low end of that...
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2017
  12. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    The absence of a copyright statement means nothing at all. The only factor that might make this legal is the purely personal use.
     
  13. Mouthwash

    Mouthwash Senior Member

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    No. I have a grudge against technology. It's worth it.

    Anyway - is there anywhere that printing (specifically duplex printing) is free? Or at least off-the-books?
     

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