Electronic reading.

Is anyone buying electronic boat design or construction books in an electronic format? I recently received a Kindle and am looking into and converting my boat library into an electronic format.

I found "Yacht Design according to Perry" in the Kindle format and have previewed the available portion. The problem I am seeing is that there doesn't appear to be a function for enlarging illustrations. With most books, I can see that this would not be a problem, but with technical publications, illustrations are a vital part of publication and support the text portion tremendously. Is anyone using this type of device and are you aware of a function that I might be missing?

 

What I don't like about the electronic readers is, you can't quickly thumb through, looking for a graph, chart or other image. I find I do this frequently with books, looking up something and using visual clues, to key me in on the section or page.

 

an electronic reader could be handy in the shop for referencing. I dont have one so Im not aware of what resource for boats is available.

The same goes for cruise guides and coast pilots. Ive got 30 or forty cruise guides...a whole bookcase full...it would be nice to also have them digital and on a reader.

Sounds like digitizing marine related books might be a good buisness opportunity

And as Par says, I find it difficult to read on a computer.

 

I find kindles harder for this type of thing than an ipad, at least the pre-fire kindles. I just don't like the way graphics format on them. While the ipad is much better at displaying formatted graphics.

I carry all of my service manuals, instruction manuals, and copies of maps and maintenance records on my ipad, mostly loaded in pdf's. I keep the originals on the boat stashed away in an impossible to access recess, but the working copy is my ipad.

 

All good stuff.

There are options to add bookmarks and also highlight text with the "Fire". I like these options as you can mark up your "text" without really marking up your text. I did this with my college texts, but I never wanted to do it with my boat library.

I have found some resources that appear to be outside of copyright limits, but these are older resources. There is an copy of Skene available. Theses appear to be scanned and don't have the features of a true Kindle type book.

I think it's odd that I can do the swipe zoom on a webpage I'm browsing, but unable to do it with a book illustration.

 

A bit of an update. I was never able to zoom images on the Kindle. It's possible that I just never figured out how. I put the kindle app on my iPhone and was able to zoom images there. I have since returned the Kindle and have purchased a Samsung Galaxy tablet in it's place. I am also able to zoom images in the Kindle app for Galaxy.

I think that I need to go into business now converting paper based boat texts into electronic format.

 

I find them valuable ballast on board...