[ale] [OT] how do I convert this web based book to pdf or doc

[atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com (Ron Frazier (ALE))]

Hi JD and others,

Thanks for the tips thus far on this topic.  I'm going to review more when I'm more awake.  The Weather alarm woke me way too early.  I'm a night owl.

I did want to answer your question as to my motives for using certain formats.  I'm open to any format that meets my goals.

Those are, in order of priority:

1) I want to have a printed copy of this web-book, with all the text and diagrams intact.  I don't really like reading extensive content on a computer screen.  If I could buy this from Amazon, I would, but it's not available that way.  I like to sit in a chair, which may not be at my desk, read, highlight, attach post-it notes, and dog-ear the pages.  PDF files are great for printed output.

2) Be able to read the file off-line.  All the content that was on the web pages must be embedded in the file, not web links that pull images, etc., from the web on demand.

3) I would ALSO like to be able to read the file on my tablet and laptop, so I need formats that will work, preferably, in Windows, Linux, and Android.  PDF is fairly universal, that's one reason I mentioned it.

I'm not stuck on PDF or DOC format, but those are some of my motives for phrasing the question like it did.

I'll be following up a bit more later.  Thanks again.

Sincerely,

Ron


JD <jdp at algoloma.com> wrote:

>Lots of tools for this, but why PDF? PDF should be used when page
>layout is
>mandatory. If this is CHM or HTML, then that is NOT the case. Google
>found many
>chm2epub converters too.
>
>Why not use epub which will be easier to read on a tablet? Remember, I
>have the
>same tablet you have. FBreader is nice.
>
>I'd use wget with a name filter to download the parts you want. There
>is
>probably a perl script on SourceForge that does it too.
>
>$ wget -r -nd -Ahigh-quality.mp3 URL
>man wget will explain everything.
>
>While I was at it, I'd put all the data into a single file, then save
>as RTF
>(.doc is evil!) and let Calibre convert to epub.
>
>Android is not as open and easy from a scripting standpoint from what
>I've
>experienced.  I'd do all this on my Linux desktop.
>
>This sort of stuff is where the command line accels compared to PnC.
>Most
>beginning Linux books show off many of the old tools (sed, awk, cut,
>... ) and
>teach how to use them together, but if you've picked up a little ruby,
>python or
>perl, this is an easy task to write.  This is where the philosophies of
>UNIX/Linux different greatly from Microsoft. We use multiple, little
>tools to
>solve a problem, whereas Microsoft encourages a programmer to create a
>massive
>tool with feature creep to solve it.  Though I have to admit that more
>and more
>of the MS-ideals are coming to Linux which helps make the transition
>easier, but
>leaves a hole class of people looking for specific, huge programs to
>solve
>simple problems.
>
>Not that you haven't made the thought shift to Linux, but a lurker
>might not
>have yet. This
>http://blog.jdpfu.com/2012/02/15/beginning-linux-thought-shift-needed
>tries to
>explain the different way of thinking.
>
>Good luck with your solution!
>
>
>
>
>On 01/29/2013 09:54 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> I need some more geek help.
>> 
>> There is a web based book that I need to download and convert to pdf
>or doc
>> or open doc format so I can read it off-line and print it.  They have
>a
>> downloadable copy as a windows help file but I cannot seem to read it
>at
>> all.
>> 
>> I need to start with this page: http://book.mql4.com/ and add this
>page:
>> http://book.mql4.com/overview and add this page:
>> http://book.mql4.com/content
>> 
>> and all the pages that are the main body of the book linked to from
>the
>> previous page, but not all the ancillary pages referenced at the
>bottom of
>> every page, etc.
>> 
>> Can someone tell me how to do this in a relatively painless fashion. 
>Copying
>> the text from the browser to a doc file is definitely NOT painless.
>> 
>> I prefer something that is cross platform, or something which runs as
>an
>> android program, or something which is a Firefox plugin.  It would be
>> preferable if all the content is stored in one pdf or doc file but if
>each
>> web page is a doc or pdf file, that would be better than nothing.
>> 
>> As always, any help is appreciated.
>> 
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--

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Ron Frazier
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