Internet-Drafts for Kindle (2)

Yesterday I explained about my efforts to convert Internet-Drafts to a format that is usable on the Amazon Kindle. The solution described is certainly fine for the long-term, but does not help for the IETF meeting in 10 days. So for the short-term, I developed another Java program that takes an Internet-Draft or an RFC in text form and convert it to a series of images that can be displayed on a Kindle. All the nice features of the Kindle like reflow, dictionary, TOC, links, bookmarks, annotations, etc…, do not work with this, but that’s better than printing – and carrying around – 500+ pages. The program is available here:

http://ietf.implementers.org/id2kindle.jar

And can be used like this:

java -jar id2kindle.jar rfc3261.txt rfc3261.zip

The .zip file must be installed directly in a directory named /pictures on the Kindle 2. On the Kindle 1, the file must be unzipped in the /pictures directory.

On the Home menu of the Kindle use Alt-Z to rescan the flash memory and the new document should be selectable. Press J to switch the full page mode.

6 thoughts on “Internet-Drafts for Kindle (2)”

  1. Did you try using the pdf versions of the internet drafts and using Amazon’s free conversion service? Does that work out better?

  2. @Jason:

    I did try PDF and the problem is still the same: Normal text is displayed correctly, but ASCII arts and other text dependent on line length and font are not.

    Anyway with the arrival of the Kindle DX, this whole problem will probably become moot.

  3. Marc – did you ever get any further interest in this? I just got a kindle and would be interested in converting some rfcs and drafts I need to read, and then posting them somewhere convenient for others. wondering if a little cooperative could form…

    Ed Jankiewicz

  5. @Ed:

    I was not able to release the code last week-end because I do not have the rights to release the build system as open source. I am rewriting it, but that means that the release will have to wait another week. Sorry for that.

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