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FH output viewed on a Kindle

Posted: 03 Mar 2011 11:00
by repworth
Has anyone any experience of exporting material from Family Historian onto a Kindle?
(Why? It is a neat electronic book with long battry life and good readability in all light conditions, and will probably become a popular way of sharing genealogy results with relatives.) (Files can be downloaded from your PC via USB, or emailed to the Kindle)

My experience so far:
Diagrams in PDF format work fine, but I would welcome any suggestions for setup to maximise visibility and scrollability (Note Kindle is grey scale only).

I haven't tried Reports yet, but the Kindle can handle Word and text documents just fine (and I would welcome any suggestions on suitable page format).

The big prize would be to be able to view the FH output on the Kindle as a set of web pages, (as this would enable the hyperlinks to be used to jump around, instead of being tied to the linear report format). I already have a set of FH created web pages on my mobile phone, which I find very useful, but the screen area is rather small.  The latest Kindle has a useable web browser, so can access FH created web pages that I have put on the web.
What I really want is to access a set of FH created web pages locally, i.e. loaded onto the Kindle itself. I have failed so far. I can load the files in a folder but have not managed to set up a functioning link to them from the Kindle menu. Any ideas/experience?

Richard

ID:5023

FH output viewed on a Kindle

Posted: 03 Mar 2011 11:27
by sihicks
I'd be interested in this as well; one possibility is to use the facility shown here http://www.klip.me/ to transfer content from a web page to the kindle, but there should be a more elegant solution.

FH output viewed on a Kindle

Posted: 03 Mar 2011 12:24
by Jane
I just output reports from FH in RTF format and email them to the Kindle. I have tried using Calibre to convert a FH generated web site, but although it views fine in Calibre it crashes the when I try to run it there, small sites work, but if the site is too large I think the Kindle struggles with the converted pages.

Klip me is not really an option as it only does a single page most of the time.

I did find this on the Kindle forums, but I have not had time to try it yet.
The root is /mnt/us/, so if you create a folder named 'html' with a file named 'test.html', you can load it by typing this: 'file:///mnt/us/html/test.html'.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45969

You might find you need to swap us for uk

FH output viewed on a Kindle

Posted: 03 Mar 2011 22:29
by repworth
I tried file:///mnt/uk/html/test.html, and got 'Web Browser cannot download files using this protocol. Only HTTP: and HTTPS: protocols are supported.'

So still looking for a solution

FH output viewed on a Kindle

Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:44
by Jane
So still looking for a solution
Did you try Calibre? It might work for you.

FH output viewed on a Kindle

Posted: 04 Mar 2011 10:28
by Jane
Just to add I re-did the convert using Calibre and have my FH web site in Mobi format on my Kindle and it's working, just a bit slow.

FH output viewed on a Kindle

Posted: 04 Mar 2011 12:57
by repworth
Thanks Jane. I will try Calibre as soon as i can get it to run. About to try a reinstall. Any hints on settings or process?
Did you include images? or was it slow even with text only?

Cheers

FH output viewed on a Kindle

Posted: 04 Mar 2011 13:51
by Jane
I skipped the source information, but left the people pictures in.

I suspect it's the number of links between pages which take a while.

FH output viewed on a Kindle

Posted: 04 Mar 2011 15:31
by repworth
Sadly Calibre doesnt like my PC (despite being fast, Windows7 4G, SSD etc), and I do not seem to be the only one. I have just spent 3 hours reinstalling and trying everything (no AV etc.) to no avail. It hangs at every step, while tantalising me with glimpses of what funtions it has to offer!
Shame it looks like a nice program for my Kindle.
Cheers

FH output viewed on a Kindle

Posted: 04 Mar 2011 19:28
by repworth
Sorted! Calibre just refused to respond to button presses on my Intuos3 mouse! (it was not 'hanging' after all, just ignoring me, it happened once before on one other program I had). So yes after switching to another mouse, I have no uploaded my tree to Kindle as hyperlinked pages and it works OK, (but would benefit from a better initial layout probably). Thanks for all the encouragement Jane
Richard

FH output viewed on a Kindle

Posted: 04 Mar 2011 20:03
by Jane
Well done, glad you got it sorted.

I took my kindle to WDYTYR and it was great as I had my key family on it, plus a book to read on the bus.