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Post by kurthayek on Mar 21, 2018 21:02:36 GMT -8
Not really HO model railroading but has anyone in the group purchased any of the Morning Sun Digital Reprints? These are electronic versions of previously published Morning Sun books. They offer two versions, one for mobile devices, and one for PC and Mac computers (these are PDFs).
My main question is image quality, especially on the PDF version. Can the photos be enlarged to see the small lettering and details that are difficult or impossible to see on three-color book printing? Can the images be printed (for modeling work it's very helpful to have a print that can be measured from, etc.)?
Kurt Hayek
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Post by 12bridge on Mar 21, 2018 21:12:31 GMT -8
They are not true PDF's, they are Adobe Digital Editions (PDF Like, but fancier..). In my opinion, they are a royal pain in the ass to use and browse, but the quality is fine.
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Post by ambluco on Mar 22, 2018 6:00:03 GMT -8
I have purchased many over the years. They are scans of the books themselves so you are not getting anything better than the book. I find them useful. I read them on an iPad and do screen shots when I want something. You can't zoom way in on most readers.
I have the 1st tier Morning Sun books I want for the railroad I like. I use the e-version for hte 2nd teir books, the ones I don't need but would like to read about about without the $50-60 price tag.
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Post by stottman on Mar 24, 2018 10:09:36 GMT -8
As others have noted, they came as a "digital editions" format, which can be a PITA to set up. Because of the PITA to get the digital editions and inability to move them to another computer (supposedly, haven't tried),I wouldn't buy another one.
Recently however, I just googled and found a converter that converted the "digital editions" to a standard pdf so I don't have to mess with that.
As for zooming, you can but the images themselves are only about 4.57 million pixels. Still better then you can find online for free though.
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Post by riogrande on Mar 24, 2018 10:28:06 GMT -8
How much are they? I've only got Rio Grande Morning Sun Books but I've thought it would be handy to get some color guides for some other railroads freight cars for reference purposes.
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Post by SOMECALLMETIM on Mar 24, 2018 10:51:42 GMT -8
The Digital reprints are $19.99.
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Post by ambluco on Mar 24, 2018 11:35:22 GMT -8
When I get the email that I have made my purchase, it's just a link to a PDF. You get two tries to download it. I do one on my Mac and one on my iPad. iPad you can read in iBooks or a PDF reader. On the Mac, it's just a standard PDF that I can read in anything.
Not sure where PITA comes in for the process unless you have Windows or Android.
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Post by riogrande on Mar 24, 2018 12:09:58 GMT -8
Not sure where PITA comes in for the process unless you have Windows or Android. What, like the majority of people? Windows at least. And Android is very popular. I use only Windows and Android myself. |
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Post by ambluco on Mar 24, 2018 16:14:46 GMT -8
IT for 32 years, Windows everyday. I have no issues with Morning Sun ebooks myself on PCs but was giving the benefit of the doubt to the posters here. When people says they have all kinds of computer issues (things are a PITA), they are typically taking about Windows. I fix that stuff all day.
And rest at home.
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Post by kurthayek on Mar 25, 2018 11:12:15 GMT -8
Many thanks for all your replies. I am still confused as ambluco indicates that these are scans of the books—in other words did Morning Sun just take an actual book and scan each page on a flatbed scanner? If so, they might be useful for quick reference instead of carrying around the books but no good for our use, which is using the photos to develop lettering for limited run freight car models.
Thank you,
Kurt Hayek
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Post by ambluco on Mar 25, 2018 16:08:57 GMT -8
They appear to be direct scans of the books to me. They also try to fit the pages together so when a photo used to spread across both pages, the photo is together now. Sometimes it fails though and it's off.
I consider them a cheaper reference overall. Now, that's for the digital reprints. Their other ebooks seem to be made for ebooks and the format is different.
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scaledriver
Full Member
Circumventing a prior ban
Posts: 100
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Post by scaledriver on Mar 25, 2018 18:05:01 GMT -8
Not sure where PITA comes in for the process unless you have Windows or Android. What, like the majority of people? Windows at least. And Android is very popular. I use only Windows and Android myself. Android is spyware. That is why it is free. Your entire mobile life is shipped to Google, which makes billions. And users willingly turn it all over for free. Windows 10 is little better, unless you are very careful locking it down. One of the first things we show clients is the data flowing out of these two platforms. All are amazed and surprised. Then scared. The Morning Sun Digital books work perfectly well on Mac and on Apple ipad Books. There are no problems at all. The picture quality is very good. Thank you |
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Post by stottman on Mar 25, 2018 20:55:38 GMT -8
The one I bought was never a print book, but I would imagine that they are not scans of a book unless it's a long out of print book from before the digital age.
One of the accepted formats that book printers use these days is a .pdf. Microsoft Publisher and other book editing / publishing programs export the file as a .pdf.
I "write" similar picture books on a non train related subject; When I finish editing the book, it is exported and sent to the publisher as a pdf. When it is sold as an Ebook pdf, the buyers get the same pdf that I send to the printer/publisher.
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Post by roadkill on Mar 26, 2018 8:33:35 GMT -8
I haven't *yet* as I've been lucky at finding the old out-of-print volumes I want at good prices on that evil auction site.
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Post by riogrande on Mar 27, 2018 3:28:37 GMT -8
scaledriver, regardless of the perils of some O/S platforms, which is arguably out-of-scope for this forum, it does seem to me that Morning Sun Books should make their digital books just as user friendly on MS Windows and Android platforms as it does on Apple products; especially Windows since AFAIK Windows far out numbers Mac in the world. Just sayin...
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