Showing my book on friend's telly

[Loose rivets]

Two or three pals that are avid readers have offered to read and make comment on my book. I don't want to buy a laser printer in the UK if I can help it.

I wondered if I could display my text in on his telly in Word. I can cut a CD or DVD on my laptop, but have no idea if there is a way to display a .doc file.

A series of .jpg's would be a bit tedious to do as there's a lot of pages.

I would hook my laptop to the telly, but I loth to ask them to do this. All of them lean towards Luditeism.

Any idea if this can be done before driving 35miles for blank discs?

[Spitoon]

Try a PDF - it's compact and can be easily read.

Don't fully understand if you're asking a technical question about connecting a PC to a TV but it can be done - sometimes easily other times with more difficulty. Depends on the output connections on the computer and the available inputs on the TV - modern computers and TVs will make the process easier.

[Avtrician]

If you can save your book as a PDF file, your friends should be able to read it on their puters, or be able to transfer it to their Ereaders

[Loose rivets]

No, none of them have big screen PCs and I doubt the own an HMDI cable between them.

I can get my text up okay with a computer connected to the telly. What I have to do is get it playable on a CD DVD player that's always there. If it wasn't so far to go for disks, I'd buy some and simply try it in the flat I'm in.

It's such a vast tome that most folk do not want to read it on their computers. Well, laptops, anyway. I need to put it in front of them on the big screen, with them in their comfy chairs a scotch in one hand and a pen in the other.

The Samsung we have in Texas can read a stick with the manual on it. I wondered if that was specially formatted - and the software specifically for that task. I assume it is.

It's almost feasible to give them a series of .jpg's Wouldn't take that long I suppose, but I have to say the Google book thing with scanned pages is a pain to read. Be interesting to see how it would pan out. Talking of panning. If I could put the tellies on their ends, it would be a lot more practical.

[Avtrician]

To be able to read a book on the TV from a cd/dvd, each page would need to be saved as an individual picture. That would take a lot of time to do, and the dvd player would have to be able to read the images. To read a pdf on the dvd would reguire the right software installed in firmware. I dont know if this has been done..

[Spitoon]

I believe lots of DVD players can 'read' pictures - usually JPGs. I don't know much about it or whether there's a particular disc format needed - maybe someone else who has done it can help. But if you want to go that way Acrobat/PDF might again be helpful. Many PDF readers (and specific apps designed for the purpose) can save the PDF as an image - multi-page files are saved as multiple images.

[green granite]

Are you saying these people don't have a pc? A PC with any size screen is capable of displaying perfectly readable PDFs.

[Loose rivets]

Just a case of an office chair and a laptop screen. I wouldn't want to read too much like that.

Right now, I have a Sony E400 multiscan in front of me. It messes up a pretty room and now, if I'm wise, I need a mate to help me lift it. But for reading text, it's a winner due to being able to select the res I want.

(it was in storage, and will be scrapped when I get one of my flat screens here. - I used to sell these Sonys at £2,600 + VAT! What's more, it helps to keep the room warm.;) )

The point being, I can't even use my big Sanyo in Tx because it's just not 'right'. An LG with 1440 and a 75 refresh is about as good as I've seen, and the 23" Sanyo has stood gathering dust ever since I picked up the smaller one for $100.

We've discussed the refresh rate before, and I'll admit, flicker is something I'm very, very susceptible to. 75hz is fine.

The 50" telly in TX is not bad with Word showing via an HDMI lead. But still, it doesn't go to its maximum res from my DVD. I don't think my pals would see any problems with it.

It does sound as though .jpg might be the only answer for the first chapter - just to see if they get hooked.

[Bushfiva]

Perhaps you could visit an Officemax/Kinko/similar shop in your area, and just print the stuff out? But that would be more expensive than buying the cheapest laser printer (50 quid) and binning it afterwards.

[Loose rivets]

I'm afraid the Charity, boarded-up and vandalized shops in our town are somewhat off-putting to investor-planning by the likes of those companies. Shame, it was an idyllic little town after the war.

Just a heartfelt social comment there. I'll be better in a moment.



The technical problem is tantalizing. If a good screen of text can go out via the HDMI cable, one would think there must be a file system that would play, and allow a worldwide format like Word to be displayed. I'll chip away at the problem when I have more time.

[Loose rivets]

The local uni suggest converting to PowerPoint from cut and paste. DVI files, AVI input. Frankly that leaves me bewildered, as I've never even used PP.

Also, Movie Maker - Windows DVD Maker.


Does it sound feasible?

Tried Sniping to .jpg, and the text was cr:mad:p.

[Loose rivets]

Son's response:

You’re suggesting a project that would be ridiculously time consuming and I don’t think the end result would be very effective.

My reaction was that some of the ideas might work, but waaaaay out of my time availability.


There are a couple of ways the DVD presentation might work:

1) A movie file that plays. Perhaps each book chapter has its own menu item (scene) on the DVD menu. Each “screen” would be a selection of text that would fit comfortably on the screen so people could read it. The DVD would play the pages, staying on each page for XX seconds and automatically moving on the next one at a specified period of time (e.g. 30 seconds). This would be tiresome for the reader, because people read at different speeds and you’re unlikely to hit on the correct time period.

2) A DVD slideshow in which the person has to skip forward each page manually. I don’t know off hand how this would be done, but I assume it is possible; particularly if you set up each TV page as a separate “scene” on the DVD.

3) Scrolling text that just continues to scroll at a specific speed. I assume that there are some editing software programs that allow you to create “crawling titles/text”, but I don’t know what the limits are on how much text you can put in one title-crawl box and it would mean that the text is crawling unless the person pauses the DVD. Then you have the issue of getting back to that part in the book when you take a break and turn off the DVD.

The first two methods would require you create a separate “TV page” for each TV page image that you want to display. That means cutting and pasting the text into some document and ultimately saving each page as some sort of image file. Those image files (pages) would then be imported into the DVD creation software. Creating each individual page would be an nightmare…, regardless of whether you’re using PPT or not.



The third method might be easier if a larger amount of text can be copied and pasted into a crawling title – but you’d need the editing software and I don’t know how good it would look.



OK – I tried it with Windows Live Movie maker (can download it free from Microsoft).



Under the HOME tab, there is a button called “credits”. You can simply cut and paste text into that and you’ll have scrolling text. You’ll have to play around with it to find the correct speed of the crawl, based on the amount of text you paste. The default is 7secs, but I was able to change that to 3,000 without any problems!

Create the credits clip. Then copy and paste the text into the text entry field. Then double-click on the timeline – on the pink part where it says CREDITS (or the first few words of whatever text you replaced “credits” with) and you should see the duration box come up with 7sec – you can change that and experiment to see what seems like a good crawl speed.

This would definitely be the quickest way to get your text on a DVD. You could create a new credit clip for each c