Indian CS & IT Academic Reform (Past) Activism: Indian CS & IT Academic Reform blog book now on Google Play as well as Google Books in PDF and epub formats

Last updated on 24th March 2020

This post is a follow up on my previous post: Indian CS & IT Academic Reform blog book put up on Google Books with full preview and PDF download, https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2020/03/indian-cs-it-academic-reform-blog-book.html, dated 11th March 2020 and updated on 12th March 2020.

The title details of the book are:
Title: Indian Computer Science (CS) & Information Technology (IT) Academic Reform (Past) Activism Blog Book
Sub-title: eklavyasai.blogspot.com (main work years: 2011 to 2014)

Initially, around 10 days back, I had put up only PDF format book on Google Books. When I tried to make that available on Google Play, I tripped up on some problem.

In the past few days I was able to revisit the Google Play problem and resolve it with some help from Google Books support. So the PDF got up on Google Play. Then I tried adding the epub file which would provide 'Flowing Text' facility to readers.

The epub file which had been created from original Word document using free software Calibre's conversion facility, tripped up on some validation of epub format on Google Play/Books! That was related to usage of start or value attribute in ordered list HTML tag to start (part of) a list with a number (which is used in Appendix D at the fag end of the book). Eventually I had to make a special version of the epub file for Google Play/Books which did not use start or value attribute and so re-initialized each ordered list-part to 1. That epub file got accepted by Google Play/Books.

Here's the Google Play link for the book : https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=bOXUDwAAQBAJ .

Here's the Google Books link for the book: https://books.google.co.in/books?id=bOXUDwAAQBAJ .

Given below are some screenshots on both desktop and my low-cost smartphone of the book on Google Play and Google Books. I have shared them on this post as a kind-of record about the book being made available (free) on these platforms.

Screenshots on PC desktop

[To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]

Above 2 pics show the main Google Play page for the book.

Searching in Google Play - Books for term:
ravi iyer

Searching in Google Play - Books for term:
Indian computer science academic reform

After I added my book to my Google Play items list. Note that download EPUB and download PDF options are provided on right-click menu for book.

On clicking Read on this book in Google Play, one is shown 'Flowing text' by default where pages are typically not separated within a chapter and chapter text flows from one ebook display area to the next automatically adjusting based on ebook display area size. But one can change the default value to 'Original pages' when each page of the PDF file is shown separately.

Screenshots in ebook are shown quite decently. Table of Contents can be opened up from anywhere one is on the book, to jump to any 'chapter'/article.

Above 3 screenshots show how changing display area size results in chapter/article text being reflowed to fit the current size of the display. Note that the page number shown (19/191) refers to PDF page number.

Above 2 screenshots are of Google Books page for this book. The first pic shows that the ebook now is "good" for Web, Tablet / iPad, eReader and Smartphone. It states that "Features" include "Flowing text" (EPUB) and "Scanned pages" (PDF). The second pic shows that Download EPUB option has got added - earlier it showed only Download PDF option.

Screenshots on low-cost Android smartphone

Above screenshot shows Google Play (book) results for search term:
ravi iyer
Note that the "Purchased" status against my book in screenshot above is due to me having purchased (for free) the book from Google Play on my Android smartphone.