When studying, I like to take notes, usually, I do it on my Blog, but often I use Jupyter notebooks which I commit to GitHub. If I am writing a paper I use Google Docs. Having my writing in 3 different places is not optimal.
On top of that, using math formulas complicates things as it is not supported everywhere.
Example of a formula written using LaTeX:
( y_i \cdot log(\hat{y_i}) + ( 1 - y_i ) \cdot \log(1 - \hat{y_i}) ) $$
So, how should I write a Math, or a Data Science, eBook?
First, publishing papers as PDF is most common, I read tons of them, but they are hard to digest unless you print them, or view them on a big screen. I do not want to sit in front of the computer any longer than I already do. I like using Kindle reader, so an eBook format is much more user-friendly. I can set font sizes, and spacing, take notes, etc. The PDFs on Kindle are a really bad experience. Also, I would like to distribute my papers over the Amazon Kindle store (for free or not). Not everyone has a university or a work subscription to access papers on ieee.org, sciencedirect.com, proquest.com, etc.
Below, I will investigate different approaches and hopefully, come to a good conclusion.
How to send documents to Kindle:
- Every Kindle account has an associated (secret) email, you can attach a file to it and it will show in your Kindle.
- Make sure the file name is human-readable!
- HTML (export from Jupyter Lab) sent to Kindle:
- PRO:
- it is readable, good for text-only pages
- CON:
- LaTeX is not converted to math formulas
- Images are missing
- PDF (of the same HTML) sent to Kindle:
- PRO:
- images show up
- LaTeX formulas show up
- good enough to publish a "paper"
- CON:
- still the problem with PDF in general -- no font size adjustment
- ePUB (of the same HTML) sent to Kindle:
- conversion is done with convertio.co
- PRO
- font adjustable
- plots included
- CONS:
- missing images
- LaTeX not converted to math formulas
- conversion with calibre-ebook.com
Is Blogger (Blogspot) good for writing papers and articles?
Pro:
- searchable
- easy to manage and edit
- use of tags (labels) for finding related articles
- support for LaTeX math notation
- No good ways to "clean" export to ePub, PDF, or Markdown
- I could write embedded JavaScript in Blogger that creates "print" version of article text only
Using Jupyter Notebook
Pro:
- inline and current code (Julia, Python)
- incline and current plots
- export to HTML, PDF, Markdown with pandoc.org/
Cons
- no spellcheck while writing (Grammarly)
conda install -c conda-forge jupyterlab-spellchecker
- GitHub Diff is garbage
How to install brew?
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
How to install pandoc?
[see reference 5]
brew install pandoc
[see reference 1]
Using Markdown
Pros:
- GitHub diff is readable
Using Google Docs
Pros:
- Available on all devices, online and offline
[see reference 2]
References
- https://towardsdatascience.com/transform-jupyter-notebook-to-an-ebook-ef3a9d32ac4f
- https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/autolatex_equations/850293439076
- https://tug.org/mactex/mactex-download.html
- https://nbconvert.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install.html#installing-tex
- https://pandoc.org/installing.html
