RSS2PDF & OPML2PDF
Here’s some more on RSS2PDF from my email discussion with developer Tom Churm, I’ll also repeat some comments I made on my last post.
Firstly I’d like to say these developers are very fast at responding to ideas, this service has added new bits everyday over the last week.
As you know you can convert the contents from an RSS feed into a PDF…run your favourite feeds through this converter for good reading on the train (only your favourite feeds, try not to waste too much paper)
Tom has managed to display the entire post from full-text RSS feeds (which is a must, as you don’t want to be on the train reading an excerpt without being able to click on the “read more” link).
He’s just working on getting the paragraphs sorted out, so it will look exactly like your post (I wonder what happens with images, tables, graphs, etc…)
There is also the bonus of a RSS2OPML feature.
Put in your OPML and it will read the first 10 feeds (maximum 50 posts per feed)
You can also hack the URL by giving your OPML Digest a Title, I put my name in the link below
To understand the small option I added for giving a feed a title, take a look at:
[http://rss2pdf.com?src=opml&title=John%20Tropea&url=http://www.bloglines.com/export?id=johnt]
Thoughts
Placing a button at the end of every blog post so you can print a friendly version of just that blog post (you know, like a “print this” link)
I wish I could pick 10 feeds from my OPML instead of it being the first 10 feeds (I suppose I could remix all the feeds into one feed and use RSS2PDF but then the posts would not be organised nicely in blog/feed channels, it would be just a long river of posts)
I suppose I could put my 10 favourite feeds to the top of my RSS Reader
But I wonder if there is a way to make your own OPML’s without using an RSS reader, you know a service that lets you whack in 10 feeds and generate a OPML that lives in your account on the website of the service.
This is different to remixing 10 feeds into one (it is the same content but it stays in 10 feed channels), this way you can give people a Topic Digest of 10 feeds they can whack in their RSS Reader.
Maybe Feed Digest could make a service called OPML Digest.
Also, similar, it would be good to manually enter up to 10 feeds and generate a RSS2PDF (as long as the posts appear under their feed channels, and not just a long river of posts)
Tom’s Words
“As time goes on, I can easily envision a visitor login function where users can create their own RSS PDF magazines, adding whatever URLs to feeds they’re interested in, and being able to sort these in terms of which feed will appear first, which second, etc…
(There could be a web form with ten text input fields, for a user’s ten different feed URLs, then a user clicks a button to save them, at which point they’re either saved in a database or else physically saved on the server as OPML files.)
Clearly, the direction the site will go into is in making it possible for users to create PDF ‘magazines’ or ‘eBooks’ from their favorite feeds, which they can then choose to either share or keep private.”
Way to go!
This is similar to a post from a while back from Robin Good about creating a reading portfolio from your days collection of websites/posts…but then every item or post or webpage would have to be an item feed itself.
[ADDED 8/08/05: Actually you could use a service that doesn’t require a feed URL, but just a normal URL, like PDF-o-matic, but then you have to print as you go, you can’t collect URL’s through out the day and press print once at the end of the day]
Here are the buttons which link to Toms server (just use this if you can’t upload images yourself, eg. if your blog is hosted)
RSS Link Example:
OPML Link Example:
Seems others are catching on with this idea.
![email.png](http://services.nexodyne.com/email/icon/GxbiQvgbwBgCnw%3D%3D/oIp%2BJMQ%3D/R01haWw%3D/0/image.png"){kind=icon}
This is exactly what I’m looking for - the ability to filter my rss feeds into a digest. Similar to an intelligent press clipping service and then export it into an acrobat ebook format.
I’m thinking along the lines of an e-newsletter but with editorial control thats current with filtered choices.
Please include me in any beta testing or new developments.
Now, I’m trying to figure out how to export MyYahoo feeds as an OPML? Any ideas?
Comment by p — August 22, 2005 @ 4:04 pm
Hey Guys,
Please check out the recent improvements I’ve made to http://rss2pdf.com
These include:
RSS / Atom / OPML Autodiscovery
Bookmarklets (using Autodiscovery)
And… ta-da! These cool PDF internal bookmarks that really turn your Acrobat Reader into a full-fledge newsreader…for free.
Lemme know what ya think ;–)
Tom Churm
Creator
http://rss2pdf.com
Comment by Tom Churm — November 2, 2005 @ 6:00 pm
Websites such as http://www.rss2.co.uk, rss2pdf.com, rss2pdf.org, etc., all help to make RSS even simpler to use. Good work, on all the sites.
Comment by Paul Rogers — April 27, 2007 @ 10:20 pm