I know this looks like a lot of work but it takes longer to explain than to do, I promise. If you're still interested but are gun shy, email me and I’ll walk you through it. I provide PC support all day long so I’m pretty good at it.The following walkthrough will work for the eBook formats: LRF (Sony) MOBI and EPUB. At the moment Calibre has full support for the SONY PRS 500/505/700, Cybook Gen 3, Amazon Kindle 1 and 2 as well as the iPhone. In addition, using the Save to disk function you can use it with any ebook reader that exports itself as a USB disk.
If you want to get books/stories to an Iphone let me know and I will explain how to configure Calibre for that.
If you want information about doing this for IMP files (GEB1100, GEB1150, REB1200, REB1250), just let me know.
Download and install
Calibre. A wonderful site for all things eBook is
Mobileread. Go to the
forums for a plethora of info, tips, reviews, suggestions, etc. Here, you will find a Calibre forum as well as a discuss of every reader, the Iphone, PDAs - anything you could read an ebook on. This
FAQ page might help if you want to learn more about Calibre.
OK, on to the walkthrough...
Find the story you want to convert into one single file.
1. Once you find the multiple-page story you want, save each HTML page to your PC by clicking
File > Save As... Save as type: Web Page, HTML Only.
I usually just save to the Downloads folder inside My Documents folder.In order to convert a collection of HTML files in a specific order, you have to create a table of contents file. That is, another HTML file that contains links to all the other files in the desired order. Such a file looks like:
<html>
<body>
<h3>Table of Contents</h3>
<p style="text-indent:0pt">
<a href="./katelyn_samplepage1.html">Part One</a><br/>
<a href="./katelyn_samplepage2.html">Part Two</a><br/>
<a href="./katelyn_samplepage3.html">Part Three</a><br/>
<a href="./katelyn_samplepage4.html">Part Four</a><br/>
<a href="./katelyn_samplepage5.html">Part Five</a><br/>
</p>
</body>
</html>
2. Copy the text above and paste it into Notepad. Save this file as book.txt in the same folder as the downloaded HTML files. Keep this file open for now.
3. Open the folder where the HTML files were saved and locate these files. Copy the first file name,
(e.g., kimpritekel_asyouwish1.html). Go back to the Notpad text file you just created and replace the first line of HTML.
EXAMPLE:You are changing this <a href="./katelyn_samplepage1.html">Part One</a><br/>To (for example) <a href="./kimpritekel_asyouwish1.html">Part One</a><br/>As you can see, only part of the file name needs to change since the rest of the code remains the same. It saves a lot of typing id you just change the file name up to the page number, e.g., copy katelyn_samplepage and paste it before the pages number on each line -
katelyn_samplepage1.html,
katelyn_samplepage2.html, etc.. Obviously, you have to be sure the naming convention is consistent for each page.
In case this confuses you, here is what I would use to create a single book from As You Wish (10 HTML pages long)
<html>
<body>
<h1>Table of Contents</h1>
<p style="text-indent:0pt">
<a href="./kimpritekel_asyouwish1.html">Part 1</a><br>
<a href="./kimpritekel_asyouwish2.html">Part 2</a><br>
<a href="./kimpritekel_asyouwish3.html">Part 3</a><br>
<a href="./kimpritekel_asyouwish4.html">Part 4</a><br>
<a href="./kimpritekel_asyouwish5.html">Part 5</a><br>
<a href="./kimpritekel_asyouwish6.html">Part 6</a><br>
<a href="./kimpritekel_asyouwish7.html">Part 7</a><br>
<a href="./kimpritekel_asyouwish8.html">Part 8</a><br>
<a href="./kimpritekel_asyouwish9.html">Part 9</a><br>
<a href="./kimpritekel_asyouwish10.html">Part 10</a><br>
</p>
</body>
</html>
Add or delete <A href> lines to match the number of HTML pages in your story.
3. Once these changes are completed, save the Notepad file with the name of the story into the
SAME FOLDER as the downloaded files. Locate this saved file and change the .TXT extension to .HTML. You will get a pop-up warning that changing the extension may make the file unusable. Answer YES you want to change it.
Now, you’ll want to check the file to confirm the formatting is correct. (If you followed the steps above, it should work!)
4. Double click the newly created HTML file and it will open in a Web page. You should see something line this -
Table of Contents
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3etc.
Only “Table of Contents” should be plain text and Part 1, Part 2, etc. will be hyperlinks. If something looks wrong, you need to check or edit your formatting. Just change the .HTML back to .TXT and open the file again.Check the specific line of code that looks suspect for any errors. It can be as simple as the first HTML page was named 01 and you forgot to add the 0 (samplepage01.html VS samplepage1.html)
Once you think the file is ready, remember to have it in HTML format before moving it to Calibre.
5. Open Calibre and connect your reading device to your PC via a USB cable. It will be recognized by Calibre and will become visible in the Library window.
If you need to get your books to your device by other method, PM me or email me. I can give you specifics.(Caliber's newest versions allows you to email the book to your device with the click of a button! I haven't reied it yet and am reading the how-to in the
Mobileread Calibre forums but that will be very cool.)
6. Add the HTML file (drag or use the Add button). When the file is added to Calibre, it is converted into a zipped file.
CALIBRE:1. Once the file is in Calibre, select the output file type (in the top right area of the window to the right of the heart). I suggest EPUB or MOBI.
Here is a
screenshot that might help.
2. Click on the meta data tab to edit the author, file name, etc.
3. Click Convert EBooks.
4. Once the books conversion has been completed, click View. You can now test the hyperlinks to confirm they work.
If all goes well, you can now click Send to Device and the "book" will be sent to your reader.
I hope someone finds this useful. Save a tree, use an eBook reader!
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 1:20 pm
