After many months of preaching the virtues of using plain old RTF files on the Reader I've finally got around to trying out Book Designer and all I can say is "Wow!"; I'm a convert!

I'm just blown away by this program - it's wonderful. Load an RTF file into it, click the "Sony Reader" button and there's a beautifully formatted LRF file, complete with all the pictures in the RTF.

As they say in my part of the world, I'm gobsmacked :grin:.

BD all the way for me from here on!

Happy eBooking!!!!!!

It didn't seem to work for me on vista, but after reading your post I decided to give it another try. Downloaded the latest updates - and..... it works!!!

Now I just have to figure out how to use it.

I have used it for the first time this week and I am also impressed.

It is very easy to use on a basic level.

AndiR

I'm still going to use Word for my basic formatting of a document (especially PG text files), but BD is wonderful for converting the final RTF file into a Reader eBook.

At its basic level, all you have to do is:

1. Load your RTF file (or whatever) into BD.
2. Highlight the title and click the "Book Title" button in the right-hand toolbar.
3. Highlight the author and click the "Book Author" button in the right-hand toolbar.
4. Click the "Make Sony Reader" button, set the options up the way you want it, and click the "Make" button.

Happy eBooking!!!!!!

It didn't seem to work for me on vista, but after reading your post I decided to give it another try. Downloaded the latest updates - and..... it works!!!

Now I just have to figure out how to use it.
I have it working fine on vista except for lit files!!Has anyone figured this out yet?
Mitchll

It looks to be the best LRF solution out there at the moment and it can produce great looking books. I still have real problems with the automatic title/subtitle/page break detection and wish that was more configurable.

Here's the Sony Reader settings I'm currently using (viewed using the Medium size setting on the Reader):
Font sizes one lower than the default, paragraph set to size 8 and font style normal
Margins l:30, r:30, t:0 b:20
spacing lines 130%
disable footers, header set to title
images color 4, size as it is
skip cover page
Book language German (configuration setting)

Bookdesigner works really good for me too. Only problem is with some characters like "&" which are printed as "&" in the LRF file. :(

But for the rest it's a great program. BTW does someone know how I can make the first letter of a paragraph bigger then the rest as the paragraph? In the RTF file I formatted it like that but BD makes it small like the rest.

I'm warming to it, I'm still trying to figure out how to make it stop doing some stuff. I got the font and size adjustments working, but now I'm trying to figure out how to make it not treat the list of previously published books as chapter titles. Oh, yeah, and it insists on translating a few certain characters into Cyrillic, for instance, it wants to make "á" into "б" -- a wee bit disconcerting. :nice:

If anyone knows what setting I'm missing, please sing out.

Oh, yeah, and it insists on translating a few certain characters into Cyrillic, for instance, it wants to make "á" into "б" -- a wee bit disconcerting. :nice:

If anyone knows what setting I'm missing, please sing out.

I think you can fix this one by changing the "Language" setting of the book from English to, say, French or German - any language which uses accented characters. This is in the "Settings" dialog (the toolbar button with the screwdriver on it).

I'm warming to it, I'm still trying to figure out how to make it stop doing some stuff. I got the font and size adjustments working, but now I'm trying to figure out how to make it not treat the list of previously published books as chapter titles. Oh, yeah, and it insists on translating a few certain characters into Cyrillic, for instance, it wants to make "á" into "б" -- a wee bit disconcerting. :nice:

If anyone knows what setting I'm missing, please sing out.

How do you do that? If I change the Font it will only change it in the GUI but not in the LRF book. :blink:

On the "Options" tab of the "Make Sony Reader" dialog you can set the font used for each "element". You can't add new fonts, but you can select from the internal fonts. For example, I prefer my books to use the "Swiss" font for basic text, and that works fine.

I'm still going to use Word for my basic formatting of a document (especially PG text files), but BD is wonderful for converting the final RTF file into a Reader eBook.

At its basic level, all you have to do is:

1. Load your RTF file (or whatever) into BD.
2. Highlight the title and click the "Book Title" button in the right-hand toolbar.
3. Highlight the author and click the "Book Author" button in the right-hand toolbar.
4. Click the "Make Sony Reader" button, set the options up the way you want it, and click the "Make" button.

I don't have a sony reader button I do have sony libre button? also I downloaded the update but when I went to run this program it said it was defaulting to the old? or something like that?

Mass confusion, LOL

What do you see when you select the "Help/Book Designer Updates" menu item? It should say "Book Designer 5. Last update 16/03/2007". That's the latest version, which should have the "Sony Reader" button on it.

I think you can fix this one by changing the "Language" setting of the book from English to, say, French or German - any language which uses accented characters. This is in the "Settings" dialog (the toolbar button with the screwdriver on it).I'll give that a shot, HarryT, thanks!

What do you see when you select the "Help/Book Designer Updates" menu item? It should say "Book Designer 5. Last update 16/03/2007". That's the latest version, which should have the "Sony Reader" button on it.

I tried that and I went to some russion sight...........which I can't read by the way, :rolleyes:

oh, when I was trying to adjust things and that POP sound goes off (unexpected) all my birds scattered all over the back room, scared the crap out of them!! LOL

oh you know I have version 4.0 so where the heck is version 5.0? like I said it takes me to some russion sight so I can't read it.....maybe I need to go through all these threads?

On the "Options" tab of the "Make Sony Reader" dialog you can set the font used for each "element". You can't add new fonts, but you can select from the internal fonts. For example, I prefer my books to use the "Swiss" font for basic text, and that works fine.

Thanks Harry. I should have been more clear with my question. I knew that part of the "options" tab, but I want to make the first letter of the paragraph bigger and I don't know how to do it. If it is even possible. :blink:

Okay made my first conversion and seems to look good. Now to figure out how to change the fonts on the thing........ slowly but surely I am getting there <G>

hmmmmm, think I like this program now...... I have about 20 books loaded on my reader...... after I finish the one I am reading I may just have to delete all the others and start over from scratch and use this program... ;)

One of the great things about BD and LRF files is that the files are smaller than RTF. On many of them they are only 10% the size of the RTF and seldom are they more than 25% of the RTF. I currently have 43 books loaded and still have over 65 MB of space on the internal memory.

I think we need to start a cheat sheet or best practices for BD.

I think we need to start a cheat sheet or best practices for BD.Your next Wiki project? :grin:

ya know if anyone get the perfect sizing you can save it and could share? I would love the top and bottom margins to fit the screen better...... wasting space on the bottom that could hold a few more lines...... I have played with it with all aspects but I guess I don't get it yet....... <sigh> Hell I have been playing more with this program today than I have done anything else................ don't know if that is a good or a bad thing, LOL

Okay I found a new snag........ I converted a book and thought it was all nice and dandy..... appears it only converted 31 pages......... ha ha, well this book is longer than 31 pages............. how do I get this thing to convert the whole book?

Okay I found a new snag........ I converted a book and thought it was all nice and dandy..... appears it only converted 31 pages......... ha ha, well this book is longer than 31 pages............. how do I get this thing to convert the whole book?What format was the book in?

BD5 seems to currently have problem with linked HTML files, it takes the root and ignores the rest. I have had to build consolidated HTML files to get around this problem. Also CSS seem to dive it to fits at times.

What format was the book in?

BD5 seems to currently have problem with linked HTML files, it takes the root and ignores the rest. I have had to build consolidated HTML files to get around this problem. Also CSS seem to dive it to fits at times.

It was a .txt file.........

I just changed this txt file to an rtf file and ran it........ now It saved 27 pages.....I must be missing a setting somewhere..... although if I loaded up the whole book, it's not saving the whole book. Bummer!

Well I was able to make it work on A BOOK, tried something different and it worked..... tried yet another and it didn't... so very strange indeed.... I may be just loaded up my stuff the regular old way now regardless. <sigh>

Well I was able to make it work on A BOOK, tried something different and it worked..... tried yet another and it didn't... so very strange indeed.... I may be just loaded up my stuff the regular old way now regardless. <sigh>You have the old BD, it had a number of bugs in it's Librie routines. You really need the latest update, and use the "Make Sony Reader" menu. It's significantly faster, easier to use, and produces _much_ better books.

What OS are you using? I had a lot of problems in Vista, but I've had no hassles in XP.

You have the old BD, it had a number of bugs in it's Librie routines. You really need the latest update, and use the "Make Sony Reader" menu. It's significantly faster, easier to use, and produces _much_ better books.

What OS are you using? I had a lot of problems in Vista, but I've had no hassles in XP.

I do have the update, have the sony reader button on the top toolbar...... I removed the old one and installed from scratch again....... So this time I was able to do it with one book, all the rest it's only doing 27 pages or so.

I am using windows XP

I do have the update, have the sony reader button on the top toolbar...... I removed the old one and installed from scratch again....... So this time I was able to do it with one book, all the rest it's only doing 27 pages or so.

I am using windows XPTo make it work right you need to install the original BD4 files that are included with the installer routine. Then unzip the latest update and copy this to the BD folder in "Program Files". While it does replace many of the files, I am not sure if it is a complete replacement. There is also a note somewhere about updating the the LRS -> LRF converter.

Does it load all the text in the BD window? Did you check the output in the CONNECT software or on the Reader? I have found that the number of pages given in BD are far from the number I get on the Reader. For example, I just converted TE Lawrence's 7 Pillars of Wisdom and BD said I had ~480 pages and the Reader said I had 1,800+ pages.

To make it work right you need to install the original BD4 files that are included with the installer routine. Then unzip the latest update and copy this to the BD folder in "Program Files". While it does replace many of the files, I am not sure if it is a complete replacement. There is also a note somewhere about updating the the LRS -> LRF converter.

Does it load all the text in the BD window? Did you check the output in the CONNECT software or on the Reader? I have found that the number of pages given in BD are far from the number I get on the Reader. For example, I just converted TE Lawrence's 7 Pillars of Wisdom and BD said I had ~480 pages and the Reader said I had 1,800+ pages.

Okay I did install the original....... I did not install the updates the second time around. I removed it..... re-installed the first version then I found the upgrade for the sony reader and just installed those files over the original..... If there are more files that need to be in here I am totally lost and I wish someone would post all the files starting from first to last that need to be used........

Yes the whole book loads in the converter........ in the sony reader it's only saving like 27 pages...... yes I checked and that is how I know it's not working 27 pages is a far cry from some way over 200...... again I did get it to work with one book, it's on the other thread running around here, but I have tried others and I get the same result, only a few pages...... it's always doing only 27 or 30 pages, nothing higher. :(

ya know what, I have the original and three updates which is the newest.... maybe I will once again remove the program and start from scratch doing all the updates and see what happens.....

I removed the program and installed each program and update which equals for of them (that I know of)........ It still will not work. You don't know how maddening this is to me because I am the sort of person that wants to know WHY and since it worked for one file, why not others........ the file that converted fine was a .lit file...... I tried .rft......... txt and then after the reinstall I just now tried a different .lit book and it only converted 14 pages.......

I am calling it a night..... my brains are fried..... so if there are other updates that I don't know about......... What is this update about the LRS - > LRF converter and whatever the heck that is..........

On the "Make Sony Reader" screen are you sure that you're pressing the "Make" button, rather than the "Test" button? The "Test" button only does the first few pages.

Yes......... I do the test button and have also did the make button, but I will try it again before I click the send post button. Oh Harry I love you......... ha ha, I guess looking at the sample was the problem...... I just made two fo them...... I do have one book that wants to keep running in a loop, something is wrong with this book for some reason, maybe something I converted from html to rtf? at the bottom when the program tries to convert it I see html0 or something like that and the numbers just keep running in a loop... I won't worry too much about that one.

I just did another to be sure........ worked.... thank you thank you Harry..... ha ha, boy do I feel stupid, well sort of.....

:iloveyou:

I am completely at a loss for words, which is a rare occurance for me :grin:.

Yea well I am at a loss of words too over that stupid mistake of mine, although I could have swore I did try to MAKE and it was still short....either way, it's working now.

Is there a way to turn off that POP sound when it does the TEST? Scares the birds, or do I just need to MUTE my sounds while doing this?

Is there a way to turn off that POP sound when it does the TEST? Scares the birds, or do I just need to MUTE my sounds while doing this?

Click the "Settings" toolbar button (the one with the screwdriver on it) and clear the "Play Sounds" check box.

Thank you..... now that was easy........... done deal..........

Is there a way to turn off that POP sound when it does the TEST? Scares the birds....Stupid thing makes me jump. But thanks to Harry, I can now turn it off too!

I'm glad you two got it worked out, I've learned quite a bit from the discussion myself. I'm getting closer to finding the settings to do control the bits I don't like.

Is there anyway to tell it to center text without it being some special markup? Or is labeling it 'Verse' the closest I'm gonna get? -- never mind, found it. :nice:

I am glad too NatCH....... I could have swore I did Make a book, put it on the reader only to find it only 27 something pages....... unless it was the test page I accidently moved over to the library, LOL...... Live and learn .
Oh and I love that I can have any font I want now in the reader, whhoooppeeee.. I need to find a favorite though, if there can be one. <G>

Just playing with this thing now I wanted to try a fancy looking font.... it's not showing up in the reader, looks like anything else, does say it can be embedded. Oh well this is the least of my worries, I do like this program.

Are their any rules to the fonts?

One more trick - you can load rtf, txt, html into BD without any converting to another format.
Fonts that you want to embed should be installed into Font dirictory of your WindowsXP. BD just takes fonts from the system.

One more trick - you can load rtf, txt, html into BD without any converting to another format.
Fonts that you want to embed should be installed into Font dirictory of your WindowsXP. BD just takes fonts from the system.

Yes it only makes sense since you use the program and click on the fonts that are on your system. But I do have at least one font at this moment on my computer but it will not show up in bookreader...... that font is BernardMod BT It just will not work...... I am sure not a font that I would want to use, but I am trying to see what fonts will and what looks nice.

It is nice we no longer need to convert, did that include LIT files as well or do we need to use amber for that? Oh wait, not it did LIT fonts as well, it was one of the ones I was working on yesterday that I was successful with... ;)

Oh another little tip. I started to convert over some books and then loaded them up on the reader. Well actually looking at the text size via connect doesn't do the book justice, so if you need larger fonts as I do (not huge but larger than tiny, LOL) may I suggest you make one which you think looks good, Make it and actually put it on the reader and then turn the reader on and look at it there........ what you see on connect doesn't translate IMO what is on the reader itself......... so I had to remove a couple of books I made and re-do with a little bit of a larger font........

... But I do have at least one font at this moment on my computer but it will not show up in bookreader...... that font is BernardMod BT It just will not work...... I am sure not a font that I would want to use, but I am trying to see what fonts will and what looks nice....
Some fonts have the meta tag for embedding set to "no", this could be one of those fonts.

Do you know of any way to check that?

The best way to check font propertiesin Windows is to use the Microsoft Font Properties Extension Tool. (http://www.microsoft.com/typography/TrueTypeProperty21.mspx)

First, its free. Second, it enhances the visible Properties box for True Type, Open Type, and Clear Type fonts. In Windows Explorer, just open the Fonts subdirectory under Windows and right click on the font. From the drop down menu select Properties and then click on the Embedded tab. The top part of the box will explain the embedding properties for that font.

Some fonts have the meta tag for embedding set to "no", this could be one of those fonts.

But I checked and it said it was okay to embed....?

The best way to check font propertiesin Windows is to use the Microsoft Font Properties Extension Tool. (http://www.microsoft.com/typography/TrueTypeProperty21.mspx)

First, its free. Second, it enhances the visible Properties box for True Type, Open Type, and Clear Type fonts. In Windows Explorer, just open the Fonts subdirectory under Windows and right click on the font. From the drop down menu select Properties and then click on the Embedded tab. The top part of the box will explain the embedding properties for that font.

Okay well all the paragraphs say it's allowed.... last paragraph says this. Restricted license embedding no embedding allowed, font may not be embedded in doc........ well I just checked on Arial and it says the same thing and arial can be used so something is just plain screwy here....

Just call me a trouble maker at this point, LOL

I don't believe that LRF files, as used by the Sony Reader, currently support the embedding of fonts. You need to use PDF if you want custom fonts.

No not true....... I have already made a book using comic sans..... this program lets you. I just installed and saved a book using comic sans..... ( a font I use a lot of) and actually it looks pretty darn good on the reader...... I may just use this one most of the time..... so those books I just made yesterday I think I will redo them. Actuallyl I just took a test with the font and converted it on the reader just now so to be 100% sure of myself and what I saw yesterday and yes it's there and yes we can. :)

This free utitilty http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/twm/embed/ allows you to change the embed properties of the font. The creator also discusses the DCMA takedown notices he received here http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/twm/embed/dmca.html and how he feels this tool does not violate the DCMA.

This tool works well - I had to send a pdf to a print house and one of the fonts used in the project didn't allow embedding. It took all of a few seconds to correct that problem.

Rob

Okay well all the paragraphs say it's allowed.... last paragraph says this. Restricted license embedding no embedding allowed, font may not be embedded in doc........ well I just checked on Arial and it says the same thing and arial can be used so something is just plain screwy here....

Just call me a trouble maker at this point, LOL
You're a trouble maker! :D

The top area of the box inside an area that says "Enbedability for this font" is a single line that described the properties for this font. The following box provides descriptions of the four embedding conditions that may be in the top box.

You're a trouble maker! :D

The top area of the box inside an area that says "Enbedability for this font" is a single line that described the properties for this font. The following box provides descriptions of the four embedding conditions that may be in the top box.

:tongue: So he listens to what I told him to call me, hmmmmpp

Well you have me mass confused me........... either way I think most of my book making is going to be comic sans and that one works....
I would use it here other than always having to change it, having a default setting would be nice.

OK, first I have enclosed a screen shot of the embed property area. The top box is what is allowed with this font and the bottom box is a description of all possible descriptions in the top box.

Now about setting a base font in BD. Open BD and select Make e-book|Sony Reader. On the top are three (3) tabs, select "styles" and you will see the settings for each element in BD for Sony Reader. This is also where you can add external fonts to the BD arena. I save my selections under "default" so that they will load each time without my having to think about it.

As for listening and calling people by the form of address they request ....

OK, first I have enclosed a screen shot of the embed property area. The top box is what is allowed with this font and the bottom box is a description of all possible descriptions in the top box.

Now about setting a base font in BD. Open BD and select Make e-book|Sony Reader. On the top are three (3) tabs, select "styles" and you will see the settings for each element in BD for Sony Reader. This is also where you can add external fonts to the BD arena. I save my selections under "default" so that they will load each time without my having to think about it.

As for listening and calling people by the form of address they request ....

I did all these things other than put my prefered font under the default settings, I just save a whole bunch of them and name them by font.......I think it stays at the last setting you had it at when you open this program up once again.... all of this I understand and have done....... what I am saying is that I have one particular font which will not show up in the reader for some reason although it says it will embed...... it will not....BernhardMOD BT And in that new little extra program to check the fonts, it's not saying anything different than an arial font which tells me it too can work in the reader..... but my point it is not for some reason.... Yes I added it to my list over there on the right hand side (not that dumb, <G>).......:p

Yes it only makes sense since you use the program and click on the fonts that are on your system. But I do have at least one font at this moment on my computer but it will not show up in bookreader...... that font is BernardMod BT It just will not work...... I am sure not a font that I would want to use, but I am trying to see what fonts will and what looks nice.

It is nice we no longer need to convert, did that include LIT files as well or do we need to use amber for that? Oh wait, not it did LIT fonts as well, it was one of the ones I was working on yesterday that I was successful with... ;)
Sorry, I can not add anything else. I do not know which font types are not supported by BD because I do not use embedding and didn't have enough experience. You can see that page turn became around 2-3 sec for books with embedded fonts and it is 0.5 sec only for the books with internal reader fonts. I tried to cut fonts and keep Russian symbols only - this can not help with page turning speed. So, I prefer speed then beauty :wink:

Sorry, I can not add anything else. I do not know which font types are not supported by BD because I do not use embedding and didn't have enough experience. You can see that page turn became around 2-3 sec for books with embedded fonts and it is 0.5 sec only for the books with internal reader fonts. I prefer speed then beauty :wink:

Just wanted to post the same thing.
2-3 seconds page turn vs 0.5 prevents me from using embeded fonts at all.

I thought I noticed a difference in speed when I was checking out the font on the reader.....

You know since we can change the books in bookreader pretty much to any size font we want I went looking to see if there was any files which the reader had the books on your computer on at the time that you could open up in bookdesigner and then enlarge the font...... bummer, at least I didn't see anything...... so if these books are lrf where the heck are the books installed or is that stricktly on the reader? no way to find them....... sure would be nice to make some of these purchases BIGGER! But I guess if this was possible we all would have heard about it by now. ;(

BD will only write LRF files; unfortunately it won't read them, so the only way to edit a book is either in the original source, or in the HTML file that BD creates when it converts the book to its own format. There's no way to edit LRF files in BD, to the best of my knowledge.

The more I use BD, the more impressed I am with it - this is one seriously good program!

I'm now in the middle of creating an LRF "Complete Sherlock Holmes" from the HTML version on the PG Australia site; it really only "works" in BD because you can create a TOC; such a long book is almost useless without a TOC.

I'll be happy to share it with anyone else who's interested when it's finished!

What we get from the CONNECT store are in LRX format which has DRM. BookDesigner creates LRS files and these are then converted to LRF for loading into the Reader.

My best guess is that they are LRS = Librie Reader Source, LRF = Librie Reader Format, and LRX = Librie Reader Xasperating. :D

Harry, count me in for a copy when you're finished. I have converted a few short stories so far from Last Bow but have not even acquired the whole series.

I just finished converting 7 Pillars of Wisdom by TE Lawrence. Copies are available in LRF.

Harry, count me in for a copy when you're finished.

Me too! Me too! I used to be a BIG fan of Sherlock Holmes. At the moment I am contemplating buying a special illustrated edition of Sherlock Holmes. It costs £20 and it is HUGE. Just to have one for my home collection.

Me too! Me too! I used to be a BIG fan of Sherlock Holmes. At the moment I am contemplating buying a special illustrated edition of Sherlock Holmes. It costs £20 and it is HUGE. Just to have one for my home collection.
One of the books that survived in grand style from the cleaning (my thread called "Tipping Point") that is still going on is the two volume hardbound set of Sherlock Holmes.

One of the books that survived in grand style from the cleaning (my thread called "Tipping Point") that is still going on is the two volume hardbound set of Sherlock Holmes.

Is that the Leslie Klinger "Annotated SH"? Wonderful set! Vol 3 is available now, with the four novels in it.

Ugggg, just finished my book and went and checked the new book with my changing the font to comic sans..... needless to say you are correct in that it takes forever to turn that page so I just formated two books with one of the readers default fonts............

BD will only write LRF files; unfortunately it won't read them, so the only way to edit a book is either in the original source, or in the HTML file that BD creates when it converts the book to its own format. There's no way to edit LRF files in BD, to the best of my knowledge.
If you are preparing carefully some big book and are going to edit it during a long time, it is recommended to keep intermediate versions in BD format (Ctrl+F11).

I don't have a sony reader button

Configuration -> Toolbar -> default

how to make it not treat the list of previously published books as chapter titles.
Select them (double-click on the first, then shift+click on the last), then
right-click -> more transformations -> selected elements -> paragraphs.

Yeah, I got that far, vvv, but I also wanted them centered. I've since found the 'Center' option under Format -> More Transformations-> Align: Center :beam:

Sorry, should've followed up on that before now, thanks for the tip. :nice:

I do have the update, have the sony reader button on the top toolbar...... I removed the old one and installed from scratch again....... So this time I was able to do it with one book, all the rest it's only doing 27 pages or so.

There is a known bug (or feature) of the Connect soft: sometimes it cuts off lrf's. Try to load your book directly to the card.

Do you know of any way to check that?
BD -> Make eBooks -> Sony Reader -> styles -> external fonts -> add -> choose a font -> add font. If the chosen font can be embedded, it will appear in "external fonts" list, otherwise the error message will be shown.

So, an books created by those of you on this thread that you can share with us all in the brand spankin' new Reader Uploads section?

OK, first I have enclosed a screen shot of the embed property area. The top box is what is allowed with this font and the bottom box is a description of all possible descriptions in the top box.

Now about setting a base font in BD. Open BD and select Make e-book|Sony Reader. On the top are three (3) tabs, select "styles" and you will see the settings for each element in BD for Sony Reader. This is also where you can add external fonts to the BD arena. I save my selections under "default" so that they will load each time without my having to think about it.

As for listening and calling people by the form of address they request ....
It works but most of the fonts all say I can't do anything. Bummerusky.

Well, it took me a bit longer to be convinced, but you lot love BD so much I kept trying it. I like the idea of smaller files and especially in-line pix, so I kept trying it. I kept running into stumbling blocks, but I also liked a lot of what I was seeing, so I kept trying it.

Finally, I've gotten around the peculiarities enough, and figured out how to set (and save) my preferences enough that I'm sold. I just did 2 books, with cover art and other in-line pix (like maps) in about 10 minutes. No fuss, no muss. Granted it took me about 20 hours of trying to get here, but here I am.

I finally realized I was trying too hard, I didn't like the way it handled 'titles' and 'subtitles' in the headers & footers, so I spent a lot of time trying to deal with getting the right stuff to display (for instance, David Weber likes to use "* * *" to mark jumps between story lines, and it wanted to treat them like titles, and put that text in the footer), I finally realized that I don't like the header & footer in the first place, and turned them off. Problem solved.

For most books (now that I have the prefs set the way I want, and know what to ignore), the biggest time consumer is loading up the cover art. :beam:

It took me longer to get here than a lot of you folks, but I'm glad I made the trip!

Now I'll be converting things as I re-read/acquire them and zipping up the RTFs for archive purposes.

Happy happy, joy joy!

Hallelujah, you've seen the light. Welcome, brother :grin:.

You're right, though. If you try and "fight" BD it's a lost cause; you have to set it up the way you want it and then just let it do its own thing.

My basic procedure is:

1. Load the book.
2. Select "Tools/Element Browser" and find all the titles. If there's anything that shouldn't be a title (BD is a bit keen on changing any single word on a line into a title!), change it back to "Paragraph". It's the "Title" styles that end up in the TOC.
3. If the book doesn't have one, add a nice cover page and table of contents (I like to have a table of contents at the start of the actual text, as well as the Reader TOC).
4. Make sure BD has gone the styles right for the author and title (it more than not gets them back to front - there's a button to swap them around)
4. Generate the book.

My standard settings are:

Language: German (this gets you all the accented characters - if you use English, they get changed to Russian characters!).
Page margins: 10px all round
Book elements: Author from last name
Headers/Footers: Header off, footer on
Skip cover page and title page (I prefer to do my own)
Page breaks: on
User page breaks: on

I finally realized I was trying too hard, I didn't like the way it handled 'titles' and 'subtitles' in the headers & footers, so I spent a lot of time trying to deal with getting the right stuff to display (for instance, David Weber likes to use "* * *" to mark jumps between story lines, and it wanted to treat them like titles, and put that text in the footer), I finally realized that I don't like the header & footer in the first place, and turned them off. Problem solved.


Hi Nat,

As you say, BD has a habit of treating any word that's on a line by itself (such as "* * *") as a title, which has three undesirable effects:

1. It forces a page break at that point, if you have "page breaks" enabled in the options (which is a good idea, but not for this!).

2. It appears in the TOC, which is very undesirable.

3. If you have footers enabled (as I do), it'll appear in the footer.

There's a very easy to find and fix all these. Simply select "Tools/Element Browser", make sure "Titles" is selected, and click the "Find" button. You'll get a list of everything that's been given the "Title" style and you can instantly see what shouldn't be one. If you click on something in the list, BD will take you to it, and will highlight the text. If it shouldn't be a title, simply select the "Paragraph" style for it and then if you still want it to appear "centred" (as for your "* * *", for example), select "Format/More Transformations/Align: center" to centre it.

It's a good idea to at least get the "Title" style right because they are what form the TOC, and having a TOC without garbage in it is useful. It also means that you can usefully switch on footers, and get chapter names at the bottom of the page, which personally I find very useful (having the book name in a header just seems like a complete waste of space - I know what book I'm reading!).

Hope that's of some help to you. "Element Browser" is one of BD's many "hidden treasures" which make it so much easier to use!

4. Make sure BD has gone the styles right for the author and title (it more than not gets them back to front - there's a button to swap them around)I ... it ... you mean ... it does?!?! Gotta find that button -- I been switching them by hand. :no:

I don't care about the TOC or the footers, so I just go through the list of titles and subtitles in the element browser to make sure the "one word sentences" aren't getting bolded and centered.

I do wish the centering wasn't buried so deeply (a button for alignment would be nice, even if it just stepped through the options).

Otherwise, I'm quite pleased with the results I'm getting, now that I've figured out how to get out of its way enough. :beam:

I ... it ... you mean ... it does?!?! Gotta find that button -- I been switching them by hand. :no:

I don't care about the TOC or the footers, so I just go through the list of titles and subtitles in the element browser to make sure the "one word sentences" aren't getting bolded and centered.

I do wish the centering wasn't buried so deeply (a button for alignment would be nice, even if it just stepped through the options).

Otherwise, I'm quite pleased with the results I'm getting, now that I've figured out how to get out of its way enough. :beam:

The "Swap author and title" button is on the "Corrector" tool palette (the one with all the style names on). It's the 5th button down in the left-most column.

Totally agree with you along the alignment menu - I wish they had buttons!

Ah, yes, now I see it. And I looked through all those buttons too -- guess it just didn't 'take.'

Just one tip when doing changes, when the dialog comes up to ask you to "save the changes" just before creating an LRF, select YES. I've always said NO as I assumed it was writing back to my source file which I didn't want - so I've been cursing Book Designer for not applying my changes to the LRF in the past.

You can also use the button "Shift" in the Make Sony Reader File dialog.

Just one tip when doing changes, when the dialog comes up to ask you to "save the changes" just before creating an LRF, select YES. I've always said NO as I assumed it was writing back to my source file which I didn't want - so I've been cursing Book Designer for not applying my changes to the LRF in the past.

I have it set to "Save without prompting", simply because I can't think of any circumstances in which I'd want to create an LRF without saving!

Harry: How do you make those master and section TOCs? They look great and work well. They seem like just the thing I might need for a project I'm doing.

Using the "Notes and Links" feature of BD, which are very easy to use. A "note" is a place that you want to jump to, a link is a place (perhaps more than one) that you want to jump to the note from.

Go to the "Edit" menu and select "Notes and Links". You get a dialog box - the left column shows the notes, the right column the links for the selected note.

Now, all you have to do is select each chapter title (or wherever else you want to jump to) in turn (this is very easy using the "Element Browser"), highlight the text, and click the "Add" button under the left column of the "Notes and Links" dialog. The text appears in the column as a "note", with its page number alongside it. Add all the notes you'll want in your TOC.

Then, what I do is manually type in my table of contents (or book index, or whatever), and then highlight the text of a line in the table of contents, select the note that I want it to "jump" to in the left column of the "Notes and Links" dialog, and click the "Add" button under the right column. This adds the selected text as a "link" to the chosen note. In Reader, the line in the TOC will now appear as a "hyperlink" and, when you select it, you'll jump to the chapter title it links to. It's a two-way link, in fact - click the chapter title link and you end up back at the table of contents.

This is a great facility - it's a general hyperlink system that you can use to do tables of contents, footnotes, endnotes, general "references" from one part of your book to another - really its uses are limited only by your imagination.

This probably sounds rather complicated, but it isn't! The best thing to do is to experiment with it and see how it works - the key thing to remember is that you add the places you want to jump TO in the left hand column, select each one in turn, and add the text that you want to link to it using the right hand column.

That's probably horribly confused - it's a lot easier to do it than it is to try and describe it :grin:.

Thans Harry.

Hello,

I know that I am missing something and hope that some kind soul will point me in the right direction. When Making a book from a .pdf or from a .doc, the images do not appear in the .lrf file. Instead, I get something like the following:

Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.

Any advice?

Thank you,

FtB

It seems that your image is not in the document but is just a reference to either a location on your hard disk or to a web address. Try to extract the images into their own files and then add them back. I have had a few cases of converting an HTML and have had little or no problems as the images were either saved in the same folder as the HTML or in a subdirectory under the directory where the HTML was.

When the image was originally added directly to the DOC file I have never had a problem with it showing up in BD.

I was thinking the same thing, but .pdf files generally contain the images don't they?

The file is a .chm that I converted via printing to .pdf files. When I checked the remove links option, the errors go away, but still no images. The images do appear in the .pdf file.

I wonder what I am missing....

FtB

Images in PDF files won't import.

Well! Thank you for that information--that clears things up considerably. If I am printing from a .chm file, what target format would be best? The .chm convertor that I am using supports a number of export formats.

Thanks again,

FtB

I tried importing a word doc, and again, no images. I see places in the text that say click link to view full image.

The images are self contained in the word document (the images do not link to external sources).

Ack. I just had a thought. Check the Settings menu (the icon is a little screwdriver), and make sure it doesn't have "remove pictures" checked (lower right).

Apologies if I've misunderstood what you're asking, but the Reader won't display images in Word/RTF files. If you convert to the Reader's native LRF format using a tool such as Book Designer, you will then see the images.

Yah, he's trying to get the images into BookDesigner, HarryT. :nice:

I just finished importing a manual from Word to BD and it contained embedded JPG, GIF, and WMF graphics. All imported fine. It did have trouble with the tables but that is just a matter of me getting the import settings right.

I used Harry's multilevel TOC format and that seemed to work fine. (It is easier to do than it is to explain.)

Hello and thank you to all for your help.

Knowing that pdf conversion will not provide images clears up one of the problems. I have been working with a .doc file from .chm, and things are getting better with the following caveats:

1) I had to leve links in or else the pictures would not show. That is strange given that the images are contained within the document, but perhaps that is the way Word references them even within a self-contained document

2) with some settings, and I haven't isolated them yet, the pictures do no appear in the text where they should, i.e., a bunch appear together before long blocks of text, and then another bunch of pictures and etc.

As far as importing from Word goes, am I better off checking the preserve formatting or to reformat completely? Does anybody have a list of settings that converts a .doc into a .lrf that includes pictures and maintains a reasonable semblance of the formatting (given, of course, that it needs to reflow the text to accomodate the smaller page sizes)?

Thanks again,

FtB

Hello and thank you to all for your help.

Knowing that pdf conversion will not provide images clears up one of the problems. I have been working with a .doc file from .chm, and things are getting better with the following caveats:

1) I had to leve links in or else the pictures would not show. That is strange given that the images are contained within the document, but perhaps that is the way Word references them even within a self-contained document Links to an external picture is just one way that Word deals with pictures. In this case that is a function of the CHM to Word conversion program that you have used rather than Word. If you were to replace the links with the actual pictures (a lot of work depending on the document) then the BD conversion would be smoother.

2) with some settings, and I haven't isolated them yet, the pictures do no appear in the text where they should, i.e., a bunch appear together before long blocks of text, and then another bunch of pictures and etc.This depends on the way the formatting of the picture element in Word is set. (Sorry for repeating the common.) You may have better luck with the picture placement in BD.

As far as importing from Word goes, am I better off checking the preserve formatting or to reformat completely? Does anybody have a list of settings that converts a .doc into a .lrf that includes pictures and maintains a reasonable semblance of the formatting (given, of course, that it needs to reflow the text to accomodate the smaller page sizes)?This is the old "it depends" answer. Since each file (and converter) has its own properties the answer that worked for one file last week may not work for another file today. Experiment. Do not be afraid to try. The cost of failure is small and the results will be back to you faster than this answer was.

Good luck Fritz.

Hi everyone,

I bought the Sony reader in order to read some technical documents anywhere I need to. I have been really disappointed when I realized that pdf documents are not readable easily on the Sony reader.

But, after having spent 3 days looking on the web how to reformat my documents, Hallelujah, I found your forum, and Hallelujah again, I downloaded and started to use Book Designer.

I thought I would become the happiest guy on this forum, but I noticed that the pages break of the converted document are quite random. That means that I have some pages with a little bit of text, and then totally empty. The text comes back at the next page.

I checked the all elements that could be titles, removed pages breaks.

Is someone meeting the same problem?
Thank you very much in advance.

Kevin

I'm having the same problem, and also tried to use the tutorial, however none of the screenshots match, the options for stuff like "user page breaks" in "options" don't exist. I'm using Book Designer 5.0 (that was copied from the about) and I'm starting to really lose patience with the giant blank gaps that I get when trying to convert.
This whole book converter setup is a giant mess. Isn't there someone who can get together with the developer to create an English language page on his site for all of us poor sods who can't read cyrillic characters?

I do appreciate all the time people have put into this and I'm sorry if I sound like I'm dumping all over this thread, but I'm awfully frustrated.



I bought the Sony reader in order to read some technical documents anywhere I need to. I have been really disappointed when I realized that pdf documents are not readable easily on the Sony reader.

But, after having spent 3 days looking on the web how to reformat my documents, Hallelujah, I found your forum, and Hallelujah again, I downloaded and started to use Book Designer.

I thought I would become the happiest guy on this forum, but I noticed that the pages break of the converted document are quite random. That means that I have some pages with a little bit of text, and then totally empty. The text comes back at the next page.

I checked the all elements that could be titles, removed pages breaks.

Is someone meeting the same problem?
Thank you very much in advance.

Kevin

Hi everyone,

I bought the Sony reader in order to read some technical documents anywhere I need to. I have been really disappointed when I realized that pdf documents are not readable easily on the Sony reader.

But, after having spent 3 days looking on the web how to reformat my documents, Hallelujah, I found your forum, and Hallelujah again, I downloaded and started to use Book Designer.

I thought I would become the happiest guy on this forum, but I noticed that the pages break of the converted document are quite random. That means that I have some pages with a little bit of text, and then totally empty. The text comes back at the next page.

I checked the all elements that could be titles, removed pages breaks.

Is someone meeting the same problem?
Thank you very much in advance.

Kevin
Navy Blue text are titles. To remove them, just higlight the text and convert to paragraph. Also check the page break settings in the Make Sony Reader file dialog box under options. in the misc section are options for how to handle page breaks. if you need to see my options screen, just say so and I'll post a screen cap here.

I'm having the same problem, and also tried to use the tutorial, however none of the screenshots match, the options for stuff like "user page breaks" in "options" don't exist.

That means that you haven't installed the program correctly.

You need to FIRST install BD 4 from the "BookDesigner40.msi" file. Then, once it's installed, unzip the BD 5 "BookDesignerExe.zip" into the BD 4 installation directory, overwriting all the files with the same name.

You will then have all the options displayed on the tutorial screens.

Its true. I had THE EXACT SAME problem.. So I deleted EVERYTHING the entire program, then went in to my C drive, program files, then found the 'leftovers' a folder called Book Designer, dragged it into the recycle bin, started over. Got the program, installed it... then downloaded the update... after unpacking the update files from their zipped state.. Dropped the entire folder on top of the Book designer folder that should be in your c drive program files folder,, ( i hope your following and forgive me if im being too simplistic but the program is great and I'm REALLY enjoying using it once it is installed correctly..) After dropping the files on top of the other, you should get a window that pops up that says do you want to copy etc. Click Yes to all.. an it will be perfect! (Hopefully)

That means that you haven't installed the program correctly.

You need to FIRST install BD 4 from the "BookDesigner40.msi" file. Then, once it's installed, unzip the BD 5 "BookDesignerExe.zip" into the BD 4 installation directory, overwriting all the files with the same name.

You will then have all the options displayed on the tutorial screens.

Actually, I DID have it installed properl and I was on version 5 as well, but the link that I used to get the update had the OLD updater from last year in it.


Here's the steps:

From http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/content.php?article.63
Download these two files:

Скачать полный пакет программы (29.06.2004, BookDesigner40.zip, ~10 Мб)
Скачать последний апдейт программы (14.03.2007, BookDesignerExe.zip, ~2.5) <<at this writing this was the latest version, depending on how long it is til you read this, it may be updated.

Install the .msi file in the “BookDesigner40″ folder
Extract the “BookDesignerExe.zip” file
Then copy ALL the contents from the “BookDesignerExe” over the stuff you just installed in your Book Designer folder in your Program Files folder

NOW you’ll have a Sony Reader convert-y button instead of the old Librie one.

Phew.

I've recently adopted BD to convert my e-books to LRF for my books site (with assistance by RWood, and checked with the Connect SW on my PC, since I don't as yet actually have a Reader). I must say I like the tools, and their ease of use. I had to take the time to work out a specific sequence of conversion steps, to shorten what started out as a 3-hour process into less than an hour (not counting pre- and post-checking the content, page by page).

I do, however, admit to having problems with the HTML editor, which can be twitchy and sometimes creates unneeded breaks even as I delete them! I eventually simplified my issues by opening the entire book into the HTML editor, then copying and pasting the HTML into Dreamweaver to do the HTML edits there... then pasting the new HTML back into the BD HTML editor, and applying that to the book.

My result has been excellent Sony Reader LRFs, including covers and an "also available" section in the back of each book, and I've converted my entire catalog!

For completeness sake, note that the very latest update is the 12th Apr 2007 one.

I've recently adopted BD to convert my e-books to LRF for my books site (with assistance by RWood, and checked with the Connect SW on my PC, since I don't as yet actually have a Reader). I must say I like the tools, and their ease of use. I had to take the time to work out a specific sequence of conversion steps, to shorten what started out as a 3-hour process into less than an hour (not counting pre- and post-checking the content, page by page).

I do, however, admit to having problems with the HTML editor, which can be twitchy and sometimes creates unneeded breaks even as I delete them! I eventually simplified my issues by opening the entire book into the HTML editor, then copying and pasting the HTML into Dreamweaver to do the HTML edits there... then pasting the new HTML back into the BD HTML editor, and applying that to the book.

My result has been excellent Sony Reader LRFs, including covers and an "also available" section in the back of each book, and I've converted my entire catalog!
Do you spend most of that one hour in editing the HTML?

I'm more than "gob-stopped". I'm plain stupified (and stupid). Can't find how to obtain BD. Can't download the tutorial as something "ate" my zip program and the file won't open.

An unzipper is built into Windows. All you should have to do is "double click" the ZIP file and it'll open as a new window, showing the contents.

I don't mean to be rude, Malerne, and please don't be offended by my saying this, but perhaps you might benefit from getting an introductory book on using a PC - a lot of the questions you're asking are to do with using Windows rather than to do with the Reader or Connect specifically. You'll find a lot of excellent books in any computer store.

Do you spend most of that one hour in editing the HTML?
No; Most of that hour is now spent checking and adjusting various features of the document to be converted, like formatting, tabs, section breaks, etc; and checking the converted document afterward, which usually requires re-converting as I always find something that was incorrectly formatted the first time. Most of the HTML work is cut-and-paste, and so doesn't take that much time.

Before I applied Dreamweaver to the HTML work, a lot of the editing had to be done one item at a time, like applying centered glyphs to indicate the break of a section (three lines of code, something the HTML's find-and-replace apparently cannot handle).

And as I said, the BD HTML editor software would sometimes experience a "brainfart," and drop a break where I did not want one, or change a format, and if I didn't catch it, I'd have to check and reconvert. With Dreamweaver, I miss items and reconvert less than before.

Hmm interesting...my workflow is the reverse. I spend most of my time fixing the HTML (about 10 mins) and the conversion to LRF is automatic. But I guess it depends on the quality of the HTML source and the desired quoality of the LRF output as well.