I've managed to find BD4 (via the wiki) but cannot seem to find BD 5 anywhere. Could anyone charitably point me in the right direction?

I expect that I'm missing something very obvious. But please be patient with me. I've only had my sony reader for 6 days and am very new to this. And I'm looking forward to turning my PG downloads into more elegant books.

Try this
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/download.php?view.9

Thank you, Jimmyzou. That's the page I found. It says that it is for BD 4. I downloaded the program and now have three pretty icons for Book Designer 4.0 on my desktop. Yet people on this forum are talking about BD 5, so I would like the most up to date version.

The icon on my desktop also identifies it as BD 4, but if you run BD and click on "Help" and select updates, a pop-up will come up that identifies that you really have BD 5 (if you do.)

Jim

Thank you, Jim. I've got it all working properly now.
It was a bit bewildering to find that the icon names didn't match the contents, but you have helped enormously.

This is a very useful forum and I am deeply impressed by the generosity that people show to beginners like me.

Ok.. I too am downloading this version... Does this version need an update? And if so... where is it?

Version 5 of BD is dated 3/14/07. There is a reference to a newer version dated 4/12/07 in the BD thread, but when Harry T asked what the features of the newer version were, if he got an answer, it's not in that thread, so I don't know if he downloaded it and is using it for the books he's producing or not. Perhaps he'll answer and we'll both know. I can only say that version 5 works OK for my purposes.

Jim

I couldn't resist giving it a go. It works, and it was trivial.

Here's a simple 1-2-3 of what I did...

1) [Assuming you have not already installed the base version of BookDesigner already]
Download the base install program from here:
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/BookDesigner40.zip
(following http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=40594&postcount=1)
Unzip the installer program and run it.

2) To update the program, download and unzip into a folder...
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/download.php?view.9
(following the link from http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=69770&postcount=2)

Then copy it into the folder that was created on the original install, and on top of existing files. For me that folder was:
"C:\Program Files\Book Designer 4.0"

It will replace the old files with new versions (so choose to replace all when there are warnings in the copy process).

3) Follow Harry's instructions from
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=64355&postcount=1

It's a Word document to download, and it has full instructions on using BookDesigner to create Sony Reader files from PG HTML sources. But I just took the meat and potato pieces and used defaults and it was amazingly fast and easy! I'll learn the fancy formatting, clean up, illustrations and TOC stuff later.

Caution: I'm a newbie to using BookDesigner myself, so this is only what seems to have worked for me, written out by memory as best I could. Hopefully it helps someone, but it don't make any guarantees!

Conclusion:
WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW!

Nothing but kudos for VVV for an absolutely amazing program. And to Harry for the amazing quick start guide that makes it trivial to get started. Together with my instructions here on the install (until a newer version comes out, at least), maybe it will be accessible to everyone. I wish I hadn't waited so long!

Honestly, having done nothing and basically not having to learn anything, I've created a nice Sony Reader .lrf file. Almost all with default settings and no trouble. It's like a miracle.

For programmers out there who remember structured programming, have you ever written a program by basically decomposing it until there was nothing really left to do, and by the time you finished you wondered how it could possibly be finished because you don't really feel like you did any work? That's what this felt like - everything was set up just right, and of course the hard stuff is all hidden in the program.

I'm ashamed to say that I'm only discovering this for myself (obviously I suspected something special based on all the other accolades), but I'm blown away. What an amazing job, vvv!!!!!

Warning:

Okay, one more point before I quit -- if you only follow the instructions from this post,
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=40594&postcount=1
you won't get the Sony Reader option. Apparently that info is a bit outdated.

Unfortunately, I tried that first, and that false step was basically where all my time went. If I had these instructions I probably could have installed the program and created the book in about 15 mins start to finish.

Hope this helps. BD experts, please correct me where I may have got something wrong.

Bob, great post! You got the info just right for the newbie BD user!

At this stage I'm starting to think a wiki page page might be in order, to hold the base program, and the most recent (maybe a complete history) update could be kept handy, along with the basic install instructions, and of course a link to HarryT's tutorial. Perhaps I'll see about setting something up once I get back from this trip (unless somebody beats me to it in the meantime).

Version 5 of BD is dated 3/14/07. There is a reference to a newer version dated 4/12/07 in the BD thread, but when Harry T asked what the features of the newer version were, if he got an answer, it's not in that thread, so I don't know if he downloaded it and is using it for the books he's producing or not. Perhaps he'll answer and we'll both know. I can only say that version 5 works OK for my purposes.

Jim

Yes, I'm using the 12th April version. It seems to have fixed a few things - eg an "&" now displays correctly in a book.

The only thing I didnt particularly agree with in the word document is the way he changed the italics.

Wouldnt it be a lot easier to do a find/replace with a regex?

Something like finding all instances of _.*_, italicizing, then running through and deleting all of the underscores?

My regexp knowledge is very rusty, and in fact was never too bright to begin with, but it seems to me that automating tedious processes such as this is the whole reason we work with computers!

The only thing I didnt particularly agree with in the word document is the way he changed the italics.

Wouldnt it be a lot easier to do a find/replace with a regex?

Something like finding all instances of _.*_, italicizing, then running through and deleting all of the underscores?

My regexp knowledge is very rusty, and in fact was never too bright to begin with, but it seems to me that automating tedious processes such as this is the whole reason we work with computers!

Can you elaborate on how this can be done, please? I couldn't find a way, hence the manual method I describe in the tutorial. I'd love to be able to automate the process!

I am headed to bed right now, but if you could link me to a text I will give it a go tomorrow.

Worst case, I imagine you could export to RTF and run a word macro through it, but since BD supports regexps, I would assume it could be done this way too.

The text I use as an example in the tutorial (there's a hyperlink in the Word doc) would be a good one to use.

I couldn't resist giving it a go. It works, and it was trivial.

Here's a simple 1-2-3 of what I did...

1) [Assuming you have not already installed the base version of BookDesigner already]
Download the base install program from here:
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/BookDesigner40.zip
(following http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=40594&postcount=1)
Unzip the installer program and run it.

2) To update the program, download and unzip into a folder...
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/download.php?view.9
(following the link from http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=69770&postcount=2)

Then copy it into the folder that was created on the original install, and on top of existing files. For me that folder was:
"C:\Program Files\Book Designer 4.0"

It will replace the old files with new versions (so choose to replace all when there are warnings in the copy process).

3) Follow Harry's instructions from
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=64355&postcount=1

It's a Word document to download, and it has full instructions on using BookDesigner to create Sony Reader files from PG HTML sources. But I just took the meat and potato pieces and used defaults and it was amazingly fast and easy! I'll learn the fancy formatting, clean up, illustrations and TOC stuff later.

Caution: I'm a newbie to using BookDesigner myself, so this is only what seems to have worked for me, written out by memory as best I could. Hopefully it helps someone, but it don't make any guarantees!

Conclusion:
WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW!

Nothing but kudos for VVV for an absolutely amazing program. And to Harry for the amazing quick start guide that makes it trivial to get started. Together with my instructions here on the install (until a newer version comes out, at least), maybe it will be accessible to everyone. I wish I hadn't waited so long!

Honestly, having done nothing and basically not having to learn anything, I've created a nice Sony Reader .lrf file. Almost all with default settings and no trouble. It's like a miracle.

For programmers out there who remember structured programming, have you ever written a program by basically decomposing it until there was nothing really left to do, and by the time you finished you wondered how it could possibly be finished because you don't really feel like you did any work? That's what this felt like - everything was set up just right, and of course the hard stuff is all hidden in the program.

I'm ashamed to say that I'm only discovering this for myself (obviously I suspected something special based on all the other accolades), but I'm blown away. What an amazing job, vvv!!!!!

Warning:

Okay, one more point before I quit -- if you only follow the instructions from this post,
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=40594&postcount=1
you won't get the Sony Reader option. Apparently that info is a bit outdated.

Unfortunately, I tried that first, and that false step was basically where all my time went. If I had these instructions I probably could have installed the program and created the book in about 15 mins start to finish.

Hope this helps. BD experts, please correct me where I may have got something wrong.

Bob, you should probably add these instructions to either to a sticky for either: a) BookDesigner & Updates, or b) add it to the Conversion Tools sticky. That way VVV, or a MobileRead Editor, can post links to the updated parts of BD and new people (an old) can be apprised of all new updates. The reason I say this is twofold; first, I had a tough time putting all the pieces together a while back (actually started once shortly after receiving the device and gave up due to lack of support), and secondly, because it seems to be a recuring question.

Your instructions are great, wish I would've had them the first time I had a go at it! :thumbsup:

Thanks Bob!

For many reasons and mainly for the fact that RTF was sufficient for me, I had not tried BD. Now I will. This explanation will save lots of pain.

Patricia, for PG books libprs500's HTML2LRF utility works great, it formats better than "Book Designer" as it supports the CSS formatting used by PG HTML books. It's very easy to install and use, and you don't need to edit anything.
Have a look here (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10582)

All you actually need to do is:
* Install Windows package from https://libprs500.kovidgoyal.net/wiki
* Get your HTML zip file from Gutenberg and extract it, e.g. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19420/19420-h.zip
* Then run "html2lrf" on the .htm file in a command prompt.
* Copy the LRF file to your Sony Reader.
* Done

I've written a wrapper program to do all this (works with libprs500) as well called "gutlrf.pl" here (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8532)
Using this program all you need to do is enter "gutlrf.pl 19420" at the command prompt and it does everything (downloading, extracting, adding page breaks etc) for you automatically producing a nicely named LRF file that you simply copy to your Sony Reader.

Thank you everyone for your help. Bob Russell's instructions are a model of clarity; I wish that I had had them yesterday because they would have saved me some effort. But I'm going to copy them just in case.

Fangorn, I will give this a try. Thanks.

I seem to be spending more time at the computer than actually reading, but it's certainly interesting to be learning new things.

The text I use as an example in the tutorial (there's a hyperlink in the Word doc) would be a good one to use.

In that example, simply do a find/replace, then make sure the "Regexp" box is checked, and put the following in the box:

_[a-zA-Z0-9]*_

This will decide the set I = { w | w is an alphanumeric string and w0 = _ and wn = _ where n = |w| }

Ok, ok.. sorry for the nerdiness. It will match exactly what you want, words ecompassed with _ characters. I would recommend just hitting f3, clicking title bar, pressing ctrl+i over and over, then doing a find/replace on every _ character in the document.

I couldnt find a way to automate this inside BD, but I would recommend the program Tasker, which will record keyboard and mouse strokes and play them back as fast as you need.

A much better option than doing it all by hand!

Edit: I notice in that particular book, inside one of the quotes is a ! character, which won't be caught. Anything you need inside that bracket can simply be added, so you can just use the regex:

_[a-zA-Z0-9!]*_

For some reason, [.]* and .* do not seem to work in BD, which is a little frustrating. Does anyone know why, or is this common regex syntax? There must be a way to match *anything* between two symbols.

Hmmm... Ok. I've followed directions, then given up and deleted then started over, Now I'm giving it another go... etc. I see what I've been doing wrong now. i didnt zip the update files to the book designer folder, I unzipped, then clicked on the book designer icon and it aparently wasnt working right becasu eit would never impoert a pic into the book i was trying to make. Now.. it seems to work. Except the program wont open any of the IRF files I've downloaded from this site. I guess it wont open a completed IRF file?

I'm going to try a quick follow Harry's directions and create a book.. We'll see what happens...

Well.. I think i made it work.. In fact.. I'm certain I made it work. Without getting into the table of contents and chapter formatting and so on I 'made' an online Fanfic into a Sony lRF file... Pretty easy to do but I'm sure its a mess compared to the creations some of Y'all are coming up with... I wont know until I get my reader... WWWWHHHHEEERRREEE IIISSS IIITT??????????

suppose to be here May 22nd...

You know you can admire your work in the Connect Software, doncha? :nice:

You can download it from the Sony Reader site, if you haven't already done so. The only caveat is that the font will seem much bigger in the ConnSoft than it will on the Reader. :shrug:

The only caveat is that the font will seem much bigger in the ConnSoft than it will on the Reader. :shrug:

The number of lines per page in small, medium, and large font size in "Connect" is the same as it is on the real Reader, however, so you can use it to see how the "layout" of your book will appear on the real Reader - the only reason the fonts look larger in Connect is that it's a physically larger page than the real Reader.

Connect provides such a good "emulation" that I use it for all my book development. The only real difference between Connect and the Reader that I've found is in the "Contents" page. The "Tab" on the right side of the "Connect" page that pops out to show the TOC displays considerably more text on each line than does the Contents page of the Reader.