I've created this thread for people to post tutorials on how to create eBooks for the Sony Reader.

To start things off, attached is a detailed illustrated tutorial (as a Microsoft Word document) showing how I create Reader e-Books from "Project Gutenberg" files, using "Book Designer". I hope that people find this useful. This is the exact process that I use to create all the books I've posted in this forum.

Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions or suggestions for improvements.

EDIT: 24th Jun 07

Uploaded v1.1 of the tutorial, which is rather more generic, and stresses that the techniques described can be used to produce a book in any format supported by Book Designer, not just Sony Reader books.

Having now bought an Iliad, I've started seriously exploring creating MobiPocket format eBooks. Using BD I've encountered a couple of problems:

1. No table of contents - I believe that's a shortcoming of BD. That means, though, that if you do create an MP book using BD, it's vital to create a manual TOC (or use the "Insert TOC" menu command) because otherwise the user will have no way of navigating the book.

2. Illustrations in the books come out VERY small and checking or clearing the "Keep Pictures Sizes" box on the "Make Book" dialog appears to make no difference at all. What should be a full-page illustration comes out as perhaps a 2" square picture.

Does anyone know of a way of getting full-sized pictures in a MobiPocket book using BD?

I just played with MobiPocket book creation and I've noticed that the graphics don't work very well. if I have keep graphics sizes (or whatever it is) then I get a small cover and if I uncheck it, the cover is even smaller. I guess it's something you'll just have to put up with.

I suspect that the graphics are being sized to the resolution of the Palm/Pocket PC screen that BD "thinks" the file is being created for, so I'm finishing up with a 320x240 (or whatever) graphic even through I'm viewing it on a 1024x768 screen :).

Strangly, though, it doesn't seem to be a "universal" problem. The "full screen" illustrations I've converted have gone really, really small, but the much smaller graphics in the "Dancing Men" story in the Sherlock Holmes omnibus have come out OK.

I think it's time to ask vvv to add iLiad to the list of devices in the MobiPocket creation screen so BD can format properly for it. The ILiad support seems to be for PDF in BD.

I've already sent him a PM :grin:.

The mobipocket image support includes the option to have three sizes (losrc, src and hisrc), see Image support and display (http://www.mobipocket.com/dev/article.asp?BaseFolder=prcgen&File=images.htm). I'm not sure which the iLiad will display when there is a choice. Most books I have tried don't seem to include multiple sizes, and tend to have rather small images. If large images are included, adding a small alternative image would not increase the file size much and would aid readability on low res devices.

So, how do you create mobipocket books in BD?

Do you choose Make eBooks -> Palm/PocketPC option?

Have you solved problem with inserting pictures?

What type of device do you choose in the option device?

Use the "Palm" option. Set the format to "MobiPocket" and the device to anything except "Palm B&W". All the other three device options are the same, and give you colour pictures in the resulting file, which is nice if you're using the desktop reader.

One thing to note with Mobi books is that you need to insert MANUAL pagebreaks at the start of chapters - you don't get them automatically as you do with the Sony Reader option.

Is there a Mobipocket emulator what I can install on my PC to have any idea of how my mobipocket book is going to behave/looks like on the iLiad?

Just out of curiosity, if I had cybook gen3 would I have to re-edit mobipocket books created for the iLiad and vice versa?

FBReader should work: http://www.fbreader.org/

You could download the Mobipocket reader from Mobipocket. The iLiad books are just text based. There is no reason they won't work with the Gen3 or Mobipocket Desktop.

FBReader should work: http://www.fbreader.org/
Thanks.


JSWolf
this one - Mobipocket Reader Desktop 6.0?

Use the "Palm" option. Set the format to "MobiPocket" and the device to anything except "Palm B&W". All the other three device options are the same, and give you colour pictures in the resulting file, which is nice if you're using the desktop reader.

One thing to note with Mobi books is that you need to insert MANUAL pagebreaks at the start of chapters - you don't get them automatically as you do with the Sony Reader option.

I have done it as you explained and it works fine - manual page breaks and TOC. There is only one thing I miss. When I am at the beginning of a book (where my TOC is located) I can choose any chapter I want and it takes me over there. What if I want to jump to another chapter? How do I get to this page where I have TOC, so I can choose where to go?
In Sony reader it is not a function of LRF, it is reader's function, I just hit MENU wheel once it gets me back to TOC.
What do you do in iLiad? Is it possible?

Has anyone found a decent way to create Mobi books in OS X?

I've had a very useful day today; I've figured out how to create a "proper" MobiPocket format book (using the free "MobiPocket Creator" tool), using a BD-generated book at the starting point. I've posted a new version of "Bleak House" as my first example of this.

Once I figured out how to do it, it's pretty straightforward. I'd guess that, given a nice book in BD, one can have a Mobi version created with about 10 minutes work.

Anyone interested in a tutorial about how to do it?

The benefits of a proper Mobi version are many:

- Proper metadata in the file for author, title, category, etc, so it shows up properly in the library of a Mobi device.

- Full-sized cover image and pictures within the book (BD shrinks them down to tiny images).

- Centred text for titles, etc. (it all comes out left-aligned with a BD book).

- Proper "table of contents" link in the reading device.

etc etc.

I'm feeling very pleased with myself about this! I can now, finally, create illustrated MobiPocket books which as as nice as those I've created previously for the Sony Reader.

I'd love to see a tutorial - the version of 'Bleak House' looks brilliant; many thanks :D

Boy, I'd really be interested, Harry, if you'd be so good as to take the time. And would you tell us what version of the Book Creator you're using and whether it's the Home or Professional edition?

Jim

I've had a very useful day today; I've figured out how to create a "proper" MobiPocket format book (using the free "MobiPocket Creator" tool), using a BD-generated book at the starting point. I've posted a new version of "Bleak House" as my first example of this.

Once I figured out how to do it, it's pretty straightforward. I'd guess that, given a nice book in BD, one can have a Mobi version created with about 10 minutes work.

Anyone interested in a tutorial about how to do it?

The benefits of a proper Mobi version are many:

- Proper metadata in the file for author, title, category, etc, so it shows up properly in the library of a Mobi device.

- Full-sized cover image and pictures within the book (BD shrinks them down to tiny images).

- Centred text for titles, etc. (it all comes out left-aligned with a BD book).

- Proper "table of contents" link in the reading device.

etc etc.

I'm feeling very pleased with myself about this! I can now, finally, create illustrated MobiPocket books which as as nice as those I've created previously for the Sony Reader.

nice. :)

I have been madly tweeking and peaking both HarryT's tutorial and the perl script if found for creating mobi files for my brand new kindle. On my Sony I was able to create 'collections' that could group series of books together in the order they were to be read. Is there a way to do this in the creation process for the Kindle/Mobi? Is there some sort of metadata that can be set?

You could obviously indicate series order in the book's title. I don't believe the Kindle has any direct equivalent of the Sony's collections.

Hey all -

I'll ask this question here as this is the tutorial thread for BD... if I need to ask elsewhere, please let me know.

In using the guide at the beginning of this thread (thanks, HarryT!), I'm finding that I am unable to create a 'page break' in my BD file.

I use the 'create page break after selection' icon (after placing my cursor where I want the break), and I get an error 'beep.' If I select any text and try the same button, I get a message window that says 'page break can be inserted only after elements selected in the "one-click" element selector" mode.'

What am I doing wrong? I am in the 'editor' mode of BD, and everything else seems to work ok.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!

Well, I just figured it out (of course, right after I get done with my question!).

For those that have had a similar issue, you need to click the mouse icon on the Corrector panel (top left icon). That gets you into 'one-click selector mode.'

Then, select a line-break (or whatever) and you can then choose the page-break button.

I think that BD must be a different version than what is referenced in HarryT's tutorial, as this and some of the other buttons were in different places, just FYI.

Yes, my tutorial illustrates a slightly older version of BD than the current one.