Hi!

I am a newcomer to this forum, to the world of e-readers and to Cybook, which I got finally delivered yesterday.

I intend to use it specially for reading manga, and although I have searched the forum, I haven't seen a solution for my problem.

This is what I've tried so far:

To read it as separate image files: Navigation is too slow, and having a zillion of jpgs or pngs in the "covers" menu make it a real pain to wait until the thumbnails are loaded or until I navigate to the page I want to start reading.

To turn jpgs into mobipocket format: I don't know what I am doing wrong, but when I start reading, pages are shown very small, like thumbnails, making it impossible to read.

To make pdfs out of jpgs: This seems to work... somehow. With some manga, it planinly works, although nearly 1 out of every 5 pages will be displayed with errors or won't be shown at all. With most other files, I get an error message from the cybook, telling me it's impossible to open the file.

I've used Adobe Acrobat Professional. I've tried this pdf option in a high number of ways, but I can't seem to get the proper format or options. I thought it could be a weight issue, or something related to the number of pages, but i have a file weighing 57 MB and having 177 pages which shows almost alright, and other weighing 13 MB and having 50 pages and not working at all (getting the error message).

I've searched the forum for solutions, but I only found solutions for other devices, such as using rasterfarian for the sony reader. Could I turn this sony formatted files into some format supported by the Cybook?

Is there any pdf-configuration which will work?

Sorry for this long message, but if I want to feel the price I payed worthy, and also to reccomend the device to other customers, I need to make this work. Also the solutions can be useful for others.

Thank you very much, any help will be appreciated.

An upcoming firmware should support zip files and zip format (not a rumor, the Bookeen team gave me this information face to face). It will be MUCH easier to read mangas once this feature is available: just group a bunch of jpeg files in a zip container, and that's it, your manga is ready.

Any word on when that's likely to be released, Hadrien?

Any word on when that's likely to be released, Hadrien?

Not yet, but support for containers (folder or zip) is the highest priority on their todo list.

I just received a Cybook too (third device: I also have a Sony PRS-500 and an iLiad). I'll try a few manga later this week.

That's very welcome news - thanks for sharing it with us!

Thank you for the information, Hadrien!!

I hope zip support solves the issue, at least when collecting large amounts of image files.

Anyway, this springs a new question about proper image measurements for showing on the ebook.

I've just opened a manga page with photoshop. These are the measurements:

-Pixels: 762x100
-Width: 26,88 cm (10,58 in)
-Height: 38,81 cm (15,27 in)
-Res: 72 ppp
-Weight: 128 kb

Will it be useful if I reduce this measurements and then create another pdf? Which would be the optimal measurements or image size to be displayed properly in the cybook and still don't lose readability or detail??

Thank you very much for any answer!! If I can work this out I'll make a little tutorial or quick guide for people with the same problem.

I read manga on Cybook as jpegs presently. In 10 volumes of manga I read up to now some 4 or 5 jpegs were causing Cybook to crash every time it tried to open them or make thumbnails out of them, but the rest went well.

I keep books I read on Cybook, and mangas on the SD card, so when I want to read book, I remove the card -> less navigation. When I read up to some point, it's usually easier for me to remove jpegs up to that point from SD card than to avigate in the reader.

And when I start reading, I don't have to go back to the library, wait for thumbnails, switch to next jpeg. I just press right on the button, and next jpeg loads - and Cybook doesn't generate thumbnails at all then.

To turn jpgs into mobipocket format: I don't know what I am doing wrong, but when I start reading, pages are shown very small, like thumbnails, making it impossible to read. It may be the case that your JPEGs are being turned into 64KB GIFs, and shrunk in size in the process. If you use MobiPocket Creator, you have to turn on the JPEG option to prevent this and with mobigen.exe you need to use -jpeg. Another option is to use the html2mobi Perl script.

It would be useful to have an "optimal" manga2mobi procedure, which would be applicable to multiple device types. This might not be very hard to add to the Mobiperl (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17718) suite (once there is a fully tested approach to implement), although I hate to burden tompe with yet another major upgrade request.

To turn jpgs into mobipocket format: I don't know what I am doing wrong, but when I start reading, pages are shown very small, like thumbnails, making it impossible to read.


How did you generate the MobiPocket file since this should work. I think you have to use mobigen and the -jpeg flag.

Maybe I should do an image2mobi program in Mobiperl....

Thank you, Krystian Galaj, wallcraft and Tompe!!

I tried again to convert the manga to mobipocket, and this time with the jpg option on. I just hadn't noticed it was there...

Now it seems to work! At least Cybook recognizes the file and the pages I've tested won't crash. Only two issues:

-I get a blank page everytime I "turn the page". It's not that manga pages are shown blank, it's that a blank page displays between every two images. It's like if "odd" pages were images and "even" pages were blank. I can read it, I just have to press the page up button twice each time. It's tiresome, but at least the thing works. Any idea on how to solve this, anyway??

-Also, and this is more troublesome, the image is still reduced. It's not as small as before (it was unreadable), but blank space around the image has increased, and I don't know a way to "fit width or height", like in a pdf.

and with mobigen.exe you need to use -jpeg.

Sorry, I don't get this. Could you explain how to do it? I just used Mobipocket Creator to generate a "image" prc file. Maybe this part will solve the above mentioned issues.

Thank you again for all your help. This site rocks!!

Sorry, I don't get this. Could you explain how to do it? I just used Mobipocket Creator to generate a "image" prc file. Maybe this part will solve the above mentioned issues.

Mobigen is the command line utility to generate Mobipocket files. I don't think that it'll solve your issues with the margins...

I just used Mobipocket Creator to generate a "image" prc file. The mobigen.exe command line program is an alternative to MobiPocket Creator, but it would require a HTML file to start.

Creator should be ok, but I think it will create a HTML file as part of the process of generating the final MOBI. Look inside this HTML file and see what it is doing (e.g. is it putting each image inside a <p> or what). You should be able to edit this directly to get a different layout.

My guess is that the right HTML will fix the 2-pages per image issue, but the margins are probably built into the Reader (i.e. it is shrinking the images to fit the "screen" with the margins it uses for all MOBI documents).

Thank you, wallcraft!!

I tried what you told me, but Mobipocket creator won't create the HTML file. I am pretty sure yesterday it created them. Now it only creates an OPF file, the PRC file and copies of all jpgs.

I'll try to see what happened, I can't believe that just for checking the jpg option now it won't create the HTML.

About the margins, if it can't be fixed... well! I'll try to read big vignette manga for now and hope for Booken to release that long awaited zip-support update.

Thank you again!! :thumbsup:

If anybody has some ideas for all of the above, please post them! And If I work things out by myself, I'll tell you how I did...

Is there such a thing as a public-domain manga? If there was a such as test case it would be easier for more people to try various approaches. Perhaps all that is needed is a standard set of JPEG images of about the right size. These could be from one of those PDF to image programs for example.

Why not just put the images in a folder and then sort files by file path of file name and then filter so only images are shown. For me it was very fast changing to the next image using LEFT.

I will test with a free cbr file I found on the net also.

Is there such a thing as a public-domain manga? If there was a such as test case it would be easier for more people to try various approaches. Perhaps all that is needed is a standard set of JPEG images of about the right size. These could be from one of those PDF to image programs for example.

Try a Doujinshi. Not exactly public domain, but it would be the perfect test case material.

To read it as separate image files: Navigation is too slow, and having a zillion of jpgs or pngs in the "covers" menu make it a real pain to wait until the thumbnails are loaded or until I navigate to the page I want to start reading.


The thumbnail generation was a bit irritating. Maybe it is possible to pre-generate this file. If you have a computer available you can always have files in sub-directories and rename them with a . first if you do not want to show them. Then rename them when you want to read them.

I was going to suggest Doujinshi, but I couldn't find copyright notices on those websites, so I didn't want to risk uploading a copyrighted image OR using a copyrighted character. (for novices, a doujinshi is a manga written by an amateur author, but using well known characters from famous manga, as a sort of tribute.)

What I've uploaded are some old manga images taken from wikipedia and marked as copyright-free. These are from Hokusai and Kotaro, and by size and proportions they fit our needs.

Also I noticed something interesting. When I build a Mobipocket format book made of jpgs, the image displayed as "cover" will have no borders, thus using all the screen's space. When one starts reading the next pages, the borders appear.

Maybe there's a way to mark more images with the same "cover" characteristics so they all fit the whole screen.

I'll try with tompe's suggestion, but now I must leave for home.

See you in some hours. Thank you guys. :thumbsup:

Maybe there's a way to mark more images with the same "cover" characteristics so they all fit the whole screen.


There is some data in the header file that points out the cover image. I tested to point to two images but it only took the last one so it did not work.

I was able to make a test MOBI by repeating the single Kotaro image and using a simple HTML file and html2mobi (MobiPocket Creator or mobigen.exe would presumably also have worked if given the same HTML file). The basic element of the HTML is:
<div align="center"><img src="0001.jpg"/></div>

The example is attached, as are screenshots from my Kindle and iLiad. I created a negative image to distinguish the odd from even pages. The Kindle version is using the original 442x696 image size, and the image has been rescaled by the Kindle to fit the (smaller) space available. The iLiad version is using slightly larger (508x800) images, but they are still smaller than the available screen and it might be better to anchor the image to the bottom of the page. The 1st two iLiad images are from MobiPocket Reader, and the 2nd two using FBReader on the HTML file (iLiad FBReader failed on the MOBI version, although it worked under Windows).

The thumbnail generation was a bit irritating. Maybe it is possible to pre-generate this file.

I did decode the format (bit pattern 192x144) and created the t2b files but it did not help. The thumb nails was created anyway.

I wonder why the format was 192x144 instead of 144x192?

I wonder why the format was 192x144 instead of 144x192?

I just realised that there must be 2 bits per pixel so the format is 96x144 which seems more reasonable.

I just realised that there must be 2 bits per pixel so the format is 96x144 which seems more reasonable.

Yes, that's why it's a good idea to try to use cover images with an aspect ration of 1.5 to 1 - the same as that of the thumbnail. I've standardised on using 600x400 covers.

You are using Windows, screenreader? If yes, try Manga2Ebook (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11261) - if you're using Linux, you could try my Bash script which depends on the GIMP, ImageMagick and libtiff (the scm file goes into GIMP's script folder and the gpl file into GIMP's palette folder).
I didn't try Manga2Ebook, but my script produces good PDF's which work great with the Cybook. Page turning is sometimes a bit slow, but that's the only problem I noticed.

Hi, Icehand!! Yes, using Windows here. I'll try Manga2ebook, although I tested so many things that maybe I tested it and didn't work. I will test it again, however.

My problem is somewhat solved... but not how I expected:

-I gave up using mobipocket format because the image was reduced too much becasuse of the margins.
-I gave up using pdf because it always gets corrupted at some point, pages start showing blank and the Cybook even crashes.

So in the end I decided to follow Krystian Galaj's advice from the first page. I copied all the jpgs in the card and the books in the Cybooks internal memory. This way, after I am done reading manga, I turn off the power, insert the card in the pc, delete all read pages and it's ready for another use.

It's a boring and slow procedure... but it's the only way to read some hundred pages without annoying blank pages or the device crashing.

I just hope that announced zip support for image files will be definitely present in the next firmware release.

Thank you everybody for your concern and your help.

You are using Windows, screenreader? If yes, try Manga2Ebook (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11261) - if you're using Linux, you could try my Bash script which depends on the GIMP, ImageMagick and libtiff (the scm file goes into GIMP's script folder and the gpl file into GIMP's palette folder).
I didn't try Manga2Ebook, but my script produces good PDF's which work great with the Cybook. Page turning is sometimes a bit slow, but that's the only problem I noticed.

Thanks, that linux script works amazingly well. :2thumbsup Didn't notice any slower loading compared to using images individually.

One thing I noticed, though, is that the images aren't centered on the screen, but aligned to the left border, which feels kinda weird, and doesn't work so well with the carrying case, since at least my particular one obscures the left and upper part of the screen somewhat.

This isn't a dealbreaker, though, but until that firmware update comes along, it'd be awesome if the script could be modified to fix this :D (unfortunately I have no idea how, I'm really new with linux, you see. Actually dug out the ubuntu 7.10 cd I had lying around, only used it for testing so far, but this gave me a reason to keep linux as a permanent addition on my computer) :p

Thanks, that linux script works amazingly well. :2thumbsup Didn't notice any slower loading compared to using images individually.

One thing I noticed, though, is that the images aren't centered on the screen, but aligned to the left border, which feels kinda weird, and doesn't work so well with the carrying case, since at least my particular one obscures the left and upper part of the screen somewhat.

This isn't a dealbreaker, though, but until that firmware update comes along, it'd be awesome if the script could be modified to fix this :D (unfortunately I have no idea how, I'm really new with linux, you see. Actually dug out the ubuntu 7.10 cd I had lying around, only used it for testing so far, but this gave me a reason to keep linux as a permanent addition on my computer) :p
Hm, that's strange, the images should be centered by the script. Could you send me the file that causes this problem (the original file, not the PDF)? I've send you a PM with my e-mail address.

EDIT: I just remembered something from the manga2pdf thread (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12790), are you using an older version of ImageMagick that does not support the -extent option?

EDIT: I just remembered something from the manga2pdf thread, are you using an older version of ImageMagick that does not support the -extent option?

That might very well be the case, I didn't download ImageMagick off any website, I just found it in the synaptic package manager. I'm gonna try to get the latest version, perhaps that'll fix the problem. :)

EDIT: Getting the latest version seems to be tricky business in ubuntu, since there's only an .rpm installer available. Have tried converting the .rpm, as well as compiling from source, but both procedures seem to fail, one because ubuntu can't install the converted package, the other just doesn't work after all the compiling and installing. And now the version available from the package manager doesn't seem to work either. :p Oh well, it was worth a shot. I guess I'll just reinstall ubuntu, and make due with the old ImageMagick version. Man, I wish I knew how all this linux-stuff really works. :p

Don't reinstall. Try this package: http://undesigned.org.za/2008/03/13/imagemagick-637-for-ubuntu-710

If that doesn't work, try making a forced reinstall of the ImageMagick package from Synaptic. Reinstalling the whole system should never be required with Linux unless you majorly screw something up (never happened to me).

Don't reinstall. Try this package: http://undesigned.org.za/2008/03/13/imagemagick-637-for-ubuntu-710

If that doesn't work, try making a forced reinstall of the ImageMagick package from Synaptic. Reinstalling the whole system should never be required with Linux unless you majorly screw something up (never happened to me).

I'm afraid I wound up reinstalling everything after all, didn't get your post in time :p. With those packages, though, everything now works perfectly :2thumbsup:D, Thank you! :)

Now I no longer need to yearn for that upcoming firmware update xD

-snip- If you use MobiPocket Creator, you have to turn on the JPEG option to prevent this and with mobigen.exe you need to use -jpeg.

How do I find the JPEG option in MobiPocket Creator? The only JPEG information my Mobipocket Creator 4.0 has is:

"You can add existing HTML or image files (GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP)
To add a file, click on the "Add File (Item)" link in the Available Actions in the left pane."

". . . an image file is converted from its original format into a GIF file and resized to the optimal size for a display in the Mobipocket Reader, i.e. to a size less than 64Kbytes."

Aren't all JPEG files converted to GIF in a MobiPocket e-book? How do I locate and turn on a JPEG otion?

Susan

I may be wrong, but I think JPEG support is enabled by default in the newest version. At least that is the case with Mobigen (the -jpeg flag doesn't exist anymore).

Hi

Choose Create new Publication and then Blank Publication, give it a name and choose Create.

From the resulting menu choose Click here to add a file and from the resulting “load” menu one of the supported formats is Jpeg.

I advise you to not use this as it’s useless, the resulting white margins in the mobipocket eBook are so big and the image is so small that it’s of no use.

Best regards,

The new firmware was released. Any improvment to its manga reading capability? (Zip support or sub directories or ...)

The new firmware was released. Any improvment to its manga reading capability? (Zip support or sub directories or ...)
No, but PDFs work great when you create them with my script (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12790) (Linux only I fear). Manga2Ebook (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11261) might give similar results on Windows, but I never used it.

I wonder how the Cybook will manage those PDFs (as even some computers struggle a little bit with 40MB+ PDF files).

I wonder how the Cybook will manage those PDFs (as even some computers struggle a little bit with 40MB+ PDF files).

He doesn't. :angry:

I wonder how the Cybook will manage those PDFs (as even some computers struggle a little bit with 40MB+ PDF files).
Some of the manga I've tested had around 200 pages and were about 20 MB large after conversion – no problems occurred. Page turning is a bit slower than with Mobipocket e-books, but that's all. The script resizes the images to a max of 600x800 and reduces the colours to four, so that's why the size of the PDFs is pretty small.