Why not start uploading books for Sony in epub format?

I realize that leaves the PRS500 users a bit in the lurch, but they do have a tool to convert epub to lrf while we 505 owners have nothing to convert lrf to epub.

All of my library is now epub. I bet that's going to be increasingly true for others as well. I no longer have an interest in downloading lrf format books.

Why not start uploading books for Sony in epub format?

I realize that leaves the PRS500 users a bit in the lurch, but they do have a tool to convert epub to lrf while we 505 owners have nothing to convert lrf to epub.

All of my library is now epub. I bet that's going to be increasingly true for others as well. I no longer have an interest in downloading lrf format books.

For me there are two main reasons:
1. I have a Sony PRS500, and want things that I can read too.
2. There needs to be a straightforward conversion tool; one that even I can get my head round.

Oh, and there's no reason why people can't upload in Epub, if they want to: just upload into the 'other books' section. If enough people do so, then Epub may yet get a section of its own.

For now, Calibre does a good job converting MOBI to ePub. See that attached screenshots from Dickens, Charles: A Tale of Two Cities (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17594) using MobiPocket Reader on the original MOBI and Adobe Digital Editions on the ePub. The only issue I see is that the TOC does not have the "books" labeled.

I'm in the same boat as Patricia, I have a Sony PRS-500 and I also like to red what I convert.

As Patricia said, if enough people start posting ePub books in the "Other" section it may well get its own section. That happened with the IMP ebooks for the eBookwise.

Why not start uploading books for Sony in epub format?

I realize that leaves the PRS500 users a bit in the lurch, but they do have a tool to convert epub to lrf while we 505 owners have nothing to convert lrf to epub.

All of my library is now epub. I bet that's going to be increasingly true for others as well. I no longer have an interest in downloading lrf format books.

What tools are you using to create your ePub books, Jeff?

For now, Calibre does a good job converting MOBI to ePub. See that attached screenshots from Dickens, Charles: A Tale of Two Cities (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17594) using MobiPocket Reader on the original MOBI and Adobe Digital Editions on the ePub. The only issue I see is that the TOC does not have the "books" labeled.

Actually the TOC should be a multi-level one in this case, with each book and then inside each book the chapters.

I've been working on the user interface of Feedbooks a lot lately and I'll create a help page and a video tutorial as soon as I can. It's pretty easy to use: you just create the structure of your book first and then fill in the name of the chapters, the text etc... I've started the work on the footnote support for it too: for an optimal result, you can't treat footnotes like normal links, you have to create a separate non-linear flow for it.

Good morning Hadrien,

I have downloaded a number of books from www.feedbooks.com which is a fine site.

There appears to be a problem with Ulysses by James Joyce, as I get "Page Error" when I try to open this on my 505. I have read, if I remember correctly, elsewhere on these forums that the problem is to do with the file size of books.

I have tried exporting the book to the 505 via ADE and via Sony eBook Library. I can not open the book on the 505 after either operation.

I have also done a format transfer from .epub to .lrf of the Feedbooks.com "Ulysses" with Calibre and then transferred this file to the 505. This reads on the 505.

What is your recommended practice in such a case?

Many thanks,

kesey

What tools are you using to create your ePub books, Jeff?

I'm using mobi2html, calibre, open-office and a text editor. Most my work has been straight conversion.

Good morning Hadrien,

I have downloaded a number of books from www.feedbooks.com which is a fine site.

There appears to be a problem with Ulysses by James Joyce, as I get "Page Error" when I try to open this on my 505. I have read, if I remember correctly, elsewhere on these forums that the problem is to do with the file size of books.

I have tried exporting the book to the 505 via ADE and via Sony eBook Library. I can not open the book on the 505 after either operation.

I have also done a format transfer from .epub to .lrf of the Feedbooks.com "Ulysses" with Calibre and then transferred this file to the 505. This reads on the 505.

What is your recommended practice in such a case?

Many thanks,

kesey

There's actually two things that I'll do to fix this problem with the limit:
1) mark the files that have this problem and display a message in the editor: this way a human can divide the file where it won't be too much of a problem
2) detect those flows and auto-divide them as a fallback solution

We always divide the flows properly on Feedbooks and on most books, you'll never get this problem. Books like Ulysses are a real problem because there's no proper division in the text itself. I really don't like the fact that you have to modify the display of these books and add page breaks where there should be none but I'd rather make sure that the page breaks are not added in the middle of a dialog for example. I'll work on this once I've finished the proper footnotes support, in the meantime you can convert these files or use our custom PDF version.

Hadrien, thank you for the detailed reply. These forums are excellent.

regards,

kesey

Why not start uploading books for Sony in epub format?

I realize that leaves the PRS500 users a bit in the lurch, but they do have a tool to convert epub to lrf while we 505 owners have nothing to convert lrf to epub.

All of my library is now epub. I bet that's going to be increasingly true for others as well. I no longer have an interest in downloading lrf format books.
Well.. if you do it the Book Designer for LRF > Mobi (using Harry's Tutorial) then you can go Mobi > IMP and Mobi > ePub and have all formats supported except eReader.

1) mark the files that have this problem and display a message in the editor: this way a human can divide the file where it won't be too much of a problem
2) detect those flows and auto-divide them as a fallback solution Calibre's any2epub will auto-divide an existing epub so that it works on the PRS-505, and the process can be "human assisted" by a simple edit of the original text if the automatic breaks are not to your liking. So it may be enough to mark the files and reference Calibre as one way to get them to work on the PRS-505. The alternative would be to have two ePub versions, original and split, which is a bit clumsy but allows for desktop and handheld use.

Calibre's any2epub will auto-divide an existing epub so that it works on the PRS-505, and the process can be "human assisted" by a simple edit of the original text if the automatic breaks are not to your liking. So it may be enough to mark the files and reference Calibre as one way to get them to work on the PRS-505. The alternative would be to have two ePub versions, original and split, which is a bit clumsy but allows for desktop and handheld use.

Since it represent a very small % of our text it can be easily human assisted. Converting the files or editing them is for geeks/power-users, the average user shouldn't have to do any thing like this.

We need a dedicated ebook editor that produces EPUB (like an extension to Book Designer that allows it to export EPUB). And no, I don't mean Adobe's InDesign. I have it, but I sure as hell am not going to use something so obviously overkill.

We need an editor. I'm sorry, but editing in one format and then non-natively converting to EPUB is not the answer. Too much could go wrong during conversion, and I just don't trust the process. If I edit my book by hand, my hand edited version should end up on the Reader, not the converted version with possible bugs or whatever.

Until that happens, I'm sticking with LRF.

We need a dedicated ebook editor that produces EPUB (like an extension to Book Designer that allows it to export EPUB). And no, I don't mean Adobe's InDesign. I have it, but I sure as hell am not going to use something so obviously overkill.

We need an editor. I'm sorry, but editing in one format and then non-natively converting to EPUB is not the answer. Too much could go wrong during conversion, and I just don't trust the process. If I edit my book by hand, my hand edited version should end up on the Reader, not the converted version with possible bugs or whatever.If you're looking for an argument, Valloric, you're in the wrong place: I imagine most of us would agree with that wholeheartedly. :yes:

We need a dedicated ebook editor that produces EPUB (like an extension to Book Designer that allows it to export EPUB). And no, I don't mean Adobe's InDesign. I have it, but I sure as hell am not going to use something so obviously overkill.

We need an editor. I'm sorry, but editing in one format and then non-natively converting to EPUB is not the answer. Too much could go wrong during conversion, and I just don't trust the process. If I edit my book by hand, my hand edited version should end up on the Reader, not the converted version with possible bugs or whatever.

Until that happens, I'm sticking with LRF.

That's exactly what Feedbooks is, it's just an online publishing tool instead of a desktop one. We process the file to make sure that the markup is 100% XHTML compliant and it's simple enough to use for anyone once you grasp the concept of dividing the book into separate elements rather than adding style to a single flow.

If you're looking for an argument, Valloric, you're in the wrong place.

Why do you think I'm looking for an argument?

Anyway, if we don't get an editor by the start of January, I'll dedicate my personal time to develop one. Currently I'm strapped for time and can't do it, but by then I should be free to work on such a project.

Goes without saying, it would be FOSS software.

Why do you think I'm looking for an argument?I don't! :unafraid: I was trying to say that most folks will agree with what you'd said. :yes:

Sorry, I should have used more smilies to get it across that I was being facetious. :smack:

That's exactly what Feedbooks is, it's just an online publishing tool instead of a desktop one. We process the file to make sure that the markup is 100% XHTML compliant and it's simple enough to use for anyone once you grasp the concept of dividing the book into separate elements rather than adding style to a single flow.

I'll look into it, but I'm not big on online applications, especially if the application is more suited to a desktop. For instance, Gmail is great, but an online text editor? Handy, but not my thing (please don't take any offense).

I don't! :unafraid: I was trying to say that most folks will agree with what you'd said. :yes:

Sorry, I should have used more smilies to get it across that I was being facetious. :smack:

Don't worry about it. I had a long day and it seems I'm in that kind of mood where I take other people's words the wrong way for no good reason.

I'll look into it, but I'm not big on online applications, especially if the application is more suited to a desktop. For instance, Gmail is great, but an online text editor? Handy, but not my thing (please don't take any offense).

I'll probably do a desktop version once I finish working on the API for the publishing side of the service.

The javascript version is basically a front-end for the web service. Anything else could work as another front-end, including a desktop app (RIA app).

EPUB is just a thin wrapper around HTML. There are plenty of tools to create HTML both WYSWYG and not. All that's needed is to modify one of these tools to allow marking of chapters, TOC entries (say using the class attribute) and a cover then html2epub will do all you need.

EPUB is just a thin wrapper around HTML. There are plenty of tools to create HTML both WYSWYG and not. All that's needed is to modify one of these tools to allow marking of chapters, TOC entries (say using the class attribute) and a cover then html2epub will do all you need.

Yes, I know. But I've been increasingly unhappy with Book Designer and have been looking for a good reason to justify spending time on a more modern editor. EPUB looks like a good enough reason, although to tell you the truth, by January I doubt I'll have any more patience for BD, reasons or not.

We need a dedicated ebook editor that produces EPUB (like an extension to Book Designer that allows it to export EPUB). And no, I don't mean Adobe's InDesign. I have it, but I sure as hell am not going to use something so obviously overkill.

We need an editor. I'm sorry, but editing in one format and then non-natively converting to EPUB is not the answer. Too much could go wrong during conversion, and I just don't trust the process. If I edit my book by hand, my hand edited version should end up on the Reader, not the converted version with possible bugs or whatever.

Until that happens, I'm sticking with LRF.

I entirely agree with you. I'm sure that better ePub conversion tools will appear in time - I know that Hadrien is planning to add such a service to his excellent "Feedbooks" site.

I agree there's a need for a modern replacement for BD. And if you do write one, it will be welcome :)

Don't worry about it. I had a long day and it seems I'm in that kind of mood where I take other peoples words the wrong way for no good reason.I completely understand, I've had those days myself. :nice:

Yes, I know. But I've been increasingly unhappy with Book Designer and have been looking for a good reason to justify spending time on a more modern editor. EPUB looks like a good enough reason, although to tell you the truth, by January I doubt I'll have any more patience for BD, reasons or not.

Me too. That is why I started writing BookCreator (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28313&highlight=bookcreator).

Although I was not looking to justify write a modern editor. I rather wished someone else wrote it :)

I chose to write is as a template to Word because Word is already and excellent editor. I just lacked the publishing features which where easy enough to add.
With conversion tools such as Kovid's calbire, I can now produce most formats rather quickly. This includes ePUB, which come out very nice.

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