After a while of reading on the iLiad it has become clear to me that i need a quick&easy method of creating PDF files from existing txt and html files.

To understand better, something along the lines of manybooks.net's Custom iLiad PDF creator.

The program should be fairily easy to use and the once the initial setup is done (font, font size, margins, linespacing etc...) the program should spit out the custom PDF.

I really like the way PlanetPDF's files look and i'm looking for something similar out of my grubby gutenberg text files.

Another thing: does anyone know the name of the font used in the PlanetPDF files?

After a while of reading on the iLiad it has become clear to me that i need a quick&easy method of creating PDF files from existing txt and html files.

To understand better, something along the lines of manybooks.net's Custom iLiad PDF creator.

The program should be fairily easy to use and the once the initial setup is done (font, font size, margins, linespacing etc...) the program should spit out the custom PDF.

I really like the way PlanetPDF's files look and i'm looking for something similar out of my grubby gutenberg text files.

Another thing: does anyone know the name of the font used in the PlanetPDF files?

Set up a template in Open Office (www.openoffie.org), open the template, import the file, hit the make .pdf button. Some files might need cleanup, depending on source. Open Office can work with Word, .rtf, .txt, .htm, .ppt & .xls files plus many others.

Another thing: does anyone know the name of the font used in the PlanetPDF files?

If you have Acrobat, just check Document Properties ... | Fonts for information.

You can also try http://www.identifont.com/index.html if all you have is
sample printout.

In the file I checked, the main typeface is Bembo.

Set up a template in Open Office (www.openoffie.org), open the template, import the file, hit the make .pdf button. Some files might need cleanup, depending on source. Open Office can work with Word, .rtf, .txt, .htm, .ppt & .xls files plus many others.


I tried using OpenOffic and M$ Word template supplied by irex but i wasnt happy with the result. I also couldnt figure out how to number pages e.g. 6 of 200


If you have Acrobat, just check Document Properties ... | Fonts for information.

You can also try http://www.identifont.com/index.html if all you have is
sample printout.

In the file I checked, the main typeface is Bembo.

Thanks a lot for the info ath!

The program should be fairily easy to use and the once the initial setup is done (font, font size, margins, linespacing etc...) the program should spit out the custom PDF.

Wait for a while: I just have finished the iLiad support in my BookDesigner program. Now a cople of weeks of the testing - and it will be ready for downloading.
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/iLiadF_eng.png
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/iLiadScr_eng.png

P.S. Well, it seems it has a little bit more options than you want, but it is easy to disable those ones which you do not need: the program always memorize all the last user settings. In contrary to iLiad :angry:

Great Idea VVV...Maybe this software will make the process easier for some. I'm still using OpenOffice and am not unhappy with it, but I'll gladly take any alternative I can get my hands on and try it.

One thing I already like in your software is that it seems to handle footnotes quite well. The question is, did you create that page manually witht he footnote at the bottom or does the software place footnotes on the correct page automatically? Books like the Hitchhiker or the Discwordl novels use footnotes quite heavily, and manually adjusting them could really be a massive peace of work...

Keep up the good work and if you need beta-testers...feel free to just ask...I'm sure someone will volunteer...:-)


UPDATE: I just received input from our member TaKir that the footnotes are indeed adjusted automatically. If this works well, we could actually have something very nice on our hands here...

The question is, did you create that page manually witht he footnote at the bottom or does the software place footnotes on the correct page automatically?
The footnotes are created automatically on the base of html links and notes found in the loaded book. But to clarify this point I have to explain in more details how BookDesigner works.

BD is a soft which allows the user to convert, edit and create many types of e-books.

First, it loads an input file (txt, doc, rtf, html, lit, pdf, fb2, prc, pdb, rb, html0) and converts to its inner format (html0, which is an html-like language with picture resources included). During this transformation an input book is converted to a paper-book-like structure consisting of paragraphs, titles, subtitles, epigraphs, etc.

When the html0 book is loaded the user has a possibility to edit it. Mainly the manual editing is not necessary, but if the user wants to change something (say, to convert some paragraphs to epigraphs or to insert a picture), this can be done in several clicks. For the convenience of usage, the program marks book elements with different colors.

As soon as the html0 book is ready, it can be converted to any type of e-books supported by the program. The output e-book formats are: txt, doc, rtf, html, lit, pdf, fb2, rb, imp, lrf, prc, pdb, klm, html0, BookImage (graphic files with clickable links).
The devices and reading programs for which the e-books can be created are: iLiad, Sony Librie, Rocket eBook, REB1100, REB1200, GEB1150, GEB2150, Palm, Pocket PC, eBookMan, Hiebook, MS Reader, MobiReader, PalmReader, HaaliReader.

If the user applies the default options, an e-book is created in two clicks: the first click - to open a corresponding window, the second one - "make book". The default options (say, hyphenations support, margins values, etc) can be easily changed by user after which the program will remember them.

The languages supported: Western Europe, Central Europe, Cyrillic.

Now the 5-th version of BookDesigner is about to be finished. But because I got my iLiad before its finishing, I decided to add the iLiad support to a little bit "wet" 5-th version.

http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/BdScr.png

...input file (txt, doc, rtf, html, lit, pdf, fb2, prc, pdb, rb, html0)
... output e-book formats are: txt, doc, rtf, html, lit, pdf, fb2, rb, imp, lrf, prc, pdb, klm, html0, BookImage (graphic files with clickable links).Sweet.

This is definately cool......big thank you for adding Iliad support and I anxiously await the new release.

It looks like a quite sweet and very useful application. I'd love to run it on my Mac.

Perhaps someone with an Intel Mac could give it a try under CrossOver (a utility for running Windows .exe files under Mac OS X on Intel Macs). That wouldn't help me in the short term, but would at least provide some hope for the future.

Xenophon

I'd love to run it on my Mac.

They have told me that it is working under Linux. But I do not know if somebody ever tried it on Mac...

I tried installing it yesterday, but when opening a HTML file I was given an error and instructed to check my office install. I don't have Office.

I can't find a list of pre-requesites in the help or on the website. Can you tell me exactly what I need to have to get your program to work?

Thanks, glen.

I really hope you don't need Microsoft Office...I use OpenOffice and it's a lot better (and cheaper...) and I'd still like to be able to use the program...

I tried installing it yesterday, but when opening a HTML file I was given an error and instructed to check my office install. I don't have Office.

1. Download and install the main program
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/BookDesigner40.zip
2. Download and unpack to Program Files/ Book Designer 4.0 directory the last update
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/Bd_Update_2006_05_04.zip

OS: Windows 95 - XP (under win 95, 98, Me not all the options will work).

The program uses some MS Word libraries, but they are not included into the distrubution. To install them it is enough to install MS Word 2000 or higher.

The users asked me several times to use Open Office instead of MS Word. Unfortunately it turned out that Open Office cannot process properly some types of MS Word documents/objects. Despite of that I am planning to add an option allowing to use Open Office instead of MS Word, but not right now. In general, it will work but some options will be lost (for example, the processing of some lit books will be disabled, the processing of some types of tables will be wrong, etc).

the software is so cool for us iliad user.
i am so happy and thanks for you . just make it better. and if it's possible make a chiese version .
i am waiting for you and testing now .
thanks

Your bookdesigner is really great.
I mean great like in "i'd really love to donate" great.
Where can i do this?

Especially the pdf import is a really great feature. This makes my epaper version of "Spiegel" readable. (Ok, the hyphenation can't be removed, but that's something i can live with - unlike a A4 pdf displayed on A5)

Now i'm just waiting for the iliad export filter.

Your bookdesigner is really great.
I mean great like in "i'd really love to donate" great.
Where can i do this?

Thanks you for your offer. As for myself, this program is just a hobby, so I am not making the money with it. But if you want you can support the development of the portal where the program testing is organized:
info@the-ebook.org

Especially the pdf import is a really great feature. This makes my epaper version of "Spiegel" readable. (Ok, the hyphenation can't be removed, but that's something i can live with - unlike a A4 pdf displayed on A5)

I have newer worked curiously with pdf import: what is done - it is just a simple pdf text extraction. Maybe when I have a time I will do it better. But now I would recommend you to try another pdf tool included into BD distribution: Tools -> PdfToMany (full Acrobat 5.0 or higher installation required).

It all sounds great! Can't wait to get home and try it!

I downloaded the software just now, but it seems it's still the "old" version I had some time ago...no Iliad support yet.
Guess I'll have to wait a while...^^

I downloaded the software just now, but it seems it's still the "old" version I had some time ago...no Iliad support yet.
Guess I'll have to wait a while...^^

Did you use the links provided by vvv?


1. Download and install the main program
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/BookDesigner40.zip
2. Download and unpack to Program Files/ Book Designer 4.0 directory the last update
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/Bd_Update_2006_05_04.zip

OS: Windows 95 - XP (under win 95, 98, Me not all the options will work).

The program uses some MS Word libraries, but they are not included into the distrubution. To install them it is enough to install MS Word 2000 or higher.

The users asked me several times to use Open Office instead of MS Word. Unfortunately it turned out that Open Office cannot process properly some types of MS Word documents/objects. Despite of that I am planning to add an option allowing to use Open Office instead of MS Word, but not right now. In general, it will work but some options will be lost (for example, the processing of some lit books will be disabled, the processing of some types of tables will be wrong, etc).

I downloaded the software just now, but it seems it's still the "old" version I had some time ago...no Iliad support yet.
Guess I'll have to wait a while...^^
I have told before that the iLiad module needs about two weeks of the testing. But from that time just one week passed.
Well, it seems the testing is near to be finished, so I hope to make the iLiad module avalible during the next week.

As for the links, the folk wanted to try the program without iLiad support, so I have provided them.

@vvv I had guessed as much and from your statement it was pretty clear that Iliad Support wasn't onboard yet.
Since some people were already praising the program, I thought that maybe the Iliad support was already in...^^

Great idea but I just downloaded the bookdesigner 4 and the updated (via the linked). Unfortunately, I am not able to find the Iliad format. I did find Palm, GEB, REB, etc except Iliad format.. Anyone do know what I am missing? I really want to have a better looking pdf display!!

Best, IC

1. load the book
2. menu "Make ebooks" / iliad
click "make book"
book made will be in pdf format

iLiad and Sony Reader owners

Due to the user's requests the following options allowing for more flexible pdf creation have been added to BookDesigner program (make eBooks -> iLiad).

1. User-defined page size ("page size, mm")

2. The MS Word bug related to the "custom page size" has been fixed. Now the pdf's made with the option "pdf printer -> PDFCreator" have correct page sizes (as they chosen in "page size, mm").

3. A possibility to use the inner pdf printer of Open Office ("pdf printer -> Open Office"). This option is recommended for iLiad owners: the pdf's are created faster and they are much more smaller than those ones made with PDFCreator.

4. A possibility to use the pdf printer chosen by the user ("pdf printer -> user: Open Office"). This option is recommended for Sony Reader owners (with PrimoPDF printer). But try to find a proper page size in "page size, mm" (I cannot do it because I have no Sony Reader yet).

The more detailed instruction can be seen pressing the "help" button in "Make iLiad file" window.

Who already has BookDesigner installed.
1. Download and unpack to Program Files/ Book Designer 4.0 directory the last update
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/Bd_Update_2006_09_13.zip

Who has no BookDesigner installed.
1. Download and install the main program
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/BookDesigner40.zip
2. Download and unpack to Program Files/ Book Designer 4.0 directory the last update
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/Bd_Update_2006_09_13.zip

great. now the documents really fit on the screen.

at the moment there's only one thing left bothering me: is there a fast way to strip page numbers left in the document when importing? Everything else just works the way it should.

at the moment there's only one thing left bothering me: is there a fast way to strip page numbers left in the document when importing?
Do you mean "when exporting to pdf"? Or something else? Explain in more details please.

well, i'm importing a pdf (a quite strange creation history on my side resulted in page numbers being shown as plain text at the end of the page in the pdf file).
In this case the page number is also shown as paragraph in bookdesigner.

I was just wondering if there is a way to remove such regularily occuring lines containing only a number in increasing order.

Actually it doesn't matter too much. i've managed to find an older version as text file where i can strip the page numbers with the regexp equivalent of endline,any amount of numbers,endline.

The rest is working smooth.

well, i'm importing a pdf (a quite strange creation history on my side resulted in page numbers being shown as plain text at the end of the page in the pdf file).
In this case the page number is also shown as paragraph in bookdesigner.

Well, I did not make yet an advanced "pdf-cleaner". With time, when I will be back to pdf import, I will try to do it.

But now you can remove all the pdf's page numbers as follows:
1. Tools -> Element Browser
2. short length: 5
3. Choose "short paragraphs" in the upper drop box
4. In the list, select the items which you want to remove (click on the first item, ctrl+click on the last item).
5. re-format selected elements as: delete -> do

Hi everyone I have just downloaded this program and I am a little lost as to what I should do to make a file that will work properly on my sony reader.
I hope I don't seem like an idiot but none of the icons in the program list anything specifically for the sony reader
So please help me if you can.

Hi everyone I have just downloaded this program and I am a little lost as to what I should do to make a file that will work properly on my sony reader.
I hope I don't seem like an idiot but none of the icons in the program list anything specifically for the sony reader
So please help me if you can.
Did you download and install the last update?
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/BookDesignerExe.zip

If not, get it and unpack to the main Book Designer directory.

Run the program, load your input file, then Make eBooks -> iLiad.

Hmm cannot get it working on Vista.
:-(

It is claiming it misses some files, and vista then suggest a solution leading to downloading those files. But it still gives errors.
So, will you make it vista compatible? Or where to download a library for those files that work on vista?

Edit: I ran this on XP. Works quite well! So a vista 64 version and I am happy! :-)

Sorry, I cannot open pdf files to edit. Any suggestions

iLiad and Sony Reader owners

B]Who already has BookDesigner installed.[/B]
1. Download and unpack to Program Files/ Book Designer 4.0 directory the last update
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/Bd_Update_2006_09_13.zip

Who has no BookDesigner installed.
1. Download and install the main program
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/BookDesigner40.zip
2. Download and unpack to Program Files/ Book Designer 4.0 directory the last update
http://www.the-ebook.org/e107/e107_files/downloads/bd/Bd_Update_2006_09_13.zip


I tried to go to those linked pages, but they don't open. :eek:
Neither IE or Firefox were able to open them.

Has the location changed?

Rico