I am awaiting my JBL from Newegg. Purchased on the $99.00 special.

I am collecting and downloading books prior to its arrival.

Any hints/tips on which formats are best and also what free conversion software is most effective and user friendly in "prepping" files for use with the JBL?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Doug

The following is my opinion only. You shouldn't take it as truth.

I've been trying to use every format that the jbl would show. I've come to the conclusion that plain text format really is the simplest and best format for me.

Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/) is a decent free conversion software.

For me, *.RTF is my #1 choice not that I can really tell you why.
It seems to do a better job of formatting than straight txt does.

As for conversion software I'm the rebel in the crowd.
Calibre has done nothing but tick me off and screw up my library.

Zilla PDF to txt converter is free, will convert PDF to straight txt.
ABC Ambler lit converter will convert any *.lit files.

Anything else, I just load it in wordpad, and save as .rtf. Which works fine for fixing the few .doc files, etc.

I second the plain text. I have converted the books I read to TXT and threw a few simple line spacings in to allow chapter to break to a new page. I have been tracking down some older books I would like to re-read, and converting the RTF and HTML to straight text using simple word processors like ConText and note/wordpad for direct search and replace of formatting strings. If needed, then Word itself can clear end-of-line breaks that occur in the middle of sentences.

Thanks for your great insight!

What about .mobi? How well does JBL do with this format?

A friend gave me a CD with a couple dozen novels in this format and I was wondering if I should convert some to txt files in order to get full benefit on the JBL?

If needed, then Word itself can clear end-of-line breaks that occur in the middle of sentences.

Interesting... I didn't know word processor has this option. How do you do this?

It's been my experience that the JBL does a pretty good job with all the formats
that it can work with, within its limitations. It can't, as of yet, handle a few of the
features its hardware could support, if the firmware reader program were to be made
to implement them. So some things like internal link support are not generally available
even if the format includes it. The basic ability to read the text of the listed formats
is there though.

It is also often quite possible to work around most of the limitations that sometimes
prevent, or delay, a particular ebook's display/loading. ( For instance I ended up using
"mobi2HTML.exe" to get a 23MB .mobi file to load and display properly on the JBL.)

"Best Format" is even more subjective than "Best Rechargeable Battery". I usually
like the job Calibre does (using the "Jetbook 5-inch" output profile) converting my old
Palm .pdb ebooks to .epub. I prefer the wider spacing of these .epub, some like the
tighter spacing of the .pdb.

Ectaco recomends .txt as the most compatible format for the JBL. I've had little trouble
getting an ebook in any of the listed formats to be readable on the JBL. I may have had
to convert a troublesome case into a different listed format, but that is easily, and quickly
done with Calibre. In the vast majority of cases the ebook will be readable, without any
adjustment being required.

Luck;
Ken

Interesting... I didn't know word processor has this option. How do you do this?

I think it's the find and replace all function... you can replace special characters like end of line, end of page etc. with nothing.

Interesting... I didn't know word processor has this option. How do you do this?

With MS Word, you can search for "^p" which is the manual line break character. I usually replace with a space, so that this:

<p>It was a dark
and stormy night.</p>
<p>A shot rang out.</p>

becomes this:

<p>It was a dark and stormy night.</p> <p>A shot rang out.</p>

Then you can search and replace </p> with a ^p to get:

<p>It was a dark and stormy night.
<p>A shot rang out.

And replace the <p> markers with nothing to finish cleaning up.

The only drawback is if you are converting a file that has no specific end of line marker such as </p> in html. Attempting to convert any badly formatted plain text is a pain no matter what.

Thanks again for all the great advice.

Steven - that's exactly what I was looking for.

So does "Open Office" do a better job or is just the preferred word processor of some?

With MS Word, you can search for "^p" which is the manual line break character. I usually replace with a space, so that this:

<p>It was a dark
and stormy night.</p>
<p>A shot rang out.</p>

becomes this:

<p>It was a dark and stormy night.</p> <p>A shot rang out.</p>

Then you can search and replace </p> with a ^p to get:

<p>It was a dark and stormy night.
<p>A shot rang out.

And replace the <p> markers with nothing to finish cleaning up.

The only drawback is if you are converting a file that has no specific end of line marker such as </p> in html. Attempting to convert any badly formatted plain text is a pain no matter what.

That's cool.

Might I suggest autounbreak (http://digital.hollmen.dk/products/autounbreak/index.htm). It does exactly what you just described automatically and it's free. Just cut and paste the texts and it will unbreak for you.

Also, check out my other thread (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88034) about the best pdf to whatever converter I have ever seen.

I think all of the books on my JBL right now are in epub, and they look just fine to me. When I started out I had some books I had bought in mobi format, and while most of those worked, some of them had some kind of compression issue and wouldn't open on the JBL. I use Calibre to manage my books, but for the JBL I "send to file" instead of "send to device" (with the JBL's SD card in the card reader of my netbook) so I can arrange my folders to suit me. This last time I updated it I just sent everything in epub format.

I think all of the books on my JBL right now are in epub, and they look just fine to me. When I started out I had some books I had bought in mobi format, and while most of those worked, some of them had some kind of compression issue and wouldn't open on the JBL. I use Calibre to manage my books, but for the JBL I "send to file" instead of "send to device" (with the JBL's SD card in the card reader of my netbook) so I can arrange my folders to suit me. This last time I updated it I just sent everything in epub format.

TXT is a go for me (all rhyming aside) :)

Its simple and virtually every book can be found in this format. Calibre is superb for converting when you need to.

Where can I purchase popular fiction. I have been told only at Ereader.com and Fictionwise. They do not seem to have much of a selection. Lots of romance and erotica. I am looking for NY Times best sellers. B&N says no, Kobo says no Ebook mall says no. My JBL is on the way, I am thinking of returning it. I found out about the lack of my type of available content after I bought it.

PDFs formatted specifically for the JBL are the best format for me. Here are the extras you get with PDFs formatted for a 3x4 inch screen:

In the Books view, the book viewer looks inside the PDF for the Author and Title properties, and uses them on the book listing. It also splits the Author and Title onto separate lines, so you get to see more of a long title.
No matter where you are in the book, you can use jump to the Table of Contents from the menu, and not lose your place in the book if decide not to go to another chapter.
You get to use whatever fonts you like
If you word processor does hyphenation, and you like hyphenation, you can have it.

All the formats JBL can handle seem to work well for me, but epub has those extra spacings between lines I don't like and if you want title/author line to be represented correctly better stick to plain text: it's the only way you'll the job done. In case you have a text with pictures mobi is a very good format to choose.

Enjoy your JBL.

For format conversion I would recommend you abc amber text converter. It has batch conversion and can convert a wide array of formats and very fast

I second the plain text. I have converted the books I read to TXT and threw a few simple line spacings in to allow chapter to break to a new page. I have been tracking down some older books I would like to re-read, and converting the RTF and HTML to straight text using simple word processors like ConText and note/wordpad for direct search and replace of formatting strings. If needed, then Word itself can clear end-of-line breaks that occur in the middle of sentences.

Steven,

Can you tell me more about what you do with inserting line breaks to force page breaks at chapters? I have some TXT files that do this and others that don't, and I haven't been able to figure out what the magic difference is.


Thanks,

Steve

Steven,

Can you tell me more about what you do with inserting line breaks to force page breaks at chapters? I have some TXT files that do this and others that don't, and I haven't been able to figure out what the magic difference is.


Thanks,

Steve

If you throw in 4 empty lines between the chapters the next chapter will show up in a new page.

what you do with inserting line breaks to force page breaks at chapters?

Use an editor that places CRLF at the end of each line.
Place 4 empty (Return/Enter only no spaces, etc) lines before the title or chapter.
Place a single empty line after the title or chapter.

Example (~ represents Empty line):
~
~
~
~
The Time Machine
H.G.Wells
~
~
~
~
Chapter 1
~
The Time Traveller

The above will center and bold the title and author and then skip to the next page. The chapter title will be center and bold with the first chapter normal.
If you forget to put the empty line after the chapter, the rest following will be centered and bold.

does "Open Office" do a better job or is just the preferred word processor of some?

Well this is what I am doing right now as I tend to keep a USB flash drive in my pocket at all times:

I have an 8GB flash drive with all "raw" books on it, most of them are html encoded off of different web sites, etc., held in an "ebook" folder.

On the root of the drive I have placed the free "NotePad2" editor which does not need an install and runs off of the portable flash drive on any Windows based OS.

I launch the NotePad2 program and navigate to the ebook folder and open the raw html file.

Within NotePad2, you can search and replace the newline characters "\r\n" with the "transform backslashes" option checked. I usually do this first and replace the newline characters with a single space. This will make sure that you do not end up with two words jammedtogether.

Then search and replace all </p> ( and/or <p> depending on the html encoder used ) and replace with "\r\n" (with transform backslashes checked) to get all paragraphs locked to a single line.

After that, I do search and replace for various bold, underline, emphasis, etc., commands to clear the html formatting. If the chapter headers have obvious <H1> html header blocks around them, you can search and replace with a string of 5 "\r\n" to make sure you have 4 empty lines before each.

I continue on after the mass changes with a quick scroll up/down to look for any odd looking lines that might need to be manually cleaned up.

Once done, I save the file to a name like "Author_Last, First # [Series_Number -] Book Name.txt". This will allow proper naming and sorting in the jetbook's book list display.

I keep all books on an SD card with the folders named "!Sci-Fi" and "!Horror" so that the SD card folders appear first on the book list. Within those categories I put sub folders to further divide what I have ("Classics", "aliens", "werewolf" or by author names).

I launch the NotePad2 program and navigate to the ebook folder and open the raw html file..

Greetings:

This is my first post here and I hope you won't mind a suggestion from a newbie...

Take a look at NoteTab. IMHO this is the best software there is for easy mass manipulation of text. There are a couple of free versions. I've used it extensively for massaging Gutenberg downloads and web pages and the like before putting them into my Aluratek. The whole process can be macro-ized very quickly. One click and the job is done. It uses regular expressions as well and has excellent support. Probably the best single piece of shareware I've ever bought.

Let me add: this is a great forum! I've learned more in the few days I've been here than in the several months I've had my Aluratek.

So, thanks everyone!

Best,

Tim

Where can I purchase popular fiction. I have been told only at Ereader.com and Fictionwise. They do not seem to have much of a selection. Lots of romance and erotica. I am looking for NY Times best sellers. B&N says no, Kobo says no Ebook mall says no. My JBL is on the way, I am thinking of returning it. I found out about the lack of my type of available content after I bought it.

A year back these books were available but it seems the big publishers are conducting a war with Amazon and Apple so they have vanished or marked out of stock.

Also, are you prepared to pay $12 for a book available as a $7.99 pb or more than the cover price for an hc ?

It makes no difference to me because these expensive DRM/ encrypted eBooks are also restricted to US & Canada purchasers and I am in the UK.

Treetotree, I assume you are look for popular fiction that you can purchase for the JBL DRM format. I own a JB with no DRM support prior to FW .35a.

That didn't stop me. One DRM format that is used at quite a few online sellers is the Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) ePub/PDF DRM format. This format is fairly easy to remove making your purchase readable on any e-reader even if it doesn't support ePub or PDF because once the DRM is gone you can convert the format as well.

If you install Overdrive this may give you access to your Local Public Library for access to ADE epub/PDF e-books.

The best format is the one that allows you to use most of the features that are built into your reader.

PDF - Supports active TOC but does not support "Dictionary" or "Find"
The new JB firmware .35a supports Text Flow on/off - which is a big enhancement when reading PDF documents on a small screen.

ePub before JB FW .35a supported "Dictionary" and "Find" functions

ePub after JB bFW .35a loses "Dictionary" and "Find" function but gains active TOC and doucment supplied fonts just like PDF docs.

All other formats support "Dictionary" and "Find" functions.

Basic functions across the board are "Jump To", Bookmark handling, Recently Read list, Page rotation

Some of the other features are not supported under PDF and the new ADE ePub reader under JB FW .35a Font sizing, justification and selection.

John

Calibre Question - For those of you who are using Calibre:

Are you customizing any settings for the JBL or simply selecting the Jetbook ad leaving everything else as default?

I am getting mixed results when using Calibre to convert to EPub and .Txt.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Doug

Are you customizing any settings for the JBL or simply selecting the Jetbook ad leaving everything else as default?
I do use Calbre. Either the GUI (mixed experience) or the command line conversion. The thing I always set is the turning off of the cover picture.

Calibre Question - For those of you who are using Calibre:

Are you customizing any settings for the JBL or simply selecting the Jetbook ad leaving everything else as default?

I am getting mixed results when using Calibre to convert to EPub and .Txt.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Doug


Generally, my results with Calibre have been consistent for each source.
For most of the sources just setting the "Jetbook 5-inch" output profile does
a fairly good job. There are some odd files from time to time that may require
some additional attention to get them to display right. I am not very picky
though, I am mostly just interested in the story or the point of the book.

Maybe if you describe what results you find disappointing, we can come up
with settings or other fixes, to get the kind of results you are looking for.
(You might want to try describing what you want at the Calibre forum as well.)

Luck;
Ken

I've given up on Caliber for "final" .txt formatting. Whenever I convert to a .txt file, I just open it up in MSWord and polish it up to display properly on my JBL.

I found a .txt file that displayed great on my JBL and have cloned the settings as a template.

Margins: Top & Bottom @ 1" Sides @ 1.04"
Paper Size: @ 8.5 X 11
Font: - doesn't seem to really make a difference what I select for font or size as once it gets into JBL it all looks the same - which is fine and very readable.

Regarding PDF Files.

I have some pretty ugly looking PDF files on the JBL, fonts way too small or if you try to change screen size the text will run past the margins.

I'd like to try some formatting changes especially with margins and fonts.

Other than the paid Acrobat are there any free products that will allow these types of edits and saves?

I've tried NitroPDF but do not see where you can edit and then re-save a PDF with it. I can only see where you can do pretty much a "one-click" conversion from PDF to another format.

Maybe it's best just to try to convert these PDFs to another format?? If so, any advice/tips in what format and settings to use?

Again, much thanks for all the help for this newbie - it is much appreciated.

Doug

I found a .txt file that displayed great on my JBL and have cloned the settings as a template.

With TXT files, there are no settings for a template. You may have borders, fonts, etc. in WORD, but once you save as a TXT again, you loose the WORD formatting.

With TXT files, there are no settings for a template. You may have borders, fonts, etc. in WORD, but once you save as a TXT again, you loose the WORD formatting.

Interesting, so basically, the JBL just sets things up properly for the .txt files.

No wonder this is the preferred format for so many.

Thanks for the feed back Steven.

Correct steven, as far as you go. But if you save as an *.rtf you save all that, and jetbook does a great job on .rtf. Indeed it is my file format of choice if I'm given a choice.

If I want to take the time I can even load a .txt file into word, and save it as an rtf and it will look better without my having to do anything else.

Its just most of the time its really not worth it for me. Your mileage may vary.

I have had several instances where saving as .rtf has caused the file size to explode to the point that the JBL can not open the file.

Saving the same book to .txt provides a very small file.