Free epub creation tool: eCub

[Julian Smart]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

One for Julian: Have you considered having eCub be able to create a project file & sources from an ePub file?

Hi,

Yes, you can do that by opting to import from an existing file in the New Project wizard (from 1.03). Hope that helps!

Regards,

Julian

[gwynevans]

Ah, yes, I see...

Mind you, to get there, you've got to have entered values for title, author & identifier, then project location & ePub filename - If you do any more development on it, might it be worth adding the option to open an ePub & auto-fill those values?

[Julian Smart]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

Ah, yes, I see...

Mind you, to get there, you've got to have entered values for title, author & identifier, then project location & ePub filename - If you do any more development on it, might it be worth adding the option to open an ePub & auto-fill those values?

Good point - I'll keep that in mind for the next version.

Thanks!

[Lord KiRon]

Great tool, it covers 1st part of the need for EPUB creatotion tool. However the 2nd part is still remains unaddressed.
I mean actual editing of the text.
I know there are many tools to edit HTML but that's not called "one simple tool". What needed is ability to edit HTML , and may be even run some kind of scripts.
Many books created out of OCR software where you have DOC or text PDF as a result but you want to do more and you want to do it in same application you create it.
Hope at some point you will be able to add this as well.

[nathanb]

Is it possible to create a hyperlinked Table of Contents with eCub?

I am new to all of this so I really don't know what I am doing, just trying to figure it out by myself. I want to create a Table of Contents in a file but one that actually works, that will take you to the chapter. Is that possible with eCub?

Thanks,

Nathan

[Julian Smart]

Originally Posted by nathanb

Is it possible to create a hyperlinked Table of Contents with eCub?

I am new to all of this so I really don't know what I am doing, just trying to figure it out by myself. I want to create a Table of Contents in a file but one that actually works, that will take you to the chapter. Is that possible with eCub?

Thanks,

Nathan

Hi Nathan,

Yes, eCub generates a simple table of contents with links to the chapters.

Currently it only generates one entry per file, and not multiple entries and links within a file, so you need to have one file per chapter (or other kind of section) in your book.

Julian

[brewt]

Say, this isn't too bad.

But:

I've got a fileset that I've converted with MobiCreator, and one with Ecub (for Mobi). The Ecub.mobi is double in size of the mobicreator.mobi file. Is there a compression option in ecobu (like in Creator)?

And:

When I make an epub, the epub seems to be structurally sound in both ADE and calibre, but the text is all invisible in ade - what did I do wrong? (and don't say OMG you used WORD???). (yeah, I did.)

Also:

If I am importing my Word-created htm file, what's the "right" unicode encoding I should be saving the file in, so it won't argue with me, and appear right, etc?



Groovy stuff, btw.
-bjc

[Julian Smart]

Hi,

Originally Posted by brewt

Say, this isn't too bad.

But:

I've got a fileset that I've converted with MobiCreator, and one with Ecub (for Mobi). The Ecub.mobi is double in size of the mobicreator.mobi file. Is there a compression option in ecobu (like in Creator)?

And:

When I make an epub, the epub seems to be structurally sound in both ADE and calibre, but the text is all invisible in ade - what did I do wrong? (and don't say OMG you used WORD???). (yeah, I did.)

Also:

If I am importing my Word-created htm file, what's the "right" unicode encoding I should be saving the file in, so it won't argue with me, and appear right, etc?



Groovy stuff, btw.
-bjc

The increased file size might be because eCub is including all images in the project folder - you need to keep working files that shouldn't be included out of that folder (probably I should change the way that works). There's no compression option in eCub for the .mobi, but I see that if you add -c2 (the Mobipocket huffdic compression option) to the command line in Preferences/Helpers/MobiPocket compiler, it reduces the size considerably.

You might also check if there's unnecessary stuff, e.g. in the .epub since it's just a zip file. You may need to change the extension to .zip for an unzip app to recognize it; the OPS folder may have extraneous content which could be eliminated by removing the files from the project folder. Or you can just check the build/OPS folder that eCub creates under the project folder.

Without seeing the HTML, I'm not sure what could be causing the invisible text... strange.

The best encoding to choose is probably UTF-8, which is the default for eCub.

Regards,

Julian

[Juliette]

I'm going to test it asap. Thank you

[brewt]

Atatched is a file set made with ecub this morning with all the basic stuff:

The html file (utf-8 encoded)
Text file for grins
All the files ecub made, including the epub output and the mobi output.

Funny thing: In Calibre Reader and Mobipocket Desktop Reader, everything looks basically fine.

But on ADE 1.7.1085 (at least mine), the epub is blank as far as the htm file is concerned. The text doc and the toc show up ok.

Ideas?

-bjc

[cmbs]

The test and toc show up ok? Those are the only html pages you have in the epub. They display fine for me in adobe digital editions. I don't understand what html you think isn't displaying correctly.

[brewt]

rotten nowhere-near-big-enough-monitor.

Attached are 2 shots of the display of the Basic Set file(s) produced with Ecub from the same fileset.

Mobi-Calibre.jpg shows the file opened to the first chapter, "normal normal normal normal", and it all shows up fine in both the epub and the mobi version(s).
Ade.jpg shows the same epub file (that calibre had open) to the same page Calibre did, and it seems to be all blank-like to me.

Obviously, something went whoinky with the file render that made it seem blank on that page in ADE, but not Calibre, or mobi.

So What'd I Do?

-bjc

[cmbs]

The ebkproj file you included is not the one you used to create the epub you included, so that makes it confusing and hard to figure out what you may have done.

When I make the three html files in your epub valid utf-8 xhtml and create a new ebkproj and make an epub with them, it works. ePub and ebkproj files are attached.

It's a lot easier for me to make a good epub from scratch than to try and figure out what you did wrong. I suggest you start with valid html and make the epub and use epubcheck and correct any errors it finds.

If you're still having problems, check the options (edit -> options) you're choosing. I don't use all those options you've got checked, I just make an epub, and I usually have it make a guide, but I didn't in this case. I did let it generate the style sheet, but I usually write my own.

You've checked the option to make a cover, but you didn't use the cover dialogue to actually make the cover, and I think that may be one problem.

You've also got the option to make a guide checked, but you haven't actually made the guide in the files dialogue. (you've got to highlight the html page and select a "guide type".)

I don't have mobigen on my computer so I can't use ecub to make mobi files so I don't know if that part might be giving you trouble.

Try starting from scratch, valid html files, uncheck most options and just make the epub. Correct all errors found by epubcheck. Then if you want the other options, add them one at a time and that will let you find which one is creating the problem.

Good luck.

[JMCornwell]

I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but how do you fix parsing errors in epub that has already gone through Meatgrinder? Since ePub is not right, I can't get my book through to the Apple store. Any advice would be helpful.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by JMCornwell

I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but how do you fix parsing errors in epub that has already gone through Meatgrinder? Since ePub is not right, I can't get my book through to the Apple store. Any advice would be helpful.

Could you fix it up yourself and send it to Apple directly? Don't they have a way of self publishing?