I want to merge short mobi book files into a mega mobi file

[vugtitan]

as you all know kindle slows down if you have too many books on it.

i have 4600.

please do not tell me to have fewer books on the kindle as that is not a solution i am looking for.


what i want to do is merge a lot of the smaller mobi files into a single mobi file but have a TOC for all the books that have been merged.this would mean i can access any book from the TOC at the start of this megabook.



i am not concerned too much with having a TOC for each mobi book only a TOC for all the books that have been merged.

the question is can calibre do this?


is there some kind of plugin that would allow this?

many of the book file i have have already been converted to mobi.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by vugtitan

the question is can calibre do this?

is there some kind of plugin that would allow this?

No .

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by vugtitan

what i want to do is merge a lot of the smaller mobi files into a single mobi file but have a TOC for all the books that have been merged.this would mean i can access any book from the TOC at the start of this megabook.

An interesting idea. I don't think there is any tool out there which will do this. I think the best manual way to do it would be to use MobiUnpack to get HTML from the Mobipocket books, and then merge all those files manuallly with a good text editor, and manually add a TOC for the whole omnibus edition yourself at the front.

Illustrations would need a little more care, to first give a unique path the the illustrations from each book.

I suppose even a script to automatically do all that, so that it's ready to be processed by KindleGen is possible. But I'm not drawn to write it.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by vugtitan

as you all know kindle slows down if you have too many books on it.

i have 4600.

please do not tell me to have fewer books on the kindle as that is not a solution i am looking for.


what i want to do is merge a lot of the smaller mobi files into a single mobi file but have a TOC for all the books that have been merged.this would mean i can access any book from the TOC at the start of this megabook.

i am not concerned too much with having a TOC for each mobi book only a TOC for all the books that have been merged.

the question is can calibre do this?


is there some kind of plugin that would allow this?

many of the book file i have have already been converted to mobi.

I suppose you could convert the books to EPUB, then ADD them together in Sigil.
Not automated, but gives you a chance to 'touch up' things as you go along.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by theducks

I suppose you could convert the books to EPUB, then ADD them together in Sigil.
Not automated, but gives you a chance to 'touch up' things as you go along.

If you take this approach you should edit the individual EPUB files prior to attempting to combine them. The major issue will be the CSS files.

The best approach is probably to use Sigil to rename the CSS files in each of the individual EPUBs so that they all have unique names. That way when the individual HTML components of the EPUBs are merged they can reference their own CSS files (which will also need to be added to the mega-EPUB) avoiding conflicts.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by dwig

If you take this approach you should edit the individual EPUB files prior to attempting to combine them. The major issue will be the CSS files.

The best approach is probably to use Sigil to rename the CSS files in each of the individual EPUBs so that they all have unique names. That way when the individual HTML components of the EPUBs are merged they can reference their own CSS files (which will also need to be added to the mega-EPUB) avoiding conflicts.

Actually, you need do no CSS work.
Sigil creates a separate CSS for each book imported (you can't turn it off,even if all books use the exact same CSS) renaming possible conflicts with existing CSS.
All you get is a slightly bigger file. (you can edit the reference in the book back to a common CSS if appropriate, and delete the extra CSS)