Can calibre convert Bibles?

[Loosheesh]

Can calibre convert Bibles? I'm trying to convert a study Bible from ePub to Mobi and I keep getting a conversion error. IIRC, it was mentioned somewhere that calibre couldn't convert dictionaries; does this apply to Bibles also?

[PeterT]

Technically there is nothing preventing the conversion of either Bibles or Dictionaries; PRACTICALLY it fails due to the complexity (I *think* due to the number of links within the documents being converted).

[Ravensknight]

yeah verily, I have found it impossible, and lo, no solution has worked for me.
~Jones II, Chapter II, verse II

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

Can calibre convert Bibles? I'm trying to convert a study Bible from ePub to Mobi and I keep getting a conversion error. IIRC, it was mentioned somewhere that calibre couldn't convert dictionaries; does this apply to Bibles also?

You have an iPad3. There is Marvin & Bluefire Reader you can install and use to read the Bible with.

[Loosheesh]

Thanks for the responses!

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

yeah verily, I have found it impossible, and lo, no solution has worked for me.
~Jones II, Chapter II, verse II

If only I'd come across this scripture reference before I posted here ...

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You have an iPad3. There is Marvin & Bluefire Reader you can install and use to read the Bible with.

It's already loaded on my iPad but, greedy me, I wanted to access it with my Kindle/Kindle apps as well. I never thought of trying it with the Bluefire reader and now that I've done so, I find the cross reference links much more easily accessible than with Marvin. Thanks for the suggestion.

[bhoyt]

I have processed the free ESV available on Crossway's site and added links at the beginning of each chapter pointing to the beginning of the book (where links to the chapters are listed) and the beginning of the whole Bible (where links to all the books are listed).

This has made it easy to navigate. No need to go to the table of contents.

It's not the study Bible, just a simple text version with footnotes.

[fratermus]

I think there's a Damascus plugin that handles this kind of conversion.

[cybmole]

I have 2 large stones of inscribed text which are really heavy & hard to carry , especially when going up & down mountains - how do I fit them into my kindle ?

[Agama]

Originally Posted by bhoyt

I have processed the free ESV ... It's not the study Bible, just a simple text version with footnotes.

This is the route I've gone down. It also helps to split the OT and the NT, but I haven't tried with a study Bible. If your source is an ePub then it's quite easy to split. Try the NT first, (since it's smaller), and if this still fails you could resort to book by book, then re-assemble afterwards. The only loss due to splitting is links which go across books.

[NickMemphis]

Some added insights for those dealing with this issue (conversion of large and very complicated books):

I have the NIV Study Bible by Zondervan (41.6 MB as a mobi file that has been moved into Calibre from a purchase in Kindle for PC software) and after doing research online, I installed the 64 bit version of Calibre on my best quad core PC with 8 GB of memory and set it in motion 47 hours ago converting from mobi to epub (for personal use on two iPads and two iPhones) and I just got home to find it finally done! I had tried the 32 bit version of Calibre a few times with various large Study Bibles and I always got errors before. Three Kindle Keyboards are the main reading devices in my home, but iPads and iPhones are growing in use and having things on them (in iBooks) is handy (not a fan of the Kindle software, just the hardware).

I also have the ESV Study Bible (47.8 MB), NIV Faith in Action Study Bible (18.8 MB), and the Life Application Study Bible NLT (22.8 MB) so now I will try them to see if they will convert too. When the 64 bit version was running, the Calibre process was using nearly 6 GB of the 8 GB of my total memory and 25% of the CPU! But the 64 bit version and the memory beyond 4 GB appears to be the key to prevent the errors.

I’ve been poking around mobileread for years and this problem finally got me to sign up so that is a good thing. A nice site that has provided me several important bits of information over the years.

Thank you for your efforts.

[PeterT]

The 25℅ CPU means 1 of the 4 processors busy the whole time which is to be expected as calibre is not multi-threaded.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by cybmole

I have 2 large stones of inscribed text which are really heavy & hard to carry , especially when going up & down mountains - how do I fit them into my kindle ?

get an ass

BR

[NickMemphis]

ESV Study Bible
NIV Faith in Action Study Bible
Life Application Study Bible NLT

All still fail to convert from mobi to epub with the 64 bit version of Calibre. But these give actual errors pretty quickly so I guess it has something to do with formatting. Oh well.

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by NickMemphis

ESV Study Bible
NIV Faith in Action Study Bible
Life Application Study Bible NLT

All still fail to convert from mobi to epub with the 64 bit version of Calibre. But these give actual errors pretty quickly so I guess it has something to do with formatting. Oh well.

Thanks to your tip upthread I was (finally!) able to convert the Life Application Study Bible NLT from ePub to mobi. I installed the 64 bit version of Calibre on a laptop with 8 GB of ram, put the conversion in motion and just left it alone. It only (!) took 4 hours. The links are working fine on both my Kindle 3 and with the Kindle app on my iPad. I'm very happy with the conversion

again!