eBook Conversion Question

filmcub · 09-17-2010, 02:53 PM

I work at a company that has a very complicated book (numerous tables, lots of specific formatting, tons of links to other sections, etc.) that we want to attempt to get into eBook format.

We requested quotes from several conversion services and all but one rejected us due to the complexity. We tried working with the one that accepted us but they were very sloppy and it had way too many errors to be acceptable. So we are back at square one.

Does anybody have any suggestions before we decide to throw in the towel on having this in eBook format? We don't have the resources to build it in house. We would really like to do it because we think it would be an interesting way for our clients to get the book. Eventually we will build a different type of solution such as a web database but that won't happen this year.

Thanks for any suggestions.

kevinp · 09-17-2010, 06:53 PM

I have everything either in MS Word or HTML. You can make all the links you want in HTML, which is essentially the basis of epub. I'm a programmer, not a professional publisher or anything, but I could take a look.

jeffcobb · 09-17-2010, 08:51 PM

Calibre is a free (as in beer and in freedom meaning you can get the source code and tweak it to your needs) that runs on every platform and converts a lot of different formats to a lot of other formats. I use it to suck in Word, .lit, .prc, etc and turn them into proper epub files that my ereaders seem to like better than the original platform. It also allows you to tweak the metadata and do batch conversions.

09-17-2010, 02:53 PM	#1
filmcub Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: iPad	eBook Conversion Question I work at a company that has a very complicated book (numerous tables, lots of specific formatting, tons of links to other sections, etc.) that we want to attempt to get into eBook format. We requested quotes from several conversion services and all but one rejected us due to the complexity. We tried working with the one that accepted us but they were very sloppy and it had way too many errors to be acceptable. So we are back at square one. Does anybody have any suggestions before we decide to throw in the towel on having this in eBook format? We don't have the resources to build it in house. We would really like to do it because we think it would be an interesting way for our clients to get the book. Eventually we will build a different type of solution such as a web database but that won't happen this year. Thanks for any suggestions.

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09-17-2010, 06:53 PM	#2
kevinp Fanatic Posts: 579 Karma: 3549018 Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Michigan Device: Kindle Scribe, Kindle PW (10th & 11th gen); Fire HD 10	I have everything either in MS Word or HTML. You can make all the links you want in HTML, which is essentially the basis of epub. I'm a programmer, not a professional publisher or anything, but I could take a look.

09-17-2010, 08:51 PM	#3
jeffcobb Groupie Posts: 152 Karma: 700 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Las Vegas Device: Nook, CoolER	Calibre is a free (as in beer and in freedom meaning you can get the source code and tweak it to your needs) that runs on every platform and converts a lot of different formats to a lot of other formats. I use it to suck in Word, .lit, .prc, etc and turn them into proper epub files that my ereaders seem to like better than the original platform. It also allows you to tweak the metadata and do batch conversions.

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