Help with creating IMP, please

[vivaldirules]

I would like to upload IMP format ebooks as I create them for other devices from Book Designer. But I don't really know what I'm doing. The two that I created recently (a Ruskin book and Gandhi's autobiography) are huge (about 10 Mb or more). And when you create the file from BD, you must select the device you're creating it for - EB1150, etc. So my two questions are:

What device should I select from BD to make the IMP most useful for people?
What might I have done wrong in making the files that make them so large?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Patricia]

You've accidentaly been making book image files. (I did this myself, until JSWolf pointed me in the right direction.)
When using BD, under make books:
1. Select 'Reb1200/GEB1150/2150/SoftBook(imp)'
2. If it offers multi-language support then refuse it. This only makes a bulky Book Image file.
3. I wouldn't bother with ticking the hyphenation box because words get hyphenated in very strange ways at the end of lines.

That's it.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Patricia

You've accidentaly been making book image files. (I did this myself, until JSWolf pointed me in the right direction.)
When using BD, under make books:
1. Select 'Reb1200/GEB1150/2150/SoftBook(imp)'
2. If it offers multi-language support then refuse it. This only makes a bulky Book Image file.
3. I wouldn't bother with ticking the hyphenation box because words get hyphenated in very strange ways at the end of lines.

That's it.

One more important point. There are two different sizes for IMP formatted files. The GEB1150 size is the one you want for eBookwise books. This is selected from the device drop down list on the form that appears. The REB1200 size (twice as big) makes a book that will not work properly on the 1150 since the page is too big. By convention an _1200 should be appended to the end of the title on any book created specifically for the 1200.

Dale

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

One more important point. There are two different sizes for IMP formatted files. The GEB1150 size is the one you want for eBookwise books. This is selected from the device drop down list on the form that appears. The REB1200 size (twice as big) makes a book that will not work properly on the 1150 since the page is too big. By convention an _1200 should be appended to the end of the title on any book created specifically for the 1200.

Dale

Dale, there are two possible options on the 'make ebooks' menu in BD, viz:
1. Book image (lrf,imp,rb kml)
or
2. REB1200,GEB1150/2150,SoftBook (imp).

The book image files are gigantic, so (1) is impracticable.
But option (2) doesn't seem to distinguish between the REB1200 and the GEB1150. Following a comment by nrappallo in his Harvard Classics_1200 uploads, I'm assuming that JSWolf, RWood and I have actually been making imps for the 1150 rather than the 1200.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Dale, there are two possible options on the 'make ebooks' menu in BD, viz:
1. Book image (lrf,imp,rb kml)
or
2. REB1200,GEB1150/2150,SoftBook (imp).

The book image files are gigantic, so (1) is impracticable.
But option (2) doesn't seem to distinguish between the REB1200 and the GEB1150. Following a comment by nrappallo in his Harvard Classics_1200 uploads, I'm assuming that JSWolf, RWood and I have actually been making imps for the 1150 rather than the 1200.

If you select REB1200, GEB1150/2150, Softbook (imp) (Ctrl+F7) from the Book Designer Make eBooks menu item, you get a dialog box with various options you can modify, like Author and Title, and a drop down box for Device which offers GEB1150, GEB2150, or REB1200 as targets.
______
Dennis

[nrapallo]

Patricia:

Yes, that is exactly so!

Setting the device to 'GEB1150' will create your usual .IMP ebook for the ebookwise 1150.

If you were to 'Make eBook' twice, then you could make both versions. However, this is clumsy as you will overwrite the 1st .IMP made with the second call to 'Make eBook'.

The way I would do it would be to first make the REB 1200 version (with the device set to 'REB1200'), then go to your destination directory and change the filename to end with '_1200.imp'. Then make the EBW 1150 version (with the device changed to 'GEB1150') and accepting "as is" the resulting '.imp' filename. Now that's a lot of work and it's tedious.

I wouldn't recommend this for you for two reasons (even though I seem to have recently championed the cause to post REB 1200 .IMP ebooks):

1. All graphics/pictures included in any .IMP ebook created by BD are 1-bit 'color' (i.e. B &W) and for the REB 1200 that can display 32,768 colors it's down-right irritating to see this. So no need to produce the REB 1200 version if the 'pictures' are important, plentyful and/or vibrant.

2. All EBW 1150 .IMP files can be displayed on the REB 1200, however, they retain the 4-bit 'color' (16 grayscale) and 320x480 screen layout. So if pictures are not important, then you can still read the ebook using the 1150 .IMP version; just with a lot of white-space on the right and bottom. Again, no need to produce the REB 1200 version.

So for all intents and purposes, a REB 1200 version should only be produced if it would 'add-value' especially if the (full color) graphic/pictures are an integral part of the ebook.

Using the eBook Publisher software, I can retain the max. color depth for the respective .IMP ebook versions and make a more presentable hand-crafted ebook.

I have recently started using perl scripts to produce simple ebooks from .html instead of the eBook Publisher GUI and can achieve identical results. Perhaps you can try converting your .html0 BD file using my perl scripts and comparing the results. I can help walk you through this if you want.

-Nick