Convert Text Dictionary to Mobi

[jribeiro]

I have a dictionary in text format that I would like to convert to mobi format. I am trying to convert it to the "keyword-tab-definition" format which I can translate into mobi using tab2opf. Unfortunately I don't know any tool able to make the conversion nor I have enough programming skills.

The dictionary looks like:

word1
definition 1
definition 2
definition 3

word2
definition

word3
definition 1
definition 2

Any hints (Linux or Windows)?.

Thanks.

[janvanmaar]

For a very basic conversion, you can use something like this:

#!/usr/bin/python
# coding: utf-8
inp='yourfile.txt'
out='outfile.txt'
new_entry=1
with open(inp) as f:
  with open(out,'w') as g:
    for line in f:
      line=line.strip()
      if new_entry:
        line+='\t'
        new_entry=0
      elif not line:
        new_entry=1 
        line='\n'
      else:
        line='<BLOCKQUOTE>'+line+'</BLOCKQUOTE>'
      g.write(line)

Just paste it exactly as it is to an empty file, modify 'yourfile.txt' to the name of your input file and save it as 'script.py' in the same directory where your input file is. Under Linux you can run it by 'python script.py' and you should have your tab delimited file.

[jribeiro]

Thanks, janvanmaar.

I converted file using your script. Tried to convert output file to opf using tab2opf and got error message:

File "Download/tab2opf.py", line 243, in <module>
dd = normalizeUnicode(dd,'cp1252')
File "Download/tab2opf.py", line 103, in normalizeUnicode
text = unicode(text, 'utf-8')
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xe1 in position 317: invalid continuation byte

[janvanmaar]

Your original file was probably not utf. Convert it to utf first and then repeat the conversion to tab-delimited file and mobigen building.