ABC Amber Converter for Sony To Be Released Soon

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rwsimon

I'm a new Sony Reader owner and am trying to get the lay of the land with respect to content. Apart from the stuff on the Connect website, it appears that other formats out there can be converted to LRF. However, the various threads I've tried to follow here either lead me to some website in Russian or to blithe remarks about writing my own code, running various scripts or otherwise highly non-plug-and-play activities. Is there a way to do this that is relatively straightforward to folks who just use software but don't create it? I bet the answer is here somewhere, but there is an awful lot of chatter to plow through. Can somebody provide an update? Thanks.

Let me start off by giving a quick rundown.

There are some really good tools available for the Sony Reader to make content for it in LRF format. Right now, the two big ones are Book Designer (BD) and html2lrf. Pielrf (IMHO) still needs some work at least for Windows. But it can get there and I think it will.

BD is hosted on a Russian website. The links to get it are available someplace on the forum. You need the base install and the upgrade for it. html2lrf is part of Libprs500 and used to convert html to LRF. Once you learn how to format your html, it's not too hard to use. It's not a GUI like BD.

That said, there are other tools for dealing with manga/comic book scans and PDF files. We'll leave those for the moment.

You can purchase books for the reader from the Connect store, but you'll find it limited at the moment. If you have a Windows based computer you can go to Google and search for Convert LIT 1.8 and you'll find it. Then you can purchase LIT format books and use CLIT to break the DRM or convert to HTML. Then you can load the DRMless LIT file into BD and edit from there or use html2lrf to deal with the HTML code. Your choice.

There is NO true plug and play solution (IMHO). Every program for creating LRF requires some sort of twiddling about. Even if it's just in BD fixing what it things are titles that really are not. These tools help make the reader much better then it ever would be if all we had was the Connect store.

I'm attaching the two files needed for BD. But remember, the 2nd file while current can change at any time and not be current. So watch the forum to find out when it changes and what the new link is for the update.

1. unzip the file BookDesigner40.zip
2. Right click on th .msi file from the ZIP and install
3. unzip the file Bd_Update_2007_05_30.zip on top of the files in the c:\Program files\book designer\ directory and you have it updated.

Now go read the forum and you'll find directions in various places on how to do what you want using BD and html2lrf.

If you still have questions AFTER reading the Sony Reader foums in their entirety, feel free to ask.

Jon

[NatCh]

It is an awful lot to plow through, isn't it?

Here's a bit of help with BookDesigner -- HarryT put together a tutorial that specifically addresses making books for the Sony Reader with BookDesigner. You can find it here.

Please note there's a now new Page in the Wiki for BookDesigner.

[diabloNL]

So I just saw the abc converter is out. It converts a lrf file to many other formats but to
be honest I was hoping for an application that would also go the other way. : (

[UncleDuke]

is it ok then to use this to make copies of the sony stuff here for my friends that still have palms?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by UncleDuke

is it ok then to use this to make copies of the sony stuff here for my friends that still have palms?

Just remember, if you do that, none of the graphics will convert. That is to come in a later version of the converter.

I don't see why it would be a problem. But, the thing to do is tell them of all the wonderful free books for the Sony and get them to buy one.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by UncleDuke

is it ok then to use this to make copies of the sony stuff here for my friends that still have palms?

Perfectly OK - with the usual caveat that not everything here is in the public domain for everybody, so if you're bothered about such things check that it's PD for you. etc etc etc.

[astra]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

These tools help make the reader much better then it ever would be if all we had was the Connect store.

With Connect store being the onlyoption I would not even consider buying the reader.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

With Connect store being the onlyoption I would not even consider buying the reader.

The reason I bought the reader was because of content available elsewhere. I was a member of the forum when I was reading LIT on my computer or the laptop. And when I was considering the Sony, I came here and had a read of the forums and then was able to make an informed decision. So I just want to say a big Thank You to all here who helped.

Jon

[yvanleterrible]

Eink, TXT and RTF sold me to the reader.

[astra]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Eink, TXT and RTF sold me to the reader.

Ditto.

[JSWolf]

ABC Amber LIT Converter is way buggy!

I just took a book in LRF and converted it to RTF amd it has No bold, no italics, quotes and apostrophes are converted to and underscore. IMHO, I'd say it's not ready for prime time.

[rwsimon]

Thanks to JSWolf and others for the reply to my newbie questions. For some reason, I couldn't even find my original post for a couple of days. I guess I wasn't navigating the forums very well!

One further question before embarking on experiments with BD: is it Vista (32-bit) compatible? I'd rather not start messing with it if that is going to cause trouble from an OS perspective. I'll just live with the RTF files I've been making so far...

Meanwhile, after the first 10 days, I'm totally sold on the Reader. What a great gadget!!

[yvanleterrible]

I haven't tried that LRF converter yet. If I hear correctly it converts from LRF to other formats. My question is can it do the opposite like RTF to LRF ?

[astra]

This one - no /afaik

[yvanleterrible]

What does "no /afaik" mean?