Book Creation Tutorials

[SciFiReader]

Harry I really love your tutorial and was working my way through it until I came upon your statement of clicking on the Sony Reader button to make the book. Neither the version 4.0 or 5.0 that I downloaded has a Sony Reader function on it. Am I missing something somewhere? Do I have to load an update that I missed? Thanks fo rsetting me straight.

[RWood]

Originally Posted by SciFiReader

Harry I really love your tutorial and was working my way through it until I came upon your statement of clicking on the Sony Reader button to make the book. Neither the version 4.0 or 5.0 that I downloaded has a Sony Reader function on it. Am I missing something somewhere? Do I have to load an update that I missed? Thanks fo rsetting me straight.

Here is the link to the latest update (~6 Meg) that I know about. It is a self-extracting zip file and the file EXE date is 12 April 2007.

[mjh215]

If anyone wants to access the actual documentation for Book Designer or visit their forum I thought I'd give you the links. I open them using Google translation (As the are in Russian). They also have a sticky up in the forum for English questions. The main forum is http://www.the-ebook.org/forum/ and Book Designer is listed about halfway down. The documentation is http://doc.the-ebook.org/BookDesigner/

I'll also post links thru Google translator for the documentation. Whether the URL generated for me will work for you is another matter. If not, just enter the above URL's into Google's search engine and click the translate button.

http://209.85.135.104/translate_c?hl...Den%26hs%3DH2C

[HarryT]

Ah yes, sorry about that . Best to set the page size to "US Letter" first if you're in the US. A4 is a little longer and a little narrower than "Letter".

[JSWolf]

One thing I'd like to ask. When creating the books that are posted here in the forum, are spaces between paragraphs on or off? I hope off as that really bugs me. The only book so far that I've checked out is the Sherlock Holmes books. Been working on a few lit that I own converting them to LRF.

[HarryT]

Off, I believe. They are certainly off for the recent books I've done.

[RWood]

And I prefer a blank line between the paragraphs. However, the insert line after paragraph should be turned off for most books as it is indiscriminate in where it places the blank lines. For example, if there is an insert of verse it would put a blank line after each line of verse making the structure look absurd.

I do not feel that it is a waste of space (or trees when in a paper book) but gives the eye another visual clue that the book is moving on to another topic or thought or that another person is now speaking. An indent alone, while good, is not enough.

[HarryT]

I prefer blank lines too, but the problem with the "separate paragraphs" option in BD is that, if your book contains any short lines with hard-coded line ends - eg verse - it ends up double spaced too, which doesn't look very good. For that reason, I generally leave "separate paragraphs" turned off, and add my own blank lines wherever I deem it appropriate.

[jgs]

I played with BD last night and per comments I saved to the BD. This morning I tried opening the file and all I get is a repeating dialog box asking me to "Open" or "Save". This dialog box keeps repeating with new versions of a blank document being opened. I went straignt to V5 without the recommended V4 with updates. What am I doing wrong.

[BCCISProf]

Is there any button or quick way to center text. Often there is material which at first are marked as titles (centered) and when converting them to paragraphs they become left justified, you then have to go to the 'format menu/more transformations/align-center'. Gets tiresome after a while. It would be nice if there was a button to center text. (maybe there is but I can't fine one )

Thanks

[BeB]

Originally Posted by BCCISProf

Is there any button or quick way to center text. Often there is material which at first are marked as titles (centered) and when converting them to paragraphs they become left justified, you then have to go to the 'format menu/more transformations/align-center'. Gets tiresome after a while. It would be nice if there was a button to center text. (maybe there is but I can't fine one )

Thanks

RWood is right, no quick way to center align, however you could try changing the settings for one of the styles like epigraph, text author or cite (I use verse and annotation), only drawback is the look in BD won't be the same as the LRF.

[RWood]

Originally Posted by jgs

I played with BD last night and per comments I saved to the BD. This morning I tried opening the file and all I get is a repeating dialog box asking me to "Open" or "Save". This dialog box keeps repeating with new versions of a blank document being opened. I went straignt to V5 without the recommended V4 with updates. What am I doing wrong.

You need to install the original BD4 through their standard install. This registers all the components correctly. Then take the last update, unzip that and then copy all of the files (overwriting all the way) to the BookDesigner directory in Program Files. It should work fine then.

Originally Posted by BCCISProf

Is there any button or quick way to center text. Often there is material which at first are marked as titles (centered) and when converting them to paragraphs they become left justified, you then have to go to the 'format menu/more transformations/align-center'. Gets tiresome after a while. It would be nice if there was a button to center text. (maybe there is but I can't fine one )

Not that I have found. Someone once suggested that the SubTitle button could be used for that purpose although that could create a great deal of confusion depending upon what other formatting conventions you may use. As a rule I try to format the text in Word prior to importing it to BookDesigner as I like the editor in Word better. (I am also more experienced with it.)

[jgs]

[quote=RWood]You need to install the original BD4 through their standard install. This registers all the components correctly. Then take the last update, unzip that and then copy all of the files (overwriting all the way) to the BookDesigner directory in Program Files. It should work fine then.

OK, I installed V4 and then copies all the v5 files to the v5 directory. I still cannot open a previously created BD file that I have stored on my desktop. I still get a dialog box that asks whether I want to "Open" or "Save" the file that I requested to open. "Open" just repeats the same step all over again. I have not tried "Save". In the settings area, can I change the different output locations?

Another question: I clicked on the "R" and went to Reader mode. All menus went away. How do I get back to Editor mode?

Jim

[RWood]

First, the version 5 files are copied on top of the version 4 files so that you only have one directory when finished.

The only output locations I know how to change are the ones for where the Sony LRF files will be stored (under the save file as area in the Make eBooks|Sony Reader box) and the File|Save File As to save a source copy.

What is interesting is that there is not an option to save the file as a BookDesigner file. BookDesigner uses an extension of HTML0 (that's a zero at the end) and can be seen in the TMP area in the BookDesigner directory of Program Files. The HTM or HTML save options produce a file of exactly the same length and content (as reported by Ultra Compare.)

To get back to the editor mode click Configuration from the top menu bar and then select Editor/Reader Mode. This will return you to editor mode. (I got there once and do not plan on returning to reader mode again. )

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by RWood

What is interesting is that there is not an option to save the file as a BookDesigner file.

There is, but it's disguised as one of the "Make" options -- if you look at the little help labels that pop up when you hover over the "make" buttons, one of them is make a BookDesigner book.