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Old 07-16-2008, 10:59 AM   #1
Jules
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E-Book looks horrible
I built a book using mobipocket creator, and I opened the prc file it created in mobipocket reader and the book looks horrible. There are crazy symbols, page breaks, etc. The whole thing is a mess. HELP!!
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Old 07-16-2008, 11:03 AM   #2
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Jules -- I'll be glad to try and help. Can you send me the original file that you used and the MobiPocket file that was the output? You can send to my GMail address of ******

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Old 07-16-2008, 11:08 AM   #3
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Sure. My original file- I took a pdf and converted it to a word doc and used that. I'll send you the pdf, the word doc, and the prc file. Thanks
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Old 07-16-2008, 11:34 AM   #4
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I tried email the files to you and the delivery failed due to an unfound email address. Is your address *************
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Old 07-16-2008, 12:15 PM   #5
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Does your converted Word doc look OK? Unfortunately, PDF files often convert very poorly indeed, due to the fact that that they don't contain any "structural" information about text, such as paragraphs, sentences, or even words.
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Old 07-16-2008, 12:50 PM   #6
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my word doc looks terrible as well
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Old 07-16-2008, 12:53 PM   #7
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Is the original pdf mostly text? If so, you can send it to Amazon for conversion and it should work pretty well.
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Old 07-16-2008, 12:55 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jules View Post
my word doc looks terrible as well
What did you use to convert to Word? There are many choices. While most formatting will be lost one way is to simply save the PDF as a TXT file.

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Old 07-16-2008, 12:57 PM   #9
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I used DocSmartz PDF to Word Converter. I had tried before to submit a different book directly to Amazon, but there were quite a few problems with page breaks, which is why I was hoping mobipocket creator would take care of that.
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Old 07-16-2008, 01:08 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jules View Post
my word doc looks terrible as well
Well, that's why the Mobi version looks bad - you can't expect a dreadful Word file to convert to a beautiful Mobi book, can you?

Unfortunately there is, in general, NO good way of converting PDF to anything else simply because, as I said before, the information is simply not there in a PDF file to allow it to be successfully converted. PDF is the worst possible choice of starting format to convert to anything, unfortunately.
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Old 07-16-2008, 01:12 PM   #11
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If the PDF is LEGAL, PM me and I'll give you my email address and you can send me the PDF and I can convert it using Adobe Acrobat Pro 8. It won't be perfect. But, you might find it better then your conversion. I'll convert it to Word DOC or RTF and HTML and send it back and you can proceed from there.
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Old 07-16-2008, 01:12 PM   #12
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OK. well unfortunately, I don't really have any other options. Our original book text file was created in a program called Adobe InDesign. I exported that as a pdf, but I could see if it gives me any other options for exporting. If not, then I guess I can't use this book. right?
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Old 07-16-2008, 01:15 PM   #13
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InDesign should allow you to output it as something you should be able to use. PDF is a bad idea when the result is going to be for the Kindle. In fact, PDF is a bad idea if you don't actually need it.
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Old 07-16-2008, 01:21 PM   #14
Jules
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so, should i try exporting the indesign file as something other than a pdf, or do you want me to email you my pdf?
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Old 07-16-2008, 01:26 PM   #15
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I have converted a fair number of books and I've noticed that every single pdf conversion I've ever done has caused problems.
I usually have a couple of them on my desktop and spend the odd half-hour working on them when I've nothing better to do. But it can easily take 20-30 hours' work to get a well-fromatted novel out of a pdf file.
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