.epub format

[MishaS]

Any suggestions on the conversion tools??

I tried to follow a very simple instructions at Creating an OCF Using WinZip, but Digital Editions chokes on the resulting file.

[wallcraft]

The teleread blog just posted a link to .epub eBooks tutorial which might help. However, I have been unable to download any example .epub documents from this site or from IDPF (all are page not found). I was able to get examples from Adobe's digitaleditions library.

I don't know how there can be a true "standard" without at least two readers and at least two sources of e-books. At the moment, all we have is "Digital Editions" complaint documents.

[Robert Marquard]

I see .epub as the emerging standard for free ebooks. How about us creating an .epub library here?
A converter for MS Reader .lit files should be possible and Mobipocket Creator handles it already as source format for generating Mobipocket ebooks (no wonder because they already used .opf files as project format).

[NatCh]

I think we'll have one eventually, but it may be a bit premature just yet. What does everyone else think?

[MishaS]

Originally Posted by Robert Marquard

I see .epub as the emerging standard for free ebooks. How about us creating an .epub library here?
A converter for MS Reader .lit files should be possible and Mobipocket Creator handles it already as source format for generating Mobipocket ebooks (no wonder because they already used .opf files as project format).

This is exactly what I tried: convert a .lit file to .epub using instructions above. However DE does not open it.

[MishaS]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

The teleread blog just posted a link to .epub eBooks tutorial which might help. However, I have been unable to download any example .epub documents from this site or from IDPF (all are page not found). I was able to get examples from Adobe's digitaleditions library.

Thanks for the tutorial link. I'll have a look...

I don't know how there can be a true "standard" without at least two readers and at least two sources of e-books. At the moment, all we have is "Digital Editions" complaint documents.

[UncleDuke]

to each their own, i use the sony reader and like the lrf files and some pdf files

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Robert Marquard

I see .epub as the emerging standard for free ebooks. How about us creating an .epub library here?
A converter for MS Reader .lit files should be possible and Mobipocket Creator handles it already as source format for generating Mobipocket ebooks (no wonder because they already used .opf files as project format).

MS Reader uses .OPF files as well. I see this when converting from LIT to HTML.

[silkpag]

Among other things, the "mimetype" file has be set to compression: 0% or it won't load properly.

The ETI guys have info on this

/Still working on it.

[MishaS]

OK, for what it's worth. Here's a simple python script that takes a directory with an OEB book (converted from .lit, hint-hint ) and supposedly creates a .epub file. (BTW, .py does not seem a valid extension for this forum... )

My feeling is that .lit files are not necessarily conformant to OEBPS 1.2, and that could be a problem... Another possibility is that DE expects all those nice files with TOC and page format... I agree one more time with wallcraft about reading sofware as well as various sources for e-books in this format...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MishaS

OK, for what it's worth. Here's a simple python script that takes a directory with an OEB book (converted from .lit, hint-hint ) and supposedly creates a .epub file. (BTW, .py does not seem a valid extension for this forum... )

My feeling is that .lit files are not necessarily conformant to OEBPS 1.2, and that could be a problem... Another possibility is that DE expects all those nice files with TOC and page format... I agree one more time with wallcraft about reading sofware as well as various sources for e-books in this format...

Now that we have this, how do we use it?

[MishaS]

Originally Posted by silkpag

Among other things, the "mimetype" file has be set to compression: 0% or it won't load properly.

The ETI guys have info on this

Thanks for pointing it out... I updated the script (and will upload it later).

[MishaS]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Now that we have this, how do we use it?

Sorry, forgot to mention it

First of all, you should have python installed. The script only uses standard modules, so no additional components are required.

Let's say you've got a directory where you have a OEBPS conformant e-book (like you just exploded a book using ConvertLit). The the either of the following commands should do the trick:

python oeb2epub.py <path>/<to>/<e-book>

or

python oeb2epub.py <path>/<to>/<e-book> <output>.epub

In the first case oeb2pub.py will create a .epub file with the same name as directory: if you have your OEB book in /some/path/with/my/super-ebook script will create a file called /some/path/with/my/super-ebook.epub. In the second case you just specify where to put the resulting .epub file.

[kovidgoyal]

I'm going to wait until the format is a little more mature (in terms or reader support). Writing a converter to it will be trivial, but the only way I'm going to be tempted to do that is if the reader performs better (in terms of hyphenation and page turn speed) than the LRF reader.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I'm going to wait until the format is a little more mature (in terms or reader support). Writing a converter to it will be trivial, but the only way I'm going to be tempted to do that is if the reader performs better (in terms of hyphenation and page turn speed) than the LRF reader.

But what if other readers also support it? One book and it's available for multiple readers.