Macs, Word, and making Kindle books

[ruddell]

Okay, so I'm running a macbook pro with calibre installed as well as Fusion 2.0 with mobipocket creator on Vista. I've recently started copying text from several different websites which are setup like weekly blogs and creating a word document with TOC that I can convert to AZW for easy reading on my kindle. The problem is, I really hate having to load up Vista just to do this, since I haven't been able to find a way to do the conversion in Calibre. (I'm about ready to remove Fusion and Vista from my computer altogether - mobipocket is about the only windows program I use anymore).

Am I missing something, or is Calibre for Mac just not developed enough to handle Word conversions? Is there another program that would do the trick?

Thanks

[Pardoz]

Have you tried saving your Word files as HTML and importing that into Calibre? Word exports Goddessawful HTML code, but it should work in theory.

[ruddell]

yeah - i just tried that after i posted. TOC looks like crap though.

[ruddell]

I think I remember a post somewhere about a program that will save a webpage and the pages linked on that webpage, all in a kindle-ready format (or at least something that will convert easily in calibre). Anyone know what I'm talking about?

[susan_cassidy]

I believe Open Office runs on Mac, and it creates much nicer HTML than Word does.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

I believe Open Office runs on Mac, and it creates much nicer HTML than Word does.

A cat having an epileptic fit on your keyboard creates nicer HTML than Word does...

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by ruddell

Okay, so I'm running a macbook pro with calibre installed as well as Fusion 2.0 with mobipocket creator on Vista. I've recently started copying text from several different websites which are setup like weekly blogs and creating a word document with TOC that I can convert to AZW for easy reading on my kindle. The problem is, I really hate having to load up Vista just to do this, since I haven't been able to find a way to do the conversion in Calibre. (I'm about ready to remove Fusion and Vista from my computer altogether - mobipocket is about the only windows program I use anymore).

Am I missing something, or is Calibre for Mac just not developed enough to handle Word conversions? Is there another program that would do the trick?

Thanks

I've never used this. It's just one of the links I've saved when I come across Kindle software.

eCub - a simple to use EPUB and MobiPocket ebook creator

To summarize, this is what eCub does:

* Creates unencrypted EPUB files from text or XHTML files;
* Creates MobiPocket files if you have the mobigen application;
* allows editing of the text or XHTML files with a simple internal editor or designated external editors;
* helps you create a simple cover design image;
* optionally creates title, content and cover pages;
* can be run from the command line as part of a build script;
* can be used in portable mode (data and settings are stored locally);
* can convert your book content to audio files (WAV or MP3).

eCub does not do WYSIWYG or syntax-highlighted editing, and it currently only produces unencrypted EPUB and MobiPocket output. It's likely to be useful for simple projects, such as novels, where using an expensive tool such as Adobe's InDesign is overkill.

We're providing eCub free of charge, on Windows, Linux, Mac, FreeBSD and Solaris, for personal and commercial use. However, eCub is not an open source application.

[Skydog]

Have you tried Sigil? I just created a book for the Kindle by copying/pasting text from a website serial novel.

Once in Sigil, I did a little cleaning up, chapters, images, etc. and saved as an ePub. From there, I converted to .mobi in Calibre and it looks great. And I'm a beginner!

Sigil is great since it offers both WYSIWYG and code HTML code views. Check it out here on the forum.

[fugazied]

Word HTML is just a mess, Open Office will create HTML 4.0 compliant code which should render/convert a lot nice (in theory).

If you don't mind getting your hands dirty you could get a free WYSIWYG editor from download.com and play with the TOC until it looks good and converts well.