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crutledge · 03-21-2009, 04:21 PM

I have been playing with eBooks for a while and have accumulated several tools I have found a use for. While looking at and reading books provided by others on this forum, I think that I could identify the creator by style and format. I have often wondered what tools they use to produce these eBooks.

I'll start with myself. Some of my tools are a carryover from former stints of laying code for money.

Book Designer. I think that this is the finest tool devised so far for editing eBooks. What you see is what you get. WYSIWYG. I believe that the authors have given up on changing and improving BD which is to be regretted. As it now stands, considerable time using and experimenting is needed to become proficient. Perhaps one of the talented writers from the forum will sometime produce a BD manual.

EditPadPro. A holdover from busier days. Very powerful and adjustable but not free. Not expensive. Eases the building and use of HTML tags.

RegExBuddy. Another holdover. Regular expressions were never my forte. Expedites building and testing regular expressions in an isolated environment. Again, not free but not expensive.

Mobipocket Creator. I originally used Creator to convert TXT files to HTML for further editing and then back to Creator to produce the PRC file. Perhaps someday Creator and Reader will implement Left and Right alignment of images and text flow around these images. Some very nice books could be implemented with this capability.

Mobipocket Reader. The final testbed.

GIMP. GNU Image Manipulation Program. Great for creating and editing book covers and editing images from illustrated books. For instance, it is very easy to incorporate the illustration caption as part of the image and eliminate the irritation of having the image on one page and the caption on another.

ABC Amber PDF Converter. Extracts images from PDF files. Not free. BD is better at converting PDF.

GutenText. The Project Gutenberg Prettifier. Converts PG text files to HTML and takes care of things like italics. (Thanks to Particia for this one.)

Calibre. Converts PRC to EPUB and LRF.

Mobi2IMP. Converts PRC to both flavors of IMP.

WordPad. Holds biographical and book data and finally all data for the book upload which becomes a cut and paste operation.

CaptureWiz. A screen capture utility to get those images not available for download on the WEB.

Internet Explorter. The source of all good things.

03-21-2009, 04:21 PM	#1
crutledge eBook FANatic Posts: 18,301 Karma: 16078357 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Alabama, USA Device: HP ipac RX5915 Wife's Kindle	What tool set do you use? I have been playing with eBooks for a while and have accumulated several tools I have found a use for. While looking at and reading books provided by others on this forum, I think that I could identify the creator by style and format. I have often wondered what tools they use to produce these eBooks. I'll start with myself. Some of my tools are a carryover from former stints of laying code for money. Book Designer. I think that this is the finest tool devised so far for editing eBooks. What you see is what you get. WYSIWYG. I believe that the authors have given up on changing and improving BD which is to be regretted. As it now stands, considerable time using and experimenting is needed to become proficient. Perhaps one of the talented writers from the forum will sometime produce a BD manual. EditPadPro. A holdover from busier days. Very powerful and adjustable but not free. Not expensive. Eases the building and use of HTML tags. RegExBuddy. Another holdover. Regular expressions were never my forte. Expedites building and testing regular expressions in an isolated environment. Again, not free but not expensive. Mobipocket Creator. I originally used Creator to convert TXT files to HTML for further editing and then back to Creator to produce the PRC file. Perhaps someday Creator and Reader will implement Left and Right alignment of images and text flow around these images. Some very nice books could be implemented with this capability. Mobipocket Reader. The final testbed. GIMP. GNU Image Manipulation Program. Great for creating and editing book covers and editing images from illustrated books. For instance, it is very easy to incorporate the illustration caption as part of the image and eliminate the irritation of having the image on one page and the caption on another. ABC Amber PDF Converter. Extracts images from PDF files. Not free. BD is better at converting PDF. GutenText. The Project Gutenberg Prettifier. Converts PG text files to HTML and takes care of things like italics. (Thanks to Particia for this one.) Calibre. Converts PRC to EPUB and LRF. Mobi2IMP. Converts PRC to both flavors of IMP. WordPad. Holds biographical and book data and finally all data for the book upload which becomes a cut and paste operation. CaptureWiz. A screen capture utility to get those images not available for download on the WEB. Internet Explorter. The source of all good things.