Tutorial on converting e-books to open formats

Colin Dunstan · 04-29-2005, 04:46 AM

LinuxJournal wrote a marvellous tutorial explaining how to convert e-books of various proprietary formats to HTML. E-books in HTML should allow you to view them on your choice of device. The tutorial covers:

PalmDoc (convert to HTML with Pyrite Publisher)
RocketBook (convert to HTML with Rbmake)
Mobipocket (convert to HTML with Rbmake)
Microsoft Reader (convert to HTML with Convert Lit)

Non-Linux users be warned: this tutorial makes heavy use of the command line.

hacker · 04-29-2005, 10:13 AM

Aw you're spoiling my fun now... I have a stealth project in progress that should obsolete most of these. I just wanted to mention a few buglets:

Their "perl" script doesn't work like they think it does. Its the equivalent of taking the entire body of the document and wrapping it in <pre></pre> tags, which forces a monospace font in most recent readers. Thats hard on the eyes.
The link to ConvertLit is for a much older (and broken) release. The stable version is actually ConvertLit 1.8, not 1.4.
I don't think you can convert Mobipocket books to HTML with RBmake, but I might be mistaken there. Their project page doesn't seem to indicate that functionality.

It looks like the author just googled quickly (and with the wrong keywords in some cases) to come up with the material for the article.

It might be worthwhile to post a follow-up (or a better version with more accurate detail), on how to do this with the 17 ebook formats out there, including TomeRaider (I have a converter from TomeRaider to text or html), PalmReader, Palm PDF, and others.

Alexander Turcic · 04-29-2005, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hacker

It might be worthwhile to post a follow-up (or a better version with more accurate detail), on how to do this with the 17 ebook formats out there, including TomeRaider (I have a converter from TomeRaider to text or html), PalmReader, Palm PDF, and others.

Ahhh that would be the Holy Grail for every e-book fan.

Bob Russell · 04-29-2005, 10:45 AM

Now we're all on the edge of our seats!

BTW, if I remember right there are legacy versions of Microsoft's DRM. They upgraded the reader because of ConvertLit. Then gave away free books to get people to use the upgrade (their Summer Spectacular, I think). Then ConvertLit was upgraded and it was all for nought. But if you have .lit ebooks from before that change, you might need the older version of ConvertLit also. Not positive.

The whole thing reminds you a lot of Apples iTunes and PyMusique, doesn't it?! Except Apple didn't give anything to its customers.

cbarnett · 04-30-2005, 12:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hacker

Aw you're spoiling my fun now... I have a stealth project in progress that should obsolete most of these. I just wanted to mention a few buglets:

Tell us more! I'd like to see this, it would make all my christmases come at once.... µbook to read everything <in homer voice>mmmmm..... µbook...</in homer voice>

Craig.

sethcohn · 06-30-2005, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hacker

(I have a converter from TomeRaider to text or html),

If you are going to tease like that, at least post a link to it... I've been looking for that for a while.

volwrath · 06-30-2005, 06:40 PM

I would like an ereader converter, but I haven't found one out in the wild.

kathe · 04-29-2007, 04:27 AM

if u want to know the methods of convert e-books to other formats thn click here

http://linuxera.com/content/view/186/2/

kathe

hacker · 04-29-2007, 08:37 PM

I'm not sure what you call "open", but for me, that means:

Fully documented (API, SDK, conversion tools)
Available (optionally with source code)

None of the formats you've linked to in this article meet those criteria. You also missed the top two, most-popular eBook formats out there (in terms of number of readers and number of items available in that format):

Plucker (with some samples over here)
iSilo

For non-open, non-free formats though, your blog post is quite informative.

Robert Marquard · 04-30-2007, 12:39 AM

Plucker is Open Source without DRM so no need for cracker tools.
The new .mobi format is problematic because the HTML is changed to achieve better compression. All lineends get removed and also all anchor destinations.

ashkulz · 04-30-2007, 01:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hacker

Aw you're spoiling my fun now... I have a stealth project in progress that should obsolete most of these. I just wanted to mention a few buglets:

If you do, can you please make it in something that will be cross-platform ie. will run on Linux or OS X with a minimum of hassle?

04-29-2005, 04:46 AM	#1
Colin Dunstan Is papyrophobic! Posts: 1,926 Karma: 1009999 Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: USA Device: Dell Axim	Tutorial on converting e-books to open formats LinuxJournal wrote a marvellous tutorial explaining how to convert e-books of various proprietary formats to HTML. E-books in HTML should allow you to view them on your choice of device. The tutorial covers: PalmDoc (convert to HTML with Pyrite Publisher) RocketBook (convert to HTML with Rbmake) Mobipocket (convert to HTML with Rbmake) Microsoft Reader (convert to HTML with Convert Lit) Non-Linux users be warned: this tutorial makes heavy use of the command line.

04-29-2005, 10:13 AM	#2
hacker Technology Mercenary Posts: 617 Karma: 2561 Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: East Lyme, CT Device: Direct Neural Implant	Aw you're spoiling my fun now... I have a stealth project in progress that should obsolete most of these. I just wanted to mention a few buglets: Their "perl" script doesn't work like they think it does. Its the equivalent of taking the entire body of the document and wrapping it in <pre></pre> tags, which forces a monospace font in most recent readers. Thats hard on the eyes. The link to ConvertLit is for a much older (and broken) release. The stable version is actually ConvertLit 1.8, not 1.4. I don't think you can convert Mobipocket books to HTML with RBmake, but I might be mistaken there. Their project page doesn't seem to indicate that functionality. It looks like the author just googled quickly (and with the wrong keywords in some cases) to come up with the material for the article. It might be worthwhile to post a follow-up (or a better version with more accurate detail), on how to do this with the 17 ebook formats out there, including TomeRaider (I have a converter from TomeRaider to text or html), PalmReader, Palm PDF, and others.

04-29-2007, 04:27 AM	#8
kathe Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2007 Device: E-book	RE: converting e-books to open formats if u want to know the methods of convert e-books to other formats thn click here http://linuxera.com/content/view/186/2/ kathe

04-29-2007, 08:37 PM	#9
hacker Technology Mercenary Posts: 617 Karma: 2561 Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: East Lyme, CT Device: Direct Neural Implant	But not a single mention of any Free formats... I'm not sure what you call "open", but for me, that means: Fully documented (API, SDK, conversion tools) Available (optionally with source code) None of the formats you've linked to in this article meet those criteria. You also missed the top two, most-popular eBook formats out there (in terms of number of readers and number of items available in that format): Plucker (with some samples over here) iSilo For non-open, non-free formats though, your blog post is quite informative. Last edited by hacker; 09-13-2007 at 12:15 PM.

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04-29-2005, 10:45 AM	#4
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Now we're all on the edge of our seats! BTW, if I remember right there are legacy versions of Microsoft's DRM. They upgraded the reader because of ConvertLit. Then gave away free books to get people to use the upgrade (their Summer Spectacular, I think). Then ConvertLit was upgraded and it was all for nought. But if you have .lit ebooks from before that change, you might need the older version of ConvertLit also. Not positive. The whole thing reminds you a lot of Apples iTunes and PyMusique, doesn't it?! Except Apple didn't give anything to its customers.

06-30-2005, 06:40 PM	#7
volwrath Guru Posts: 713 Karma: 1001739 Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Nashville, TN Device: SGS3/PW2/Nexus72	I would like an ereader converter, but I haven't found one out in the wild.

04-30-2007, 12:39 AM	#10
Robert Marquard Delphi-Guy Posts: 285 Karma: 1151 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Berlin, Germany Device: iLiad, Palm T3	Plucker is Open Source without DRM so no need for cracker tools. The new .mobi format is problematic because the HTML is changed to achieve better compression. All lineends get removed and also all anchor destinations.

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