How to get books from computer to Touch or iPhone

[starrigger]

I couldn't find the perfect section to put this question in, but this seemed as good as any.

My wife has a new ipod Touch, and my brother has an iPhone, and I just gave them each a CD of free books that I'd converted to EPUB format. But in neither case is it clear how to get the books from the computer to the device.

My wife, with her Touch, can get online just fine through our home wireless network. But she can't see any of our computers on the network--or even her own Mac, when she's connected by USB cable. Can anyone tell me how she can get those files onto the Touch and put them where Stanza can read them?

The iPhone is probably a separate problem, since I don't think it connects by USB cable or via a router network. Any ideas on that one?

Thanks to anyone who can tell me.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by starrigger

My wife has a new ipod Touch, and my brother has an iPhone, and I just gave them each a CD of free books that I'd converted to EPUB format. But in neither case is it clear how to get the books from the computer to the device.

Calibre is your best bet.

Convert books desired on the iPod/iPhone to ePub format. Then turn on the content server. Then load Stanza from the AppStore (it is free). Finally, go into the download/content section and add "web site" to it. Use your local PC name with the port you specified in Calibre and /stanza... so, if your PC is named starrigger and you run the content server on port 8080 put this URL into Stanza:

http://starrigger:8080/stanza

It should find your content server (this will have to be via WiFi as your PC won't be on the public internet).

The other option is to use Stanza desktop. See my post here about how to do that. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...95&postcount=2

BOb

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Calibre is your best bet.

Convert books desired on the iPod/iPhone to ePub format. Then turn on the content server. Then load Stanza from the AppStore (it is free). Finally, go into the download/content section and add "web site" to it. Use your local PC name with the port you specified in Calibre and /stanza... so, if your PC is named starrigger and you run the content server on port 8080 put this URL into Stanza:

http://starrigger:8080/stanza

It should find your content server (this will have to be via WiFi as your PC won't be on the public internet).

The other option is to use Stanza desktop. See my post here about how to do that. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...95&postcount=2

BOb

Okay, my wife just tried it. Stanza desktop wouldn't install on her Mac, so she installed Calibre. Couldn't get that to show up in Stanza on her Touch, so I activated the server function on my PC and had her aim for that. It worked, but only when we deleted "/stanza" from the URL you gave.

The problem is, the display when it comes up is so tiny and hard to work with when it comes up on the ipod that it's not really working in any useful way. (With much effort, she downloaded a book or two.) For one thing, it only shows a small subset of the Calibre library, and as soon as you try to enlarge the display, everything goes wonky.

Any other ideas? Anyone out there who uses an ipod touch regularly? It can move music files directly through the USB cable from the computer. Is there a way to move book files directly?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by starrigger

It worked, but only when we deleted "/stanza" from the URL you gave.

Ok... You putting the URL in in the Stanza APP... NOT in Safari? Yes?

If you are, and it doesn't show anything with /stanza then you don't have any ePub formats in your calibre library.

BOb

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Ok... You putting the URL in in the Stanza APP... NOT in Safari? Yes?

Yes.

If you are, and it doesn't show anything with /stanza then you don't have any ePub formats in your calibre library.

Um, no. My Calibre library is full of epub books. I just spent hours seeing to that.

When the URL had /stanza in it, all she got was an offer to download "stanza." When we shortened it to remove /stanza, she saw a portion of the Calibre library listing. Only a portion, squeezed down to a tiny size. And when she tried to enlarge it, things would change, part of the listing would disappear out of scroll range, it was just generally unusable.

She did manage to download one or two files, but it was hard.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by starrigger

When the URL had /stanza in it, all she got was an offer to download "stanza." When we shortened it to remove /stanza, she saw a portion of the Calibre library listing. Only a portion, squeezed down to a tiny size. And when she tried to enlarge it, things would change, part of the listing would disappear out of scroll range, it was just generally unusable.

She did manage to download one or two files, but it was hard.

Hmm... really hard to see what you are doing. If you browse to the URL with /stanza on your PC... does it list the books properly? The /stanza responds with XML (an RSS feed) that lists the ebooks in the format Stanza wants. When you don't use /stanza it is just responding with html which is designed for a browser.

BTW: You said it didn't work when she used it on Mac. With the mac networking you have to add .local after the Mac's network name.. My mac is named iMac (yea, I know lame). So, when I browse to it in iPod Stanza I have to use:

http://imac.local:8080/stanza

If you want I could do a webex (remote sharing) with you some time to look at your setup. Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to see the iPod. PM me if you are interested.

Also, you made sure to remove the "username" from calibre. Using a password protected one seemed to cause problems when I originally tired this.

BOb

[HarryT]

That really is the main thing that puts me off using my iPod Touch as an eBook reader - the fact that you have to jump through so many hoops to get content on to the device. I'm afraid that life is just too short as far as I'm concerned . Not being able to simply copy files to it strikes me as just crazy. Even more so when you consider the fact that all earlier iPods could be mounted as a disk - they specifically removed that functionality from the Touch. Madness!

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by starrigger

I couldn't find the perfect section to put this question in, but this seemed as good as any.

My wife has a new ipod Touch, and my brother has an iPhone, and I just gave them each a CD of free books that I'd converted to EPUB format. But in neither case is it clear how to get the books from the computer to the device.

My wife, with her Touch, can get online just fine through our home wireless network. But she can't see any of our computers on the network--or even her own Mac, when she's connected by USB cable. Can anyone tell me how she can get those files onto the Touch and put them where Stanza can read them?

The iPhone is probably a separate problem, since I don't think it connects by USB cable or via a router network. Any ideas on that one?

Thanks to anyone who can tell me.

I've got an iPhone. It connects via USB exactly like an iPod, and it also mounts as a drive, so it's quite simple to copy files from the computer to the iPhone without going through iTunes.

I haven't tried anything with ebooks, but I do know that the USB and disk functionality are there.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Hmm... really hard to see what you are doing. If you browse to the URL with /stanza on your PC... does it list the books properly? The /stanza responds with XML (an RSS feed) that lists the ebooks in the format Stanza wants. When you don't use /stanza it is just responding with html which is designed for a browser.

BTW: You said it didn't work when she used it on Mac. With the mac networking you have to add .local after the Mac's network name.. My mac is named iMac (yea, I know lame). So, when I browse to it in iPod Stanza I have to use:

http://imac.local:8080/stanza


BOb

Did it! On her Mac, anyway. Adding the .local (which was news to us) enabled me to connect her Touch to Calibre on her Mac, and then with the /stanza ending we got a nice display of the books. Thanks!!

Connecting to Calibre on my PC, the results are still confusing: adding the /stanza (in Stanza on her Touch) results in Stanza trying to download "stanza" as an ebook, which doesn't net much. No display of titles at all. Removing the /stanza results in a tiny web display, unusable.

When I connect to my PC from my PC (in Firefox), I get what you described above: without the /stanza appended, I get a web view of part of the library. With /stanza appended, I get a full listing of highlighted (linked) titles.

Anyway, for now as along as her Touch can connect to Calibre on her machine, we're good to go. Thanks, Bob!

P.S. Could that .local business have something to do with why we can't see her Mac on our local network (from the PCs in the house)? It's always been weird for us: she can see one or two of our PCs from her Mac, but we can never see her Mac from our PCs.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by starrigger

When I connect to my PC from my PC (in Firefox), I get what you described above: without the /stanza appended, I get a web view of part of the library. With /stanza appended, I get a full listing of highlighted (linked) titles.

That "part view" is paged. In the top right hand corner above the grid header you should see a page control. It shows as text on Firefox in windows for some reason. Also, the text seems to be wrong. Says "previous" when it should say "next/last". I think Kovid is going to have to fix the tool tips on this.

Originally Posted by starrigger

Anyway, for now as along as her Touch can connect to Calibre on her machine, we're good to go. Thanks, Bob!

Sure, glad I could help.

Originally Posted by starrigger

P.S. Could that .local business have something to do with why we can't see her Mac on our local network (from the PCs in the house)? It's always been weird for us: she can see one or two of our PCs from her Mac, but we can never see her Mac from our PCs.

No... it seems to be an Apple thing that you have to add .local to connect to Apples devices on a LAN. Since the iPod is an Apple device. When I have the calibre server running on my mac, I can connect to it with my PC Firefox browser using http://imac:8080 just fine.

It is probably due to either she doesn't have file sharing enabled on the Mac... or she doesn't have the windows work group name set up in the Wins section of the Network advanced setup. PM me if you want help with this. Also, if you have Vista machine on the LAN you won't see PC's on the Mac (there is a fix)... but that didn't seem to be your problem.

BOb

[JeffElkins]

I just ordered a iTouch for software development. Isn't it a USB mass storage device?

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That really is the main thing that puts me off using my iPod Touch as an eBook reader - the fact that you have to jump through so many hoops to get content on to the device. I'm afraid that life is just too short as far as I'm concerned . Not being able to simply copy files to it strikes me as just crazy. Even more so when you consider the fact that all earlier iPods could be mounted as a disk - they specifically removed that functionality from the Touch. Madness!

I agree completely. But with Bob's help, we've solved the ebooks transfer problem, at least for now.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

I've got an iPhone. It connects via USB exactly like an iPod, and it also mounts as a drive, so it's quite simple to copy files from the computer to the iPhone without going through iTunes.

I haven't tried anything with ebooks, but I do know that the USB and disk functionality are there.

I didn't know that. My brother has an iphone and I gave him a bunch of ebook files, so I guess I'll find out.

A question might be where he could put the books so that stanza can find them, though.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JeffElkins

I just ordered a iTouch for software development. Isn't it a USB mass storage device?

Nope. All other iPods are, but, as I said, they removed this functionality from the Touch/iPhone.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

I've got an iPhone. It connects via USB exactly like an iPod, and it also mounts as a drive, so it's quite simple to copy files from the computer to the iPhone without going through iTunes.

I haven't tried anything with ebooks, but I do know that the USB and disk functionality are there.

Sorry to disagree, Ricky, but the iPod Touch/iPhone most definitely does NOT mount as a USB disk by default! It can be done using a number of different third-party tools, but there's no "disk mode" built-in, as there is with other models in the iPod range.