BookCreator Tool v3.5

[kevindorsey]

Originally Posted by gonzule

hi. i'm having problems wih word 2007 and calibre 0.6. Actually, its just word 2007 (in spanish).

When i try to create the epub i get this error on the visual basic script. i tried looking for a difference in the function name between word in spanish and english, but i couldnt find it. is there a temporary workaround for this?

I was having major problems with word 07 too. I just stopped trying to use it.

[=X=]

@gonzule/@kevindorsey Have you guys tried this version
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ht=bookcreator

Another member took the time to convert the BookCreator for 2003 to 2007

=X=

[jayman]

Originally Posted by =X=

@gonzule/@kevindorsey Have you guys tried this version
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ht=bookcreator

Another member took the time to convert the BookCreator for 2003 to 2007

=X=

Anyone know a good OCR program for this. The ABBYY professional works great but $400 is a little tight. Anything comparable, cheaper? I want to take some books, scan them and then use this tool to create some books. Do I need to have a lot of knowhow?

[=X=]

Originally Posted by jayman

Anyone know a good OCR program for this. The ABBYY professional works great but $400 is a little tight. Anything comparable, cheaper? I want to take some books, scan them and then use this tool to create some books. Do I need to have a lot of knowhow?

There is ABBYY Finereader Express that goes for about $50.

Also check out this page ABBY OCR Engine

There is also Google's open source "tesseract" which is an open source project and is free of cost. There are a few GUI built to interface with tesseract to make it easier to use but their not as sophisticated as the commercial products. The one I use is "Softi FreeOCR"

My experience with the latter is that it mostly works. If the starting source is a good scan with clean fonts you'll get a good OCR reading, if it is not so good there will be a lot of errors in the final product. I've had results that gave me 100% accuracy to 90% per page.

With ABBYY FineReader the results are always very good. And the GUI makes it very easy for you to correct the final result. Scanning the same book ABBYY gave me 99%-100% accuracy.

But if cash is the issue you will be happy with tesseract. I have some command line scripts that I wrote when I was using tesseract that will convert a PDF/PNG/JPG/GIF file to a text file. They are written in Perl, if you decided to go with tesseract let me know and I can give you the scripts.

=X=

[jayman]

Originally Posted by =X=

There is ABBYY Finereader Express that goes for about $50.

Also check out this page ABBY OCR Engine

There is also Google's open source "tesseract" which is an open source project and is free of cost. There are a few GUI built to interface with tesseract to make it easier to use but their not as sophisticated as the commercial products. The one I use is "Softi FreeOCR"

My experience with the latter is that it mostly works. If the starting source is a good scan with clean fonts you'll get a good OCR reading, if it is not so good there will be a lot of errors in the final product. I've had results that gave me 100% accuracy to 90% per page.

With ABBYY FineReader the results are always very good. And the GUI makes it very easy for you to correct the final result. Scanning the same book ABBYY gave me 99%-100% accuracy.

But if cash is the issue you will be happy with tesseract. I have some command line scripts that I wrote when I was using tesseract that will convert a PDF/PNG/JPG/GIF file to a text file. They are written in Perl, if you decided to go with tesseract let me know and I can give you the scripts.

=X=

thanks. I got abbyy finereader and have scanned a book. I've used calibre to convert it into an epub but the chapter marks aren't clickable, etc...Do I have to have a huge computer knowledgebase to "fix" my book so that things are clickable and I can fix the margins, etc...?

[=X=]

Originally Posted by jayman

thanks. I got abbyy finereader and have scanned a book. I've used calibre to convert it into an epub but the chapter marks aren't clickable, etc...Do I have to have a huge computer knowledgebase to "fix" my book so that things are clickable and I can fix the margins, etc...?

The answer is no for both Calibre and BookCreator.

Calibre has a very flexible rule creation for building external TOC. However creating the rule for the TOC detection can be difficult, it is much easier now that Kovid added a wizard.

With BookCreator you can easily create a TOC both internal (inside the book with hyperlinks) and external (used by software to navigate). This however requires that the book editor manually tags all of the chapters.

In short Calibre is more flexible and requires less work, but is more difficult to use.
BookCreator is extremely easy to make but is more labor intensive since you have to select each chapter. (I usually use the 'Find and Replace' feature to tag my chapters)

=X=

[AFK_Matrix]

Hi =X=,

I have been trying to convert an Ereader.com book to lrf format. Now I have used the ereader2html script to get it into a pml and a html file. I have then used your Bookcreator software to open the HTML and then used the create ebook feature to convert it to lrf and that works brilliantly.

Now the only thing is that I would like my chapters to start on new pages on my ereader, so I thought that inserting page breaks would do this. Unfortunetly either my thinking is wrong or i am doing something wrong as this isn't working, my chapters arn't appearing on new pages. Is there anyway at all to do this?? Should I change my word page setup to the size of the 6" Ereader screen to judge where I need to put the page breaks?

Also I am really stuck on exactly how to create TOC's for my Sony PRS 505?? I think I get the idea of creating a page with a TOC on and then having each chapter linked by a hyperlink?? But are there any detailed instructions anywhere, as the directions link on the wiki doesn't work??

Thanks.

[=X=]

For the TOC you have to tag the chapters wth the chapter style. You can do that by highlighting the chaptter text and pressing the chapter button or selecting the the chapter style.

Inserting page break is the corect way to do it I don't know why it is not working.

If you wish send me a PM with the code sample. I'm on vacation so I won't be able to look at anything for a few days.

Also calibre has the option of auto page break when creating chapters I choose to turn that off and allow the author to determine when they want a page break

[AFK_Matrix]

Thanks for the tips mate. I don't know what I was doing wrong to begin with but the page breaks are now putting the chapters on seperate pages. Your script is awesome btw thanks

[AFK_Matrix]

Right I have been using BookCreator a lot recently to get some books just the way I like them on my PRS 505. So I thought I would pass on a few handy tips to other 505 owners.

Once you have imported your book source switch to Print Layout under the View menu. Then go to page setup and set ALL of the margins to 0. Then go to the paper size and picK custom and then Width: 9.15cm and Height: 12.35cm. This will then pretty much match the exact size of your reader screen. Also use the Insert Page breaks button of BookCreator as I don't think the word ones work well. I also use the bookmarks option in word to make my TOC's internally.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by AFK_Matrix

Right I have been using BookCreator a lot recently to get some books just the way I like them on my PRS 505. So I thought I would pass on a few handy tips to other 505 owners.

Once you have imported your book source switch to Print Layout under the View menu. Then go to page setup and set ALL of the margins to 0. Then go to the paper size and pic custom and then Width: 9.15cm and Height: 12.35cm. This will then pretty much match the exact size of your reader screen. Also use the Insert Page breaks button of BookCreator as I don't think the word ones work well. I also use the bookmarks option in word to make my TOC's internally.

Thanks for sharing.
=X=

[AFK_Matrix]

Hi there X,

I love your tool, its great to be able to play around with the format of the ebooks to get them looking just the way you want. My method with the page size etc can be done for any size ereader, just measure the size of ur screen. I also forgot to say that when you click on the Create Ebook button I set my page margins to 0 as well but that personal preference, I like my books to go all the way to the edge.

Also X did you get the links to the 3 files for the book I was having problems with? I am thinking i'll give it another go as I have edited another book and it went perfectly. I am very puzzled why the page breaks don't want to work.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by AFK_Matrix

Hi there X,

I love your tool, its great to be able to play around with the format of the ebooks to get them looking just the way you want. My method with the page size etc can be done for any size ereader, just measure the size of ur screen. I also forgot to say that when you click on the Create Ebook button I set my page margins to 0 as well but that personal preference, I like my books to go all the way to the edge.

I read on several different device screens so the exact layout is not to so important. The only time I do your trick is when I'm creating a PDF.
Yes I like 0 margins as well.

Originally Posted by AFK_Matrix

Also X did you get the links to the 3 files for the book I was having problems with? I am thinking i'll give it another go as I have edited another book and it went perfectly. I am very puzzled why the page breaks don't want to work.

No I have not had a chance, but I should get to it by the end of the week. That is a weird problem I have not experienced that issue myself. Are you using page breaks or page separators?

Also an I never got around to documenting this feature in BookCreator but you can also insert pagebreaks by selecting the keycombo "ALT+P".

[AFK_Matrix]

Hi X,

Yeah I am only being picky as I want it too look good on my 505, it probably isn't important to alot of people.

I was using page breaks on that book and have been using it on other books and they work, so gonna give it another go this weekend and start from scratch and see what happens. Thanks for the keyboard shortcut for page breaks will come in very handy.

[=X=]

There is nothing wrong with wanting a book to look good. It's also part of the reason why I wrote this tool.


Okay so I had a chance to look at your book it took me a little while to reproduce your problem.

One thing thing that I have noticed is that HTML is harder to format correctly than plain text. Word seems to treat Html imported text different than plain text or word docs. It seems to keep lingering html tags that are not visible.

I noticed that in the HTML code you sent me there where line breaks in the string syntax of the HTML this could be the source of the problem. It also explains why you don't alway are this problem.

What I recommend is you convert all your carrage returns to line returns this is done in BookCreator by selecting the menu options "Tools | Convert to LF" or something to that extent. Warning this sometime changes your layout but eleminate a good amount of formmating problems.

Another step I also perfrom is I get rid of existing style on the text I'm having problems with and apply those defined on the style pane. Truth be told I usually remove all the styles and reapply the styles with those on the right pane.


Btw I was able to format your book with pageBeaks and all showing when I followed the steps I listed above.

I have a tutorial I'm planinng on creating but I just need time


if you have any questions feel free to ask
Kind Regards,
=X=