Mobiperl Mobiperl - Perl tools for handling MobiPocket files

[HarryT]

That sounds perfect!

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by Jiiri

Just thought I'd pass this along for whatever it's worth - I've been playing with your (wonderful) mobiperl tools all day, getting my books to look right in the Kindle Home page. I had bought Bertrand Russell's "History of Western Philosophy" in Amazon's proprietary .azw format, and I guess whenever the publisher's did the conversion, they typed in 'Bertrand Russell' under author instead of 'Russell, Bertrand'.

The result of this was when I sorted by author, every author showed up correctly by last name except Russell, who showed up under 'B' for Bertrand instead of under 'R' for Russell. I'm anal, and it annoyed me greatly. At any rate, I took the .azw file off of my Kindle, changed the extension to .prc, and ran mobi2mobi to change the metadata. After the file spit out, I changed it back to .azw, and sure enough, it worked like a charm.

So, if anyone else has metadata they don't like in a protected .azw file, it works.

Enjoy, and thanks tompe!

Jiiri

Thanks, Jiiri!

It worked great for me too on a file I'd used Igorsk's Kindle hack to add the Kindle PID. The only problem was that for 95% of the files I'd converted the title info was completely lost not to mention the author. Too bad I have a gazillion files to run through Mobi2Mobi.

[tompe]

When I do something that I might have to repeat because there is a better version of a program available (like som bug fixed in mobi2mobi ) I usually put the commands in a make file so I can repeat them.

In Windows that seems to mean that you install nmake and then you create a file Makefile that can contain just:

all:
<TAB> mobi2mobi ...
<TAB> mobi2mobi ....

and then just run nmake in the directory where you put the Makefile.

Jut wanted to mention this since I worry a bit that my programs contain some bug so people have to repeat the application of them. Also save the original file!

[HarryT]

What's the benefit of this over simply using a batch file?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What's the benefit of this over simply using a batch file?

Ah, maybe none I use make files since I know the syntax for them. Also it is a standardized way to do things so the file will work on different platforms and the file always has the same name. But a batch file will work as well on Windows I suppose.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by tompe

In the next version of mobi2mobi it will print out warnings for the images. For your Dicken's book it looks like:

FIRST IMG Record 168
WARNING:  Record 174 - Image data size might be to large: 63708
ERROR:    Record 176 - Image data size definitely to large: 71488
WARNING:  Record 177 - Image data size might be to large: 65324
ERROR:    Record 178 - Image data size definitely to large: 72376
WARNING:  Record 179 - Image data size might be to large: 64440
ERROR:    Record 183 - Image data size definitely to large: 72632
ERROR:    Record 184 - Image data size definitely to large: 68676
WARNING:  Record 188 - Image data size might be to large: 63136

And you can now use mobi2html to unpack your file. You will ge a directory with images and you can just inspect the file size.

It would be better if you said: Image data size might be too large

[adelheid]

Could anyone point me to an instruction to get this to work on a Mac? I have downloaded the tar file, the necessary perl modules for mobi2html (which is the program I would like to use), but on the cpan site I am told that I need to make sure that the line endings are suited for the Mac (in all files, which seems a lot of work), that I need to compile some modules, but some perhaps not.

I am a bit confused about what I have to do exactly. Any help would be much appreciated.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by adelheid

Could anyone point me to an instruction to get this to work on a Mac? I have downloaded the tar file, the necessary perl modules for mobi2html (which is the program I would like to use), but on the cpan site I am told that I need to make sure that the line endings are suited for the Mac (in all files, which seems a lot of work), that I need to compile some modules, but some perhaps not.

I am a bit confused about what I have to do exactly. Any help would be much appreciated.

Which modules did you download? Which Perl are you using?

On a Mac I would try to install modules with "perl -MCPAN -e shell" which will give you a shell and "help" or "?" works there.

If you google on: installing perl modules using CPAN tutorial

you will get some tutorials and explanations.

Later today when I have some time I will try to list all "install" commands that should be enough on a Unix system running an ordinary Perl.

[adelheid]

The point is, that I have to go through all the files to change the line endings and cpan is not clear about how I can determine if a module is compiled or not.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by adelheid

The point is, that I have to go through all the files to change the line endings and cpan is not clear about how I can determine if a module is compiled or not.

Could you point me to where you read about the line endings?

I would test to just write "perl -MCPAN -e shell" and then do:

install Palm::PDB
install Palm::Doc
install XML::Parser::Lite::Tree
install GD
install Image::BMP
install Image::Size
install HTML::TreeBuilder
install Getopt::Mixed
install Date::Parse
install Date::Format

and see if it works. I think this is the complete list of modules that you need to install.

I am writing a web page to document how to install on different platforms but I do not have a Mac available so I cannot test on that platform.

[adelheid]

OK, I will try it it on the Mac and let you know how it works out.

[adelheid]

Installing Palm::PDB following you instruction gives:

"make had returned bad status, install seems impossible"

Info about install: http://www.cpan.org/modules/INSTALL.html

"C. BUILD
Does the module require compilation?

1. If it does,"

No info on how to determine if it does :-(

"D. INSTALL
Make sure the newlines for the modules are in Mac format, not Unix format. Move the files manually into the correct folders."

I don't know what "the correct folders" are :-(

So, a lot of questions on my part.

edit: I don't seem to have the make program on my machine. So I probably need to install that. Do people on Windows also have to go trough installing dependencies like this? Otherwise I had perhaps better fire up my Windows virtual machine and try there.

[tompe]

What version of the operating system are you using and what version of Perl are you using?

You need to install make and have a compiler. I am surprised you did not have them but I do not know anything about Macs so maybe you have to install some developers package?

There are Windows binaries but it is better to use the non-binary version since then you can get updates faster. The release of the binary version depends on my willingness to boot my laptop to Windows...

[tompe]

Originally Posted by adelheid

"D. INSTALL
Make sure the newlines for the modules are in Mac format, not Unix format. Move the files manually into the correct folders."

I read this now and is a bit surprised that this is the status of Perl on a Mac. I will check around a bit. Maybe ActiveStates Perl version is a better alterative for Mac if they have pre-built binaries for modules as the Windows version had.

[kovidgoyal]

@tompe: From my experience with libprs500, OSX is a royal pain in the ass. It's far and away the worst of the three to support. By default OS X has no compiler installed, your users would have to download Xcode. If you're serious about supporting OSX, I would recommend looking at some solution that allows you to distribute an embedded Perl interpreter.