Book Creation Tutorials

[Aprilbeginnings]

I have a question, has anyone shared their different saves that are .rst and sharing them? we each have our own likes for a format and was wondering if that is being shared. I was having trouble with the bookdesigner and had to remove and reinstall it, I was getting nothing but errors. So I came here to see what I could find and started reading this thread.

[ultimoed]

Being a newbie can someone let me know where I can download a copy of Book Designer?
Thanks
ED

[RosanaE]

Originally Posted by ultimoed

Being a newbie can someone let me know where I can download a copy of Book Designer?
Thanks
ED

Try this link

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11786

and this https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Book_Designer

[RosanaE]

Does anybody else have this problem and figured out how to fix it?

I check the "keep empty lines" box in settings and reload the book and still no empty lines. When I look at the settings, the keep empty lines is unchecked again.

Thanks

[vivaldirules]

I love the uploads section and wanted to contribute some titles that I'm particularly interested in reading. I have 18 that I've been preparing to convert and upload here. I've been reading Harry T's tutorial, have installed BD, and I've looked at what other people have been doing for indexing, TOC, fonts, cover art, etc. Today, I stumbled on ManyBooks.net and found 16 of the titles available there for free and in more formats than I could count. I know we just hit the 2000 mark a few weeks ago here but they have nearly 20,000. I'm guessing that site grew up after the MR uploads started. Still, can you tell me why it is beneficial to continue to build a separate set of files here? Is it for reasons of special formatting, correction of errors, or something else? If so, I will be more selective in choosing titles for conversion. I'm hoping I'm not asking a sensitive question. If so, just say so and I'll upload the files anyway (when I'm done).

[RWood]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I love the uploads section and wanted to contribute some titles that I'm particularly interested in reading. I have 18 that I've been preparing to convert and upload here. I've been reading Harry T's tutorial, have installed BD, and I've looked at what other people have been doing for indexing, TOC, fonts, cover art, etc. Today, I stumbled on ManyBooks.net and found 16 of the titles available there for free and in more formats than I could count. I know we just hit the 2000 mark a few weeks ago here but they have nearly 20,000. I'm guessing that site grew up after the MR uploads started. Still, can you tell me why it is beneficial to continue to build a separate set of files here? Is it for reasons of special formatting, correction of errors, or something else? If so, I will be more selective in choosing titles for conversion. I'm hoping I'm not asking a sensitive question. If so, just say so and I'll upload the files anyway (when I'm done).

Manybooks existed and offered Sony format books long before MR started their upload section. In fact, Manybooks has served to inspire some of us to create our own versions of the books.

Manybooks uses an automated translation program that I feel leaves a lot to be desired. They are not bad; but, they could be a lot better. I think what we have produced at MR is a lot better. At a minimum they are hand crafted by people that care about the book being converted. Many of the items are fixed from the original texts to provide a better reading environment. These may be simple things like correcting the chapter titles and headers or creating an omnibus edition. Other times they involve rewriting entire sections to correct translator's censoring of language and action.

Manybooks takes the raw text of Project Gutenberg or Distributed Proofreaders and simply converts it to the multiple formats it distributes. Many times we have found them using a file that has not been completely proofed and is still full of typos and other errors. This is not the norm but it has happened enough times to make me think twice before downloading one of their books.

If given the choice (and I do have the choice) I would rather enjoy one of Harry's Tom Swift Omnibus editions than the single books from Manybooks. I love to read the Voltaire Patricia has posted with the original passages restored from the crazed censorship of the Victorian translator who thought that they knew what is best for me. Some of the books at MR are not available at Manybooks such as my own contribution of Augustine's City of God.

Sometimes you will even find multiple versions of the same book in the same format at MR that is also available at Manybooks. Each of us have our own style of book construction and some people favor one person's way over that of another.

So please contribute your books. Many will thank you.

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I love the uploads section and wanted to contribute some titles that I'm particularly interested in reading. I have 18 that I've been preparing to convert and upload here. I've been reading Harry T's tutorial, have installed BD, and I've looked at what other people have been doing for indexing, TOC, fonts, cover art, etc. Today, I stumbled on ManyBooks.net and found 16 of the titles available there for free and in more formats than I could count. I know we just hit the 2000 mark a few weeks ago here but they have nearly 20,000. I'm guessing that site grew up after the MR uploads started. Still, can you tell me why it is beneficial to continue to build a separate set of files here? Is it for reasons of special formatting, correction of errors, or something else? If so, I will be more selective in choosing titles for conversion. I'm hoping I'm not asking a sensitive question. If so, just say so and I'll upload the files anyway (when I'm done).

Manybooks is good but the automatic conversions from Project Gutenberg can be faulty on occasion. And they never include a clickable ToC.

The advantage of the MobileRead uploads is that our books have been hand-made. Some people add clickable tables of contents, hyperlinked footnotes, illustrations and/or spellcheck for errors. Some people have spent a long time working on books that are personally significant to them. So, often the result is noticeably better.

HarryT, for example, is revising his earlier uploads in the light of experience gained with Book Designer and consistently produces beautiful books: see his Sherlock Holmes. RWood has done the Harvard Classics series and has made lovely books in versions that are infinitely better than any automatic versions. I habitually restore accents to the French classics. J S Woolf has uploaded modern science fiction unobtainable elsewhere in lrf format.
So there is still a justification for our uploads section.

[vivaldirules]

Thank you both. I have enjoyed your contributions as well as Harry's. Your reasons sound very sensible. I'll be more selective about picking titles for conversion but will upload the ones I've nearly finished anyway.

On a related subject, I have some pbooks that haven't appeared on PG yet so I've been considering scanning and converting them. These are 19th century works and so I assume this should be okay but somewhere here I saw a rather definitive statement that appearance on PG was a prerequisite for uploading here. Can I get clarification, please?

[JohnP]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

Yes, I tried it. Actually, from a tech point of view it is even easier. I tried it using all defaults and it works very well. the only problem is that I don't like the output file...it is like a collections of pics of individuals pages. Cannot change font size and a few other isses. As a last resort maybe, otherwise I don't like it. But the program is superb.

Using Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.0, I tried to simply change the font size in a book so that it would be more easily readable. Had no luck. Just did not seem to be an option.
The only thing I find that helps a BIT is to hold the + magnify button down and flip the book 90 degrees. Still way too small for most PDFs tho.

[RWood]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

... On a related subject, I have some pbooks that haven't appeared on PG yet so I've been considering scanning and converting them. These are 19th century works and so I assume this should be okay but somewhere here I saw a rather definitive statement that appearance on PG was a prerequisite for uploading here. Can I get clarification, please?

It is not a requirement. City of God for example is not on Project Gutenberg.

The issue is one of copyright. If a book is posted on PG with a note that it seems to be out of copyright in the US then it is safe to post it here. If you are sure that the book you are posting is out of copyright (as is true of all 19th century books in the US) then post it. There are many, many books that PG has yet to convert so it may be years until they get around to the ones you have converted. (If ever.)

[RWood]

Originally Posted by JohnP

Using Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.0, I tried to simply change the font size in a book so that it would be more easily readable. Had no luck. Just did not seem to be an option.
The only thing I find that helps a BIT is to hold the + magnify button down and flip the book 90 degrees. Still way too small for most PDFs tho.

The PDF file is designed to reporduce a page. It is a standard for many publications and advertising agencies. It was never designed to be an ebook format. To be able to change the font size goes against the program design specifications.

Many PDFs are simply a container for image files. If the PDF is a text file inside, perhaps you can extract it and create a file for viewing on your reader. I have extracted many PDFs and made quite nice Sony/LRF files for reading.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Aprilbeginnings

I have a question, has anyone shared their different saves that are .rst and sharing them? we each have our own likes for a format and was wondering if that is being shared. I was having trouble with the bookdesigner and had to remove and reinstall it, I was getting nothing but errors. So I came here to see what I could find and started reading this thread.

That isa good idea... But if I have to change from my normal settings, I do create a new settings file so I can get the settings back as needed.

[alreds]

Fellow readers, thank you for this wonderful forum and that we are able to learn from each other! I'm newbie and have a question:
I was able to get started with BookDesigner and I've been experimenting with this great tool. I've been saving and copying newspaper articles and created a 500 pages word file that want to convert to read as a "lrf" file on my Reader; however BookDesigner only produced about 320 pages and left out a good portion of the original document.
Am I doing something wrong or are there any limitations on the size of the document to input into BookDesigner? I'd appreciate your response.
Thanks,
Al

[shen]

Originally Posted by RosanaE

Does anybody else have this problem and figured out how to fix it?

I check the "keep empty lines" box in settings and reload the book and still no empty lines. When I look at the settings, the keep empty lines is unchecked again.

Thanks

I'm seeing the same here ... any suggestions?

Stefan

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by shen

I'm seeing the same here ... any suggestions?

Stefan

Could there be nbsp charcters on the page instead of line breaks?

The 'View/ Show inner nbsp' might show them, if they exist delete them and replace with carriage returns.