Merge Epubs

[bcarlson]

I own a nook and I have found that it does not like more then 1000 files on the SD card. (stupid design). So I want to merge some epubs into one file. Not the metadata but the epubs themselves. I have one author that has 47 files. I want all those in one epub with a table of contents with the synopses that I added to the metadata of each one as a link. For example:

Book 1
--This book is about blah blah blah

Book 2
--This book is about blah blah blah

I don't care if the publication dates get messed up. I want to do this with a series with books by other authors as well and I don't care if the authors get messed up. I found some threads that referenced a Python code, but I don't understand how to get it to work. I know very very little code. I also found a thread to add stuff in Sigle, but I couldn't get it to add the files.

My thought was to use Calbre to convert to another format, merge those files and convert back to epub.

If worse comes to worse, I can always copy them all into a doc and setup hyper links and then convert the whole thing. Will hyperlinks in a .doc work the same in an epub?

[Toxaris]

In theory hyperlinks should work.

The problem with merging is that every book has a different layout and usually stylesheets. That makes them very difficult to merge, especially automatically.

You could also just keep on you nook what you want to read and keep your main library on your computer.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

The problem with merging is that every book has a different layout and usually stylesheets. That makes them very difficult to merge, especially automatically.

Actually, that shouldn't be a problem, because the stylesheets can be kept separate. All files can be kept separate with a directory structure like this:

OEBPS
  Book1
    css
    text
    images
  Book2
    css
    text
    images

Text files in Book1/text would link CSS files in Book1/css, while text files in Book2/text would link CSS files in Book2/css.

It's merging the OPF and NCX files that can be more problematic, but it should be possible to do something about that too.

Of course, a "seamless" merge, where it is not obvious that there were originally several books and all styles and filenames are unified is much more difficult (aka virtually impossible) to automate.

[bcarlson]

hmmm, that bites.

I understand the thought of leaving some on the pc, but I have short stories and could (depending on the situation) read through most of them. I would like to have them all with me.