How to edit a Mobi-ebook

[Joykins]

Even better than Word is using a powerful text editor like Notepad++ which supports regular expressions. I've been able to do some nicely finetuned cleanup that way.

[miklosh]

Hi Jack,

Thank you for the tip. I was able to open the *.OPF file with Kindle Previewer, but only the one from the mobi7 folder. The one on the mobi8/OEBPS folder Kindle Previewer says it wasn't able to compile the book. Any other hints?

[miklosh]

And also, the compiled book from the *.OPF file on the mobi7 folder only has the conver, and nothing else....

Did you leave the *.opf file in the OEBPS folder? It points to all the files and folders for the book, so it cannot be moved and then opened by itself, it has to remain with all the other book files.

The book might have other issues if the *.opf file cannot be opened in Kindle Previewer or doesn't work therein. Did you modify the *.opf file? You might need to ask you friend to give you the ePub file he created or whatever files he used to create the mobi file in the first place.

[HYPE]

Originally Posted by Blossom

then open the HTML up in Word, edit and saved

While this technique works, it's better to edit HTML in a text editor that doesn't put invisible characters in edited files. I heard Word does this a lot, and I'm not surprised considering how robust/bloated it is, even more specially for this kind of task which doesn't require text formatting. A better solution for this would be Notepad.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by HYPE

While this technique works, it's better to edit HTML in a text editor that doesn't put invisible characters in edited files. I heard Word does this a lot, and I'm not surprised considering how robust/bloated it is, even more specially for this kind of task which doesn't require text formatting. A better solution for this would be Notepad.

Sorry I disagree. Word does a great job and Calibre fixes any issues when you convert to format of your choice. It's really quick too. It takes less than three minutes to do it using the Styles and formatting window in Word. I use to do it by hand but it's take way too long. If the chapters are plain text you have to do a Search and replace instead but once you set up your options it's a simple search and replace and move to the next Chapter header till done.

Why would anyone care what the book looks like in code?!? Once on the eReader you're not going to notice anything different. It's not going to act slower or faster. It's just going to look better now you've edited it to your liking. I have done over 1000 books this way and never a issue. It works flawlessly.

Too many books to do it all by hand.

[poetsapprentice]

"Once you finish editing the html just drag into calibre and convert back to mobi. This way you get as close to original formatting as possible."
Just joined to get help with editing a kindle! Have returned again and again to this thread and got as far as editing from Calibre plug in... Have done changes - saved file - saved in "web" - it all looks fine... But how to I "drag" the HTML file to calibre and "convert" back to mobi? I can't see how to do it.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by poetsapprentice

"Once you finish editing the html just drag into calibre and convert back to mobi. This way you get as close to original formatting as possible."
Just joined to get help with editing a kindle! Have returned again and again to this thread and got as far as editing from Calibre plug in... Have done changes - saved file - saved in "web" - it all looks fine... But how to I "drag" the HTML file to calibre and "convert" back to mobi? I can't see how to do it.

Grab the html file with your mouse and drag into the Calibre Program then let go of it. We call this drag and drop. Once it finishes importing you can then click the Conversion button in Calibre and convert to format of your choice. There are alot of options in the conversion window to play with. If you've never used Calibre. It may take awhile to familiarize yourself with them but it's well worth it.

[HYPE]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Sorry I disagree. Word does a great job and Calibre fixes any issues when you convert to format of your choice. It's really quick too. It takes less than three minutes to do it using the Styles and formatting window in Word. I use to do it by hand but it's take way too long. If the chapters are plain text you have to do a Search and replace instead but once you set up your options it's a simple search and replace and move to the next Chapter header till done.

Why would anyone care what the book looks like in code?!?

Indeed, I guess it's not a problem for most people. I do expect, however, that I developer (being one myself) would give more attention to these sort of little under-the-hood details.

[miklosh]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Did you leave the *.opf file in the OEBPS folder? It points to all the files and folders for the book, so it cannot be moved and then opened by itself, it has to remain with all the other book files.

The book might have other issues if the *.opf file cannot be opened in Kindle Previewer or doesn't work therein. Did you modify the *.opf file? You might need to ask you friend to give you the ePub file he created or whatever files he used to create the mobi file in the first place.

Hi Jack,
Yes I did, I kept it on the original folder. And, as a test, I just unpacked the mobi and tried to open the *.opf file with Kindle Previewer, but it just doesn't open it... It returns an error when opening...

I'm using Notepad++ for the html editing - I'm not a developer myself but prefer to do that to avoid having Word add formatting that I don't wish it to. And when you "see" what the code looks like, you always learn something! Of course I don't have 1000 books to edit - if I had I'd probably go with Blossom's method!

[poetsapprentice]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Grab the html file with your mouse and drag into the Calibre Program then let go of it. We call this drag and drop. Once it finishes importing you can then click the Conversion button in Calibre and convert to format of your choice. There are alot of options in the conversion window to play with. If you've never used Calibre. It may take awhile to familiarize yourself with them but it's well worth it.

Thanks B! Got it!

But have now problems with editing. I edit on word, save as 'web', drag HTML file into calibre, convert to mobi - but every new editing shows new remedial issues appearing like paragraphs underlined, wrong spacing.... I've tried it several times now to try and identify what I'm doing incorrectly - but the file never converts exactly to original editing. I'm going round in circles with this one... Any advice welcome!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by poetsapprentice

Any advice welcome!

My advice would be to ask in the correct forum. This forum is for discussing the Kindle itself, NOT the issues associated with creating Kindle books. You'll get far more help if you ask in the correct place, which is the "Mobi" forum. That's where the people knowledgeable about these issues hang out.

[poetsapprentice]

Originally Posted by HarryT

My advice would be to ask in the correct forum. This forum is for discussing the Kindle itself, NOT the issues associated with creating Kindle books. You'll get far more help if you ask in the correct place, which is the "Mobi" forum. That's where the people knowledgeable about these issues hang out.

Thanks Harry! Will follow through the advice - all the best!