Batch Convert Ebooks?

[April]

Hello all! I'm new here, and hope you all can help me. It seems like a friendly kind of place

I will be ordering a Kindle next week, and am really excited. I've been collecting ebooks for about 10 years, but this will be my first portable reader. Here's where I'm having problems.....

I have several thousand ebooks, in PDF, HTML, DOC, RTF, TXT, LIT, PDB, PRC....... You get the idea.

What I would like to do is to batch-convert all of them to a format the Kindle can read. I'm thinking that PRC would probably be the best, but I don't know for sure.

So, my question is two-fold - first, what would be the best format to convert everything to, and second, what would be the best software to use for the conversion? Last time I checked, my ebooks numbered over 10,000, so anything that will batch convert is obviously preferable.

Thanks in advance!

April

[RickyMaveety]

I don't know about working in batches ... but the books I've converted into prc have been reading just fine on my Kindle.

You may find that many of the books you have in your collection have already been converted into the proper form here at this site.

[JeffElkins]

Originally Posted by April

Hello all! I'm new here, and hope you all can help me. It seems like a friendly kind of place

I will be ordering a Kindle next week, and am really excited. I've been collecting ebooks for about 10 years, but this will be my first portable reader. Here's where I'm having problems.....

I have several thousand ebooks, in PDF, HTML, DOC, RTF, TXT, LIT, PDB, PRC....... You get the idea.

What I would like to do is to batch-convert all of them to a format the Kindle can read. I'm thinking that PRC would probably be the best, but I don't know for sure.

So, my question is two-fold - first, what would be the best format to convert everything to, and second, what would be the best software to use for the conversion? Last time I checked, my ebooks numbered over 10,000, so anything that will batch convert is obviously preferable.

Thanks in advance!

April

If I'm not mistaken, the Kindle uses .mobi along with a .mobi variant called .azw.
I have a Sony, not a Kindle but here's how I do it for my Nokias. Your best bet would be MobiPerl, a free suite of tools you can find my searching the forum. You'll also need a tool called ConvertLit also free (search google) For batch conversions, I work from the command-line, using linux bash scripts:

#!/bin/bash

#doloop

OPERATION=$1

for file in ./* # Filename globbing.
do

$OPERATION $file

done

exit 0

I would call the script above with: '$doloop lit2mobi' were I converting a directory of .lit format files, substituting different commands for different fletypes. This would also work if you're using OS X. For Windows, you'll have to find someone with better .bat file skills, but I'm sure it's doable there too.

[April]

Thanks for the tips! I know NOTHING about writing commands, but my husband is a programmer (go figure, right?) - I'll have him take a look at this & see if he can work on it.

[jmarcus]

I just bought a Kindle reader that reads .prc files. I also have the Mobi reader/converter. My goal is to buy my schoolbooks for nursing in electronic format. Most are sold I think, in HTML format. I have experimented with converting all the Word modules from class first to HTML, then to .prc format. I have been somewhat successful, but it is hard to maintain formatting, which is somewhat important, in the font I need to be able to read the files.

My question is this: How do you convert a book from HTML format, keeping the books index intact and bookmarks or pointers to all the chapters (the seperate html files)? I would like to keep the book as close to its original format as possible. I need to be able to jump to individual chapters or pages in the book because I need to read text on particular pages and make reference to other pages by page number.

Thanks,
John Marcus

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by jmarcus

I just bought a Kindle reader that reads .prc files. I also have the Mobi reader/converter. My goal is to buy my schoolbooks for nursing in electronic format. Most are sold I think, in HTML format. I have experimented with converting all the Word modules from class first to HTML, then to .prc format. I have been somewhat successful, but it is hard to maintain formatting, which is somewhat important, in the font I need to be able to read the files.

My question is this: How do you convert a book from HTML format, keeping the books index intact and bookmarks or pointers to all the chapters (the seperate html files)? I would like to keep the book as close to its original format as possible. I need to be able to jump to individual chapters or pages in the book because I need to read text on particular pages and make reference to other pages by page number.

Thanks,
John Marcus

The Mobi Reader is not likely powerful enough to control the task. It is mainly for drag and drop conversion. Download the MobiCreator product professional version which is a free download and use it to make your conversions. mobi format does not permit page by page reference that matches the printed page. You can jump to individual chapters. You may be able to embed the page numbers in the text with manual effort and then you could search for them.

Dale

[belzhazzar]

Originally Posted by JeffElkins

If I'm not mistaken, the Kindle uses .mobi along with a .mobi variant called .azw.
I have a Sony, not a Kindle but here's how I do it for my Nokias. Your best bet would be MobiPerl, a free suite of tools you can find my searching the forum. You'll also need a tool called ConvertLit also free (search google) For batch conversions, I work from the command-line, using linux bash scripts:



I would call the script above with: '$doloop lit2mobi' were I converting a directory of .lit format files, substituting different commands for different fletypes. This would also work if you're using OS X. For Windows, you'll have to find someone with better .bat file skills, but I'm sure it's doable there too.

Ehm... as I know NOTHING about programming and, unfortunately have no programmer wife or husband could you tell me VERY SIMPLE how to write commands like those in windows xp environment? Also, if it is not too much disturb, could you advise me on best software? I have TONS of PDFS, and Docs... so I guess it would be better to turn them in Azw (Azw does preserve pictures right?)

[frabjous]

Calibre can batch convert all or nearly all those files to .mobi, which you can read on your Kindle. Calibre has its own forum here at MobileRead, and its homepage is here:
http://calibre-ebook.com/