mobi without ePub ...

[Sella174]

A lot of my customers are asking for my books in mobi format. I am certainly willing to accommodate them, but ...

It seems that to create the mobi file with KindleGen, one must first create an ePub. I do not wish to do that.

Is there no other way to create a well-formed mobi, preferably from a single HTML5 file?

[JSWolf]

You are best to create ePub first and then convert that. Mobi is a pain in the ass to make otherwise. Have you ever see raw Mobi code?

[Sella174]

Thanks, I figured that would be the solution. Well, then no mobi in the near future.

[JSWolf]

The other problem is Mobi does not use HTML5. But you can use the Calibre eBook editor or Sigil to help you make ePub. It's not that difficult.

[Sella174]

Yeah, thanks. Perhaps someday, but having to learn ePub to generate mobi is kind of silly.

P.S. I'm still using Windows XP.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sella174

Yeah, thanks. Perhaps someday, but having to learn ePub to generate mobi is kind of silly.

P.S. I'm still using Windows XP.

What format are your books in now?

[Sella174]

LibreOffice odt and HTML. The odt is exported to PDF for printing as paperbacks and the HTML is displayed on the website.

I played around with creating ePub's a few years ago, since I have the HTML already, but found the whole format/standard completely lacking for the purpose of publishing books and thus didn't invest too much time in it.

Doing odt -> HTML -> ePub -> mobi is not why we have computers, IMO. I'd prefer skipping the unnecessary ePub step. Seems I can't, so the mobi's will have to wait until I write a simple HTML to ePub program to feed KindleGen. Just need to figure out what information mobi can handle.

[JSWolf]

If you can save as DOCX then you can try Calibre to convert to Mobi.

[gbm]

Originally Posted by Sella174

LibreOffice odt and HTML. The odt is exported to PDF for printing as paperbacks and the HTML is displayed on the website.

I played around with creating ePub's a few years ago, since I have the HTML already, but found the whole format/standard completely lacking for the purpose of publishing books and thus didn't invest too much time in it.

Doing odt -> HTML -> ePub -> mobi is not why we have computers, IMO. I'd prefer skipping the unnecessary ePub step. Seems I can't, so the mobi's will have to wait until I write a simple HTML to ePub program to feed KindleGen. Just need to figure out what information mobi can handle.

You alreadly have html so use calibre--you are using XP so get this version of calibre.
For help with importing your html into calibre.
Once you have your html in calibre you can convert to mobi or epub then to mobi.

I recommend that you practice before trying this with your files, a good way is to go to the Baen Free Library and download some of the free ebooks in html format. Unzip them into a folder.
Delete the file named using only numbers such as 9781625795397.htm.
Then drag and drop the XXXX.toc file into calibre, then convert.

bernie

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you can save as DOCX then you can try Calibre to convert to Mobi.

Or try this LibreOffice extension.

https://extensions.libreoffice.org/e...ns/writer2epub

Writer2ePub (W2E) is an extension for OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice which allows you to create an ePub file from any file format that Writer can read.
==

I myself use the Atlantis word processor to generate ePubs from .DOCX downloaded from Google Docs.

I then trick email to Kindle into converting the ePubs.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...90#post3563590

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Sella174

...having to learn ePub to generate mobi is kind of silly. ...

It doesn't if you know where ePub and Mobi came from. They are both descendants of the same original standard.

Both are outgrowths of the Open Ebook initiative which gave birth to a range of formats. It was a "standard" for creating ebooks that dealt with the creation side only and left the final "packaging" to each member to decide for themselves. These formats were much richer than the text based formats (TXT, AportisDOC, PeanutDOC, PalmDOC, ...) that had existed. MobiPocket, a French company whose delivery format was MOBI, was the most successful of these in the long run, though there were others that were successful for a while.

The standards group morphed while developing version 2 and added a packaging format to the standard. That format is ePub, and its based on a variant of HTML 4.1. The v2 version of the standard is why the primary ePub format is v2 with the recent tweak being v3, which incorporates a number of HTML5 functions.

There was no single v1 and no "ePub v1", though MOBI is a member of the v1 family and is based on a subset of HTML 3.2. When Amazon, whose core has been as a bookseller since the beginning, decided to add ebooks they followed their usual habit of acquiring the needed expertise rather than developing everything from scratch. They bought MobiPocket.

The old Open Ebook development standards worked from HTML files using a subset of 3.2. Amazon has advanced the format using newer HTML versions through several variants, most of the newer ones being tagged as AZW variants. They also replaced the old MobiPocket tools with more modern tools that now use formatted ePub files rather than a loose collection of HTML files as "source" material.

[JSWolf]

ePub 2 came from MS Reader format.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Sella174

LibreOffice odt and HTML. The odt is exported to PDF for printing as paperbacks and the HTML is displayed on the website.

I played around with creating ePub's a few years ago, since I have the HTML already, but found the whole format/standard completely lacking for the purpose of publishing books and thus didn't invest too much time in it.

Doing odt -> HTML -> ePub -> mobi is not why we have computers, IMO. I'd prefer skipping the unnecessary ePub step. Seems I can't, so the mobi's will have to wait until I write a simple HTML to ePub program to feed KindleGen. Just need to figure out what information mobi can handle.

Actually, with all due respect, you are making something of nothing. You're assuming that making ePUB is massively more complex and difficult than "just" making a MOBI. It is, quite honestly, the other way around. Moreover, as you are still using XP, you are probably using a much older version of IE, and therefore, you can use Mobipocket Creator, assuming you can find it. You could, then, build a MOBI without making an ePUB first--but you are undertaking this from a mistaken viewpoint.

As I explain to our customers, on my website, like humans and apes, ePUB and MOBI share about 98% eBook/HTML/CSS DNA. If you don't like ePUB for bookmaking, my friend, you will positively loathe MOBI.

At my shop--where we've built more than 3500 eBooks over the last near-decade--we ALWAYS build an ePUB first, for very good reasons, the primary one being that ePUB is an easily editable format--whilst MOBI is not. An ePUB exists in two ways, simultaneously; as the source material for an eBook, and as an eBook. Using a tool like Sigil, you can pop open an ePUB, make edits, hit SAVE, and voila, the edits are made and the book is saved. You can then spend a whopping 2 minutes running that ePUB through KindeGen (or its GUI brother, Kindle Previewer), and voila, you have a MOBI file. If you want to be commercially picky, you can spend an extra minute and tweak the ePUB a bit to make a better MOBI file.

There truly is no reason to think that making an ePUB is some big detour. It's not. It's the same work that you need to do to make a MOBI, so why the kerfuffle? Just build the ePUB--which, as I said, is 98% the same as any competent, commercial-quality MOBI you'd build--and spend 2 minutes then making the MOBI file.

If that won't get you what you want, then take your HTML5 file and reduce it to HTML 4.2 or so. Create an OPF file and an NCX, and the CSS file, and then feed the OPF to Kindlegen, and that will build a MOBI for you. But again--you're doing EXACTLY the same work that you'd do, to make an ePUB file. Most professional eBook builders consider the ePUB the final source for the MOBI--not some secondary bothersome thing to do.

Offered FWIW.

Hitch

[Sella174]

Originally Posted by Hitch

...

Thanks, Hitch, I am making something out of nothing.

I do know that making a working ePub is super-easy; but as I am not interested in the ePub, I just felt that it was an unnecessary step towards the desired end-product. Alas, ePub first, then mobi.

IMHO, this is Mr. Gutenberg's take on electronic publishing:

P.S. Neither the ePub nor the HTML is my source document; it's a funnily formatted odt, because that format makes editing & revision easier - especially since nearly all my authors are using different versions of MSWord.

P.P.S. I've began writing an ePub packager for the HTML files, so problem fixed with the baling-wire and spit method.

[JSWolf]

Do your authors know how to use Word properly to go from Word > eBook? If not, the code for these eBooks will be a freaking mess.