New Software: convert plain text files to epub/mobi format

[MobiEpubMaker]

Just wrote a program to convert one or more plain text files to epub/mobi format for my own use. I'm wondering if anyone else have the same needs. The software is free. Download it at mobiepubmaker.com. Any suggestions and requests are welcome! Wrote to me at i@mobiepubmaker.com or post it here.

This software is for Windows, about 9 MB size. Screenshot can be found here:
http://mobiepubmaker.com/help/

[DaleDe]

Looks handy. You might want to add publisher to the metadata choices to avoid putting the app name where the author belongs. Do you use the file names for the TOC if the first line is not checked? I take it a blank line is used as a paragraph separator. Does it use an existing CSS if the file exists, or always build a new one?

[PandathePanda]

Well tried it, and is disappointed.

1) Gave it 10 txt files, and it failed to convert most of them. All of them was utf8 files.

2) And this made me pissed a lot. Set the output folder to "user folder" and it deleted everything in my user dir (tried it twice, second time used random files in the dir, and it cleaned the dir again)

My advice for all is too leave this piece of crap alone until it's fixed

[RobertDDL]

It sounds interesting. But, how do the text files have to be formatted? When you say, "Mobi Epub Maker can set the first line of the text file as chapter title" does this mean that each chapter has to be a separate file? (Not a good idea, I think). What about different heading levels? How do italics and bold have to be formatted in the text file? Block quotes? Verses? Blank lines? Footnotes?

Not all of this is indispensible, of course, at least not for a first version -- I'd settle for heading levels 1 and 2, and italics, and blank lines. It's a pity that there seems to be no widely accepted standards for tagged text files (or is there, and I'm just not aware of it?)

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

It's a pity that there seems to be no widely accepted standards for tagged text files (or is there, and I'm just not aware of it?)

Maybe not a single dominant standard, but there's Markdown and reStructuredText (and maybe others), which are widely used.

[eschwartz]

What is the advantage of this program over, say, calibre? Besides that calibre runs on OSX and linux, and this program does neither.

And calibre comes with several different ways to configure how the plaintext is read, including support for markdown: http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conv...-txt-documents

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Maybe not a single dominant standard, but there's Markdown and reStructuredText (and maybe others), which are widely used.

Don't forget about Textile!

[mikecook]

Don't be too harsh on MobiEpubMaker, as s/he did say they made it for themselves not as some sort of calibre-killer.

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

What is the advantage of this program over, say, calibre?

Hm, the advantage would be not having to use Calibre

(I think that Calibre does a good job at converting files, and I like the stand-alone Calibre reader, but I hate it that to convert files I have to submit to their totalitarian library-building ideology.)

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

I hate it that to convert files I have to submit to their totalitarian library-building ideology.)

Just do conversions using the command line; material does not get added to the library. See http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/gene...k-convert.html

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Just do conversions using the command line; material does not get added to the library.

I hadn't been aware of this -- thank you, this is very helpful!

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

Hm, the advantage would be not having to use Calibre

(I think that Calibre does a good job at converting files, and I like the stand-alone Calibre reader, but I hate it that to convert files I have to submit to their totalitarian library-building ideology.)

Yep, calibre has a very well-developed cli.

Given that, I prefer battle-tested solutions which are more rounded, even if I needed to write drop targets for converting, even if the application is a larger download, etc.





I have nothing against new solutions, except I want to know what they can bring to the table over existing ones.

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Maybe not a single dominant standard, but there's Markdown and reStructuredText (and maybe others), which are widely used.

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Don't forget about Textile!

Thank you. I've looked at them, and others which I could find, but there wasn't one among them which I really liked. I'll stay with my own, which I can easily convert to HTML, which in turn can easily be converted to anything else. Actually, I think that basic HTML would be a pretty good format for e-books, if only e-book readers (or apps) would give it a little effort -- like, building a TOC from the header tags, which should be a trivial exercise. Or are there those that do?

[DaleDe]

Descriptions of Markdown, Pandoc, and others are in our wiki. The do provide some features that are useful for conversion.

Dale

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

Thank you. I've looked at them, and others which I could find, but there wasn't one among them which I really liked. I'll stay with my own, which I can easily convert to HTML, which in turn can easily be converted to anything else. Actually, I think that basic HTML would be a pretty good format for e-books, if only e-book readers (or apps) would give it a little effort -- like, building a TOC from the header tags, which should be a trivial exercise. Or are there those that do?

Let's go one step further, and allow you to manually specify the ToC.
Hey, now we have two files. Why not ZIP them so they stay together? Oooh, look -- EPUB!


AS far as reading HTML goes... I do know the Kindle supports TXT as a format, and will render it in HTML if it is in fact formatted in HTML. The extension must still be .txt for some reason.