Atlantis to ePub to Calibre (?) to Kindle?

[Sarah]

A blogger in Oslo has written about using Atlantis to http://www.aandstad.net/stig/blogg/2010 ... -indesign/convert files to Kindle. His instructions read in part:

Choose “File..”->”Save Special…”->”Save as eBook” from the menus in Atlantis.

5. Give it a name, fill in whatever information it asks for and you want to include, and click save.

Now you should have a workable epub-file. However, this file will be basic, and no images will be included, except for possibly the cover image.

You can add more niceties after this by using a dedicated epub-editor. Here, the choice is much better. I guess Calibre should do the trick, so would eCub, Sigil and many more. Check this page out for a list: http://www.lexcycle.com/faq/how_to_create_epub

The optional final step is to convert the epub into mobi and Kindle format, if you want to publish for that platform as well. For that you can use Mobipocket Creator and Kindlegen, which require some command line skills. Some of the tools listed above may make the process easier though — once you have your epub-file. These steps you could also do on a Mac.

1. Download and install Mobipocket Reader.

2. Download and install/unpack KindleGen.

3. Open Mobipocket Reader — then drag and drop your epub file onto the Reader’s main window (opening other ways often fail). The file is automatically converted and saved in your default ebook-folder (usually My Documents->My eBooks). Quit Reader.

4. Then find the converted ebook-file, now with a “.prc”-suffix, in your ebook-folder,

(optional: to edit the ebook for kindle, making it better, download and install Mobipocket Creator, and open the .prc-file with creator here)

5. KindleGen is a command line tool, so you need to copy the .prc-file to the kindlegen folder.

6. Then just run “kindlegen [FILENAME.EPUB]“.

Voila: You have a Kindle-ready file, a mobipocket (prc-file) as well as an epub.

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I was thinking about converting my book file to html using Atlantis and uploading the resulting file to Kindle. The resulting html file works fine for me in Firefox, but from what I'm reading on the Kindle website, I would actually need to strip a lot of the html code out and replace it.

That sounds like a lot of work, but I'm not sure that using the instructions given above are going to be easy either. Does anyone have any thoughts or experience on preparing books for Kindle?

By the way, evidently http://www.lulu.com will take ePub files and make them available on the iPad and other devices if the file passes some sort of code checker.

[admin]

I could not help with the Kindle (AZW) eBook format, sorry.

By the way, evidently http://www.lulu.com will take ePub files and make them available on the iPad and other devices if the file passes some sort of code checker.

Any EPUB file generated by Atlantis, is supposed to pass through the EPUB validation check.

[admin]

Now you should have a workable epub-file. However, this file will be basic, and no images will be included, except for possibly the cover image.

By the way, this information is not correct. The EPUB file generated by Atlantis will not be basic. It will include all the EPUB-compatible formatting from the original document. All images from the source document will be included in the EPUB file as well.

[Sarah]

If I understand correctly, Kindle recommends that books be submitted in html, but they will also accept .doc and .txt files -- both of which are possible to create in Atlantis -- and PDFs (but they warn that PDFs aren't ideal for conversion).

I have to say that I haven't found the Kindle guides for self-publishing at https://dtp.amazon.com/ terribly helpful -- the site seems to be plagued with broken links, poor editing (what are aspect rations???), and lack of clear information.

[Robert]

what are aspect rations???

Hi Sarah,
Most likely it is a typo for "aspect ratio", which means the relationship between height and width in a picture or a page.
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert

[Sarah]

Thanks for explaining aspect rations . . . .

[Sarah]

I took a book that was done in Atlantis, saved it as an .epub, then converted it using Calibre to a .mobi file and submitted it to Kindle (I didn't realize that Kindle took that file type until I did further looking around).

They accepted the file, and now the book is available on Kindle!

I'm still not sure that I got all the formatting exactly as it should be; I will be experimenting more with later books (and may go back and make changes to the first book).

[Sarah]

I have produced a few more Kindle eBooks by going the Atlantis to epub to Calibre to mobi route, but we were also able to take an Atlantis .rtf file and save it as a .doc and upload it to Kindle.

In the preview on Kindle, there were minor differences in how the formatting turned out, but both were acceptable.

I still think that another route would be to take an Atlantis file and save it as a web page and upload the resulting html file to Kindle, but I haven't tried that yet.

[Redrover]

I realize this is an old thread and I don't know if anyone is still listening but...

I create ebooks for both Nook and Kindle. Atlantis creates the epubs without difficulty but the Kindle files are a different story.
When I 'save special' as a web page the resulting HTML file is processed by MobiPocket Creator with all the page breaks and many of the blank lines stripped out (the intent is to present Kindle with a .PRC file for publication).

If I use OpenOffice Writer to do the same task the HTML file processes correctly in Creator.

If there's a way to persuade Atlantis to behave like Openoffice Writer I would be very pleased to hear it. I'd like to standardize on Atlantis but this anomaly is a show stopper for me.

[Robert]

Hi,
Have you tried using the free “KindleGen” and “Kindle Previewer” apps available at http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?i ... 1000234621? You’d be able to convert to the Kindle format directly from the Atlantis EPUB file.

Alternatively, you could convert the Atlantis EPUB files to the PRC format directly from Calibre. Here is from http://www.drm-removal.org/epub-convert ... o-prc.html:

Tutorial: How to Convert ePub to PRC Step by Step?
Step 1: Free download and install Calibre. Then launch it.
Step 2: Input your ePub file by clicking "Add books" button.
Step 3: Choose PRC as the output format.
Step 4: Click "Convert eBooks" to convert ePub to PRC free.
Done! As you can see, the process of converting ePub to PRC is very easy, isn't it?

You might also want to try your luck with “Savory” as available from http://blog.fsck.com/2009/04/savory.html. Here is the author’s description: “Savory is a native ebook conversion package for the Kindle 2. It lets you download and read PDFs and ePubs on the Kindle without a manual conversion step.” And here is from http://gizmodo.com/5201206/kindle-2-get ... -converter:

The developer, Jesse Vincent, swears he didn't "hack" the new Kindle—rather, he wrote a "package" that happens to run on it. The thing doesn't crack DRM files, it just converts specific unprotected files on the fly—from PDF and ePub to Mobipocket, so it feels like they are supported by the Kindle 2.

On the other hand, there are a few paying “EPUB to Kindle converters”:

“EPUB to Kindle” is available from http://www.epubkindle.com/ for 19.95$.
“ePUB to Kindle Maker” is available from http://www.epub-to-kindle.com/ for $29.95.
For the same price, “ePub to Kindle Converter” is available from http://www.pdf-epub-converter.com/epub- ... l?adword-s.
Still for $29.95, “PDF/ePUB to Kindle Tool” is available from http://www.ebook-tool.com/.
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert

[Redrover]

Lots of good information there. Thanks Robert, I'll look into the software you suggest.

By the way, it's not that I can't achieve the desired result by other means, it's just that I would like Atlantis to be my primary resource. Atlantis does it so much better than OpenOffice Writer.

Thanks again.

[epobirs]

If you use Calibre for a conversion be sure to thoroughly check the resulting file in Kindle Previewer or an actual Kindle. (Kindle app on PC/Mac is not a reliable test due to the difference is screen size and how it affects formatting. Also, the Kindle apps will allow certain formatting techniques to used that will fail on an actual Kindle due to how it generates its menus.)

My experience has been the Calibre will break a lot of formatting. It rarely use it for anything anymore.

My recommendation is to go from an EPUB (created by AWP) into Sigil for any additional work that couldn't be done in AWP, then open the EPUB in KindlePreviewer. This will invoke KindleGen and automatically produce a MOBI version of your book.

The downside of this is that KindleGen tends to make much larger files than it should. Amazon fixes this somewhat when they process the file but it is a long standing complaint.