Create ebook as IDPF OPF OEB MOBI EPUB (for Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone

Create ebook as IDPF OPF OEB MOBI EPUB (for Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone, and more...)

With EBooksWriter you can type, page, hyperlink and then pack your ebook as OPF, MOBI and/or EPUB file.

First of all you should see the “how to create and link pages” tutorial, in order to create/edit the ebook.

For test purpose, you may create a simple one-page work.

Then you can quickly save it as IDPF OPF / OEB (Open Packaging Format, OPS Open Publication Structure / OEB OEBPS standard), Mobipocket / MOBI and Adobe digital editions / EPUB (Macintosh, Palm, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile / CE, SymbianOS, iLiad, eBookMan, Kindle, Blackberry, iPhone, Mac OS X, Sony Reader, Handheld PC, Hanlin, Bookeen Cybook, Mentor, Irex, Lbook, Neolux Nuut, Astak EZ Reader, BeBook, COOL-ER and several new cell phones and devices every day or so...).

There is no effort: EBooksWriter can automatically save to these formats (under the hood your ebook - even the ebooks created with old versions of EBooksWriter - is automatically converted, no additional editing is needed). From the main menu, choose "File >Save .mobi .epub ebook (Kindle, Palm, Mac, iPhone, Cell...)" and the Export dialog will be shown. First of all you choose the format from the drop down list at the top of the Export dialog.

You press the Export button and the export is done.

The OPF / Mobi format will generate both the OPF file set (a file .Opf, several Html and Gif and Jpeg files) and the .Mobi file.

The Epub format will generate a single .Epub file.

After the export, the program will show you the folder where the output file(s) is(are).

Before pressing the Export button, you may want to choose the folder where it will put the exported file(s) - use the Path tab.

Also, there are several options to fine tune the ebook.

With the Ebook tab you can define some settings that are useful for both OPF, MOBI and EPUB.

The first option on the top left is about the page order (the path of the reader / end user).

For Opf, Mobi, Epub it is not always mandatory to define links within the text to create a reading path (for Aeh/Exe, it is mandatory). In fact, most Mobi and Epub readers will show the ebook pages in a linear order. However, please notice that this order will not be the internal EBooksWriter's "page number" - the internal page number is for the author only (you). The order for the reader / end user can be either the order specified in the first tab of this Export dialog (see above) or it can be the order specified in the "Hypertext >TOC - Predefined Page Order" (the TOC button shows this dialog).

This versatility permits you to reorganize your work document anytime, and to define for the reader any path, without limits.

If you check the "TOC -> ncx" box, most Epub readers will be able to show the TOC tree besides the ebook content. The Mobi readers we have tested will not (but, maybe in future, who knows?).

The other parameters on the top right are for the fine tuning. Due to their constraints, the Opf, Mobi and Epub formats do not support some of the EBooksWriter's features (only the AEH/EXE supports all the features), and any formats has some limits. For example, some devices do not support added Javascript, Html, CSS, multimedia or Flash, so you can disable this content (this way you won't have to delete the content from the source Aeh file).

For "strip size from CSS" we can spend some more words.

Both EBooksReader and the Mobi Reader provide a font size control to the end user: in both cases the user has a sort of "zoom" button that permits to increase and decrease the font size - this by keeping the existing proportions (example, for a zoom+, the font A that is already big on the ebook will become more big; the smaller font B will also become bigger, but not as big as the A).

Instead, most Epub readers are more limited. Some are unable to do this auto-scale when the font size is defined within the CSS. But if you check the option "strip size from CSS", then EBooksWriter will remove the font size information from the CSS. This destroys almost all the font sizes, but it allows the Epub to auto-resize (a feature that can be very important on small devices and/or for visually impaired readers/end users).

Last but not least, on the bottom left, you can add informations (metadata) about ebook contributors (for the author and the copyrights, they are specified within the Current Hypertext Properties - you can access this dialog also with the Hypertext Options button), and on the bottom right you can define some "special pages" (guide) - you can choose them visually with buttons.

Please notice that the behavior of the reading devices will not be identical for all these parameters. Some devices will show to the end user the informations about the contributors. Some will ignore. Some devices will permit you to access the "special pages" with a drop down menu or with special buttons. Some will ignore. You should specify all what you are able to specify, then don't count on these settings - they are optional things that can be shown or not to the end user.

Now let's see the Mobi tab: here you can specify some settings that are specifical for the Mobi format, such as the "cover image".

On the right side, you can set the Mobi compiler software (EBooksWriter will preset it, and/or will help you in this). With the "command line options" you can add advanced Mobi features, such as protections and much more (the inventors of the Mobi format provide documentation on this).