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Calibre is what I use. Supper easy and free to download. Never a problem with my files
Oh wonderful. Will go and hunt Calibre down. Thank you both.
Having installed Calibre I now find that it only seems to convert actual ebooks from one format to another.I need a programme to convert my .doc files to e-pub.
P.D.R. wrote: "Having installed Calibre I now find that it only seems to convert actual ebooks from one format to another.I need a programme to convert my .doc files to e-pub."
Save your .doc document in the html format and have it opened by calibre.
Apple's pages gives the option to save to word, pdf, epub and pages.
Technophobe Grandma here can't even see how to get a file into Calibre. It seems to only want to deal in ebooks.I can't even find how to open a file!!!!
I HATE computers
With calibre you don't have an 'open file' sub-menu. You click on 'Add a book' to select the document you want to convert.Take a look at the web help section:
Calibre user manual
Thank you, Bernard I will have a look at your user manual but the one I've just read which came with my download only talks about how to organise your bought ebooks and how to convert their formats.There is nothing said about converting doc files! Are there perhaps two versions or is just that I hate computers and am having a helluva time getting round this new programme?
Argh! Your link isn't working, Bernard.
P.D.R, let me give you instructions on how I do it - maybe that will help!First, you press the green plus that says 'Add Books'. Choose the .doc file you want to convert. Then, make sure you select the file you just added, and then press the brown button that says 'Convert Books'.
In that page, at the top left, there should be a dropdown menu that let you choose the format of the book you are converting. For that, you would choose '.doc' (Or, '.docx') Then, at the top right, there should be another dropdown that lets you choose the format you want to convert it into. In this one you'd select 'epub'. You can fill in some of the information there if you want, but that might get confusing, so you can leave it. It's just for metadata.
Then, go to the bottom right and click the green 'OK' button. And then you're done! You can either open the epub file directly from calibre, or you can go to the Calibre folder on your computer and find the file there. (It's usually in the Documents folder.)
I hope that helps!
P.D.R. wrote: "Thank you, Bernard I will have a look at your user manual but the one I've just read which came with my download only talks about how to organise your bought ebooks and how to convert their formats..."Here the url for the pdf Calibre user manual:
https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cali...
Aislin that looks most helpful. Thank you so much! I cannot try it out right now as I have a deadline to meet for an editor which will keep my busy for a few days! BUT I think I understand what you've said which is a start. I am helpless without someone to talk me through things when it comes to computers.
P.D.R. wrote: "Aislin that looks most helpful. Thank you so much! I cannot try it out right now as I have a deadline to meet for an editor which will keep my busy for a few days! BUT I think I understand what y..."
If you need it done quickly you can email me the file and I can do it. takes less than a minute as long as the formatting is correct.
Well bless you! How kind. No rush. I am putting all three novels out the Italian site: https://www.streetlib.com/home and it isn't urgent yet. Just another string to my sales bow!
About to follow Aislinn's instructions and send you all grateful thanks. Doubtless I will coming howling back for help when I do something stupid so please don't give up on me. I work best - being old and hating computers - with a real person standing next to me and talking me through. I have never grown used to those darned call centres or those automated voices!
If anything is unclear, just let me know!
Oh the frustrations!I think I must have a new version of Calibre, Aislinn as there are no drop down menus as you describe them. I can press Add Books and got one book file uploaded. Press brown button Convert and get a message. 'Could not convert the book because no support format was found.'
Tried using the left hand menu but it is only about the three books on Calibre so pressing format there gives me 2 options and if I press e-pub I get one book Calibre downloaded, if I press Doc I get my book's file. But always the messaget that my file cannot be converted .
When you press 'convert book' do you have the book selected? As in, you've clicked on it and it's highlighted? Otherwise, I've never seen that message and have no idea why it would show up. Sorry!
Yes I did click on the book and highlight it. Ah me! What a pickle. I will try again tomorrow when I am less frustrated and apt to throw the computer out of the window.
P.D.R. wrote: "Yes I did click on the book and highlight it. Ah me! What a pickle. I will try again tomorrow when I am less frustrated and apt to throw the computer out of the window."
I just downloaded Calibre a few days ago and converted my book in MOBI format to EPUB fairly easily. The most difficult part was figuring out how to get the MOBI copied into the Calibre library. From there it wasn't difficult. I still need to download the EPUB on my Nook to see if it worked, but I see no reason it shouldn't. If you're still having problems, I can try to walk you through it.
It's handy being able to do this as it gives me more choices of format for promos and giveaways.
FOLLOWUP - A little while ago I downloaded my converted (from MOBI to EPUB) ebook on my Nook and.... It works!
Adding more Follow up - I decided to try converting my older DOC file of my book. I only have Word Starter on this computer and it doesn't have the capability to make a linkable TOC. I have a full, older version of Word on another computer which is where I take my book file to make a linkable TOC (thumb drives are wonderful). That said...when I went to convert the older DOC file, I got the same message as P.D.R so I hit the manual and did some digging. I've copied the relevant passages -Convert Microsoft Word documents
calibre can automatically convert .docx files created by Microsoft Word 2007 and newer. Just add the file to calibre
and click convert (make sure you are running the latest version of calibre as support for .docx files is very new).
calibre will automatically generate a Table of Contents based on headings if you mark your headings with the
Heading 1, Heading 2, etc. styles in Word. Open the output ebook in the calibre viewer and click the Table
of Contents button to view the generated Table of Contents.
Older .doc files
For older .doc files, you can save the document as HTML with Microsoft Word and then convert the resulting HTML
file with calibre. When saving as HTML, be sure to use the “Save as Web Page, Filtered” option as this will produce
clean HTML that will convert well. Note that Word produces really messy HTML, converting it can take a long time,
so be patient. If you have a newer version of Word available, you can directly save it as docx as well.
Another alternative is to use the free OpenOffice. Open your .doc file in OpenOffice and save it in OpenOffice’s format
.odt. calibre can directly convert .odt files.
So what I did was save my older DOC file as Filtered HTML (Web Page, Filtered in the Save Menu), added that to my Calibre library and successfully converted it to EPUB.
I have not tried the DOCX file (yet) or Open Office's ODT - yet. But I will and will report back.
Brilliant and much appreciated Sandy.I will now try to follow up.
UPDATE - I just converted both the DOCX and ODT files to EPUB with no trouble at all. That said, I'll have to download the files on my Nook to see if the linkable TOC is there and works. It looks like there's a way to make on in Calibre, but it'll take more "tinkering."Hope this helps.
I haven't had time to try yet, but have docx and the newest version of Calibre so think that I will save my ebook file, which is in doc ready for kindle to docx.Fingers crossed and a virtual bottle of champagne for you, Sandy
P.D.R. wrote: "I haven't had time to try yet, but have docx and the newest version of Calibre so think that I will save my ebook file, which is in doc ready for kindle to docx.Fingers crossed and a virtual bott..."
Just keep an eye on that linkable TOC. If you have a full version of Word, you should be okay, but Word Starter (a stripped down freebie version of Word) will not keep that linkable TOC, even in DOCX. I always copy my original file and tinker with the copies rather than the original file.
Let us know how it all works out.
Here there is a page in which you can convert word to epub, mobi, etc... it is quite simple, you just select the origin and final format:https://convertio.co/doc-epub/
https://convertio.co/doc-mobi/
Hope it helps you.
I can see I am going to have fun trying all these systems. Thank you so much for your suggestion, Raúl.
I realise it isn't the cheapest option, but I would be remiss not to point out that designing a book as an ePub from the outset will give you the best result. No professional would ever convert from a doc - but I also understand not everyone has a budget to work with as well.
Hello Chris. Yes it would be nice to do that. I am a technophobe so am ignorant. However I believe that there are programme which can do this now. Forgive my basic questions but can I do this in Word, Word Perfect ? What programme do I use to do this?
AND
before I throw my computer through the window is there a good dictation programme so that I can save my poor sore arthritic fingers and dictate my words?
It has been a few years since I looked, but I never found an accurate voice-to-text dictator. If you mean just to take down notes as you think of them, I just use apps on my phone. iPhone has the Voice Memo app, which is great.In regards to ePubs, I write all my books in word, but then design the books using Adobe indesign. This exports natively in the ePub format, and then I have tools to convert that to Mobi (which is Kindle's version of the ePub) as well. If you get stuck in the end and want me to take a quick look to give you a quick assessment of where it is at, feel free to email me at chris@oldmatemedia.com
Ah, that's what my dear daughter does for me. She and her hubby are tech experts! But there still isn't a word processing programme then which we can use and save as epub? Sad!I know Terry Pratchett used a programme and made me laugh as he described how he had to train it. Looks like I will have to do that.
If you want to train yourself up in Indesign, I recommend Lynda.com - they have some really helpful video courses there.
First conversion attempts! Failure. Total mess up!! I am going to leave the computer and go and reread all your instructions and see what I did wrong!
P.D.R. wrote: "First conversion attempts! Failure. Total mess up!! I am going to leave the computer and go and reread all your instructions and see what I did wrong!"Okay...
First Question - How did you check to see if the conversion worked, or not?
Second Question - Did you try to convert a WORD file or a WORD PERFECT file? Apparently WORD PERFECT uses a different file format.
In the meantime, I'll see if I can do a step-by-step and post it.
Converting DOCX to EPUB with Calibre Step-by-StepPre-conversion
1. Locate file on your computer and verify that it's .DOCX
a. Highlight the file name
b. Right click and select Properties in the Drop Down menu
c. On the General Tab, look for Type of File. This should say "Microsoft Word Document (.docx)"
Remember where you found the file.
Conversion Process
1. Open Calibre
2. At the far left of the Menu Bar at the top is a green rectangle with a plus sign on it. Underneath, it says 'Add books.' To the right of this green rectangle is a small down arrow (upside down triangle). Click on the down arrow.
3. The first entry in the Drop Down Menu is - Add books from a single directory. Click on this.
4. Locate the file you want to convert and click on it. There will be a small pop-up which states that it's reading the meta-data. When that goes away, the book file is added to the list.
NOTE - You newly added book file should be highlighted.
5. Locate the brown rectangle to the right of the green one in the Menu Bar. It has two curvy arrows on it and says 'Convert books' underneath. To the right of the brown rectangle is a small down arrow (upside down triangle).
6. Click on the down arrow.
7. The first entry in the drop down menu is 'Convert individually.' Click on this.
8. A new Window will pop-up.
a. At the top left, where it says 'Input format,' it should have DOCX.
b. At the top right, where it says 'Output format,' it should have EPUB.
c. Beneath that are the Title, Author, Author Sort, Publisher, Tags, Series. You can fill these if they're not already filled.
d. In the middle, it says 'Book cover' and will show your book cover image if the file has one. If it doesn't, then a default generic image will show.
9. At the bottom right of the window are two small boxes. One has a green checkmark and says OK. The other has a white X on a red circle and say Cancel.
10. Click on the OK box.
11. At the right bottom of the screen, it says 'Jobs.' has a number and a small circle. While doing the conversion, there will be an arrow pointing at Jobs, followed by the number one and the small circle revolving.
12. Wait. (It doesn't take long.)
13. When the conversion is finished, the big arrow goes away, the small circle stops revolving and the number after Jobs is 0 (zero).
14. Above where it says 'Jobs' is the book cover image. Beneath it is listed Authors - lists the author/authors names; Formats - lists the formats in which the book is available, in this case DOCX and EPUB; and Path - which says 'Click to Open.'
To check the conversion
1. In the list of books (center of screen) highlight the one you just converted.
2. In the Menu Bar locate a green rectangle with a pair of glasses on it. Underneath it says 'View.' Click on the rectangle.
3. A smaller window will pop-up with the selected book. At the top left of this window it will show the title of the book and format.
4. You can scroll down in this window to look at/read your book.
You're done.
The converted book will be in the Calibre library and you can access the files by going to the Calibre folder in My Documents.
Suggestion - Copy this and print it to make following the steps easier. I do have pictures of some of the steps, if clarification is needed. Since I know I can't directly post them here, I've been trying to get them loaded into Photobucket to post the links, but I've got one which won't load (yet). PM me with your email address if you'd like this Step-by-Step with the pictures and I'll send it.
Hope this helps.
Printed off. Many thanks. I really appreciate all your efforts. Will try on Monday, up to my eyes in Easter choir and services until then.
P.D.R. wrote: "Printed off. Many thanks. I really appreciate all your efforts. Will try on Monday, up to my eyes in Eater choir and services until then."Not a problem. Have a happy Easter.
I know there are some. Atlantis I believe one is called.
Anyone use one?
Anyone know a free one?
Anyone use one and have problems uploading their file?