I’ve published the script that I’ve been using personally for quite some time to make plain text files that were preformatted to specific page width nicely reflowable on Kindle and other eBook readers (I’ve tested it with Sony PRS-505). It can also strip any HTML tags and convert between character encodings.
This should make downloading books from websites like lib.ru and gutenberg.org easier for some for some people. More information about how to use the tool as well as download link can be found here.
I’ve also created a summary page for all Kindle hacks and tools that I currently know of. Feel free to let me know if some information needs to be added to updated.
Thank you! I can’t wait to try this out!
Thank you for publishing the conversion tool. This is by far the easiest way to download content from lib.ru. My previous approach (that I came up with using trial and error) was:
1) open file in Microsoft Word
2) convert .docx to .pdf
3) send .pdf file to Amazon
4) download .azw
As you can see, it was a pain in the neck! Using you tool, I just converted a couple of dozen books in half an hour. Thanks again!
Do you know how to generate table of contents in Kindle documents? I believe the texts on lib.ru include some named <a> tags for that purpose, but I’m not sure how to make it Kindle-friendly.
I’ve seen you mention lib.ru several times but I’ve yet to see anyone bring up lib.rus.ec. I’m fairly sure that the creator of the wonderful blog and the great unifonts hack (THANKS!) knows about lib.rus.ec’s HUGE selection of Russian books but I thought I’d bring it up.
The books can be downloaded in numerous formats, the easiest thing to do to use them on the Kindle is to download books in .fb2 and then use Calibre to convert them to .mobi. The formatting of books with Calibre is nothing short of fantastic (you get annotations, pictures, it auto-generates a table of contents, formatting of the text itself is superb).
I’m really not sure why anyone would use lib.ru when lib.rus.ec seems to be far superior in every conceivable way =)
(The only other thing I would recomment is to use Word to do a Find & Replace « » that are often seen in Russian books with “” since the Kindle’s unifont hack doesn’t seem to be able to display them)
I wasn’t aware of the named tags. Since this tool produces plain text files there is no way for it embed table of contents.
With this information in mind I’ll look into converting lib.ru books to azw though lib.ru might do such a conversion themselves.
@Vic: I have to admit – I never heard about lib.rus.ec before. I tried your approach of downloading .fb2 files and converting them to .mobi and it worked perfectly well. Lib.ru and its preformatted text files are indeed very old-fashioned, I just never realized there was a better alternative.
Thanks for the tip!