iPhone 101: iPhone+Stanza+Calibre (the almost-perfect solution)

[Clytie]

I have weird but good news. Today, after reading tyche's reply, and after my many failed attempts mentioned earlier in this thread, I opened Stanza on my iPhone to create a book source for Calibre.

The "books in calibre" item showed as before, and I clicked on it... and it instantly showed my Calibre catalog. The speed is particularly impressive, since I have over 2500 items in Calibre currently.

I have no idea why it suddenly started working today, but I'm pleased it is. Puzzled, but pleased.

[dorino]

Originally Posted by hel22

so, i have no wifi, is there or isnt there a way to put my ebooks on my itouch with usb??

If you are jailbroken, there is. iPhoneBrowser for windows (it has mac, linux counterparts somewhere) will do that... Not convenient though!

[scottjl]

Originally Posted by hel22

so, i have no wifi, is there or isnt there a way to put my ebooks on my itouch with usb??

if you can put iOS 4.0 on it in a few weeks you'll get iBooks as well and can load up epub documents through itunes.

[dorino]

"The iOS 4 Software Update works with the second- and third-generation iPod touch."

I'm a second gen, I'll have to get it when I have the cash.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by dorino

"The iOS 4 Software Update works with the second- and third-generation iPod touch."

I'm a second gen, I'll have to get it when I have the cash.

It is free, even for Touch users.

[los]

so i just downloaded the Dark Tower series by Stephen King and im dying to put it on my iPhone. My only problem is that they are .doc files and i know they don't play too well with the stanza/calibre combo. does anyone know how i might be able to add them in?

if not, is there a place where i can get the e book versions for free?

thanks for any help in advance.

[RoninTech]

Originally Posted by los

so i just downloaded the Dark Tower series by Stephen King and im dying to put it on my iPhone. My only problem is that they are .doc files and i know they don't play too well with the stanza/calibre combo. does anyone know how i might be able to add them in?

Drag and drop them into calibre and press the convert button to convert them to epub. Read here for details if you can't figure it out.

Originally Posted by los

if not, is there a place where i can get the e book versions for free?

thanks for any help in advance.

Wow, that's pretty brazen of you. I don't think this forum wants to be used as a place to discuss the pirating of books.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by los

so i just downloaded the Dark Tower series by Stephen King and im dying to put it on my iPhone. My only problem is that they are .doc files and i know they don't play too well with the stanza/calibre combo. does anyone know how i might be able to add them in?

if not, is there a place where i can get the e book versions for free?

thanks for any help in advance.

MobileRead does not condone eBook piracy. If you enjoy reading, please support eBook stores by buying books, not obtaining them from illegal sources.

[los]

Originally Posted by HarryT

MobileRead does not condone eBook piracy. If you enjoy reading, please support eBook stores by buying books, not obtaining them from illegal sources.

Apologies. didn't mean to be so upfront about it. It's just a bit difficult as a student to buy all the books i would want to read.


thanks for the info ronin. greatly appreciated.

[los]

Ronin, Last question:

I tried converting the .doc file to epub and i got this message:

Could not convert some books: Could not convert 1 of 1 books, because no suitable source format was found.

is there a step that i was missing? what should i do?

[RoninTech]

Originally Posted by los

Ronin, Last question:

I tried converting the .doc file to epub and i got this message:

Could not convert some books: Could not convert 1 of 1 books, because no suitable source format was found.

is there a step that i was missing? what should i do?

Yeah, you missed the "Read here for details if you can't figure it out" step. It has the answer here.

[los]

Originally Posted by RoninTech

Yeah, you missed the "Read here for details if you can't figure it out" step. It has the answer here.

ha, i thought i read all of it. so i was able to convert, i just cant figure out how to add it to stanza now. I tried to add a book source straight from the iphone but it didnt work.... i'm not too technically inclined....

[los]

This is what I did:

* Set the Preferred Output Format in calibre to EPUB (The output format can be set under Preferences->General)
* Set the output profile to iPad (this will work for iPhone/iPods as well), under Preferences->Conversion->Page Setup
* Convert the books you want to read on your iPhone to EPUB format by selecting them and clicking the Convert button.
* Turn on the Content Server in calibre‘s preferences and leave calibre running.

Then I put in the url with my ip address and it still doesnt work. Do i need to use stanza desktop??

[Gabtar]

I have hundreds of books and documents I wanted on my Ipod. They were in TXT, DOC, DOCX, RTF, HTML, LIT, PRC and PDF formats. I converted the TXT, DOC, DOCX, RTF to HTML using Open Office "SAVE AS" and configuring Open Office to save the HTML file with Unicode-8. I then dragged them straight into Calibre. I dragged the LITs, PRCs and PDFs straight into Calibre. Calibre will read TXT and RTF natively, but I found I achieved a better result by taking the intermediate step of converting to Unicode-8.

I then went through them all and edited the meta data, then converted them to EPUB.

They all kept their formatting, but lost any Table of Contents I had, but short of learning how to edit EPUBs directly I can live with that.

Then I went to ITunes and used the ADD FOLDER option to point to my Calibre directory and all its subdirectories. I then synced my Ipod and I could read them using iBooks.

If I wanted to use STANZA I went to ITunes APP page for my Ipod and scrolled down to the Stanza section and added the books manually. Next sync they were there. Simple.

I'm using Windows Vista with Calibre .77, OS 4 on my IPod Touch 32Gb and Itunes 9.2.

I also found that if I edit the meta data of an EPUB, including adding bookcovers, and then reconvert the EPUBs a 2nd time to EPUB in Calibre, overwriting the original file, then ITunes and iBooks will read it all.

[optimus]

i use ifunbox to copy the entire app directory then if i loose my content i simply install stanza from appstore and overwrite the new install folder with the old one works like a charm