eBookwise: IMP vs. RB files

[Jack B Nimble]

So, I finally ordered my eBookwise this weekend. I was going through the Fictionwise store afterwards, and it asked for my preferred default format. Well, everything I had read said I wanted IMP, so I felt pretty confident as I pulled down the menu, only to find there were two IMPs to choose from: half-VGA and full-.

I did not know at the time that some of the old Rockets were full VGA, so I wrote in to ask which I wanted and what the difference was since I did not think they were pre-paginated -- I figured the difference was just the embedded images. Since doing the research on the other Rocket models, I am convinced that the images are the only difference.

Now, however, I have received my email reply from Fictionwise, and they tell me, for the eBookwise I should download the RB file...? I knew the eBw could handle RB files, but I thought IMPs were better, then I realized I don't really know what the difference is. Can anyone tell me? Is there an advantage to IMP over RB? I do know that IMP files need to be expanded after they are downloaded, does the same apply to RB?

Any info would be appreciated! Also, any advice for a new eBw owner in general.

Jack

[Jadon]

The eBookwise 1150 unit only reads IMP files, hence the eBookwise site only selling IMPs. While you can use the Librarian to convert RB or other formats to IMP, if you're satisfied with the IMPs the way the site makes them, there's no point to an extra step, and Grayscale Half-VGA (GEB 1150) is what you want.

If you're not satisfied with pre-made IMPs, then I'd think MultiFormat a better default, more easily edited to a style you like. Personally, I only ever bought one story, just to test my registration. I find the defauly font in pre-made IMPs too small, and the margins a waste of screen space. Most stuff I get elsewhere and edit to my standards, then make portrait-text IMPs in Librarian at the largest font setting, or landscape-image IMPs in BookDesigner with an even larger font.

[Jack B Nimble]

Thanks for the reply.

I have to say, the Fictionwise support people have me pretty confused. When I responded to their email, theytold me pretty much the opposite of what you said -- they say the IMP has to be handled by the Librarian software, but the RB file can be dropped directly onto the memory card with no extra step.

Obviously, I'll have to do some experimentation... hope it gets here soon!

Jack

[Liviu_5]

I never bought encrypted imp from eBookwise, but I bought a lot of multiformat books from Fictionwise, and the imp (half-VGA) is ok most of the time regarding font and margins.

If you have the librarian software the best conversion in my opinion is from .opf, and them from rtf. Conversions from txt work poorly so I always make txt files rtf in wordpad, and from html, sometimes work, sometimes do not, so again I usually make them rtf, though it's true that sometimes the html converts nicer directly. I never converted from rb.

Also you can make landscape image books (half page A4 scans work nicely), with jpg's at reduced quality for space purposes embedded in html.

I guess you gotta experience and see what works for you, but given the pixel screen size limitation Ebookwise is a pretty good device, very fast, searching/bookmarks work well and navigation is the best of anything I've ever used to e-read. I have no idea why more modern devices are stuck with slow or slower navigation...

Liviu

[Moonraker]

I have to say, the Fictionwise support people have me pretty confused. When I responded to their email, theytold me pretty much the opposite of what you said -- they say the IMP has to be handled by the Librarian software, but the RB file can be dropped directly onto the memory card with no extra step

.

I drag and drop my IMP files directly onto the SM storage card and then put the card into the EBW1150. The Librarian software is not needed for this.

If you are converting your own content you will need the software in order to make the IMP files. For this I use eBook Publisher from eBook Technologies inc (It is free). I have experimented with various formats but I find RTF the best format to use when making IMP files.

I obtain content in different formats such as HTML or TXT but I always convert these to RTF before converting to the imp format. I find this gives me the best result with no strange characters appearing on the EBW. This way you can also adjust the font size to suit your eyesight.

When making the IMP file with eBook Publisher you can edit the .odf file during the process to accomodate narrower margins, running headers etc.

The eBook Publisher settings I use are Greyscale Half-VGA, and view with Large and Small Font. This will provide you with an IMP file that, when read on the EBW, can have its font size made larger or smaller.

[Jack B Nimble]

Great! Thanks for the advice.

It should be here in the next day or so, so this weekend will be a good time for experimentation.

Thanks to everyone!

Jack

[roncri]

Originally Posted by Moonraker

.

I drag and drop my IMP files directly onto the SM storage card and then put the card into the EBW1150. The Librarian software is not needed for this.

If you are converting your own content you will need the software in order to make the IMP files. For this I use eBook Publisher from eBook Technologies inc (It is free). I have experimented with various formats but I find RTF the best format to use when making IMP files.

I obtain content in different formats such as HTML or TXT but I always convert these to RTF before converting to the imp format. I find this gives me the best result with no strange characters appearing on the EBW. This way you can also adjust the font size to suit your eyesight.

When making the IMP file with eBook Publisher you can edit the .odf file during the process to accomodate narrower margins, running headers etc.

The eBook Publisher settings I use are Greyscale Half-VGA, and view with Large and Small Font. This will provide you with an IMP file that, when read on the EBW, can have its font size made larger or smaller.

That's great Moonraker. I've just ordered mine today and have a bunch of Baen eBooks waiting for it already in RTF.

[nrapallo]

As stated almost two years ago by Moonraker, it is easy to convert from .rtf to .imp, though I personally rarely have.

Recently, I found a posting about this same topic (and share it below):

How to Create eBook Files for the ETI-2.
Note: the last comment by Monty below has a lot of good advice!

The following post is related to the eBook Technologies ETI-2 (also known as the eBookwise reader), and has nothing to do with anything else on this site. I'm posting this under "stuff that's hard to figure out yourself". So for anyone using this eBook, these are the simple instructions you need to get your content on your device.

Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to turn your text and html files into a format your eBook can understand. This method requires the eBook Publisher software (freeware, version 2.2.5) from eBook Technologies and a SmartMedia card with card reader, GEB/eBookwise Librarian or Impserve.

Step 1: Open your text document in Word (or other processor), and save in Rich Text Format (.rtf). This is just a text document that supports little formatting, but makes a good translation to the eBook format. So make your text document look proper here first.

Step 2: Run eBook Publisher. Select menu 'File' then 'New Project'.

Step 3: In the drop-down box next to 'Build Target:', select 'Grayscale Half-VGA'.

Step 4: Select menu 'File' then 'Save' to save your project. Give the project a file name in the same folder as your .rtf document. The project file ends with .opf

Step 5: Select menu 'File' then 'Import.'. Browse to your .rtf document and open it. You will then be asked to save it as an .odf file. Give this file a name, and save it in your project folder with your other files. This file will automatically add it to your project, and be listed under `Spline Items' on the main window.

Step 6: Select menu 'Project' then 'Build Edition.'. In the 'Edition Settings' window, the first tab is called 'Edition Info'. Here you can uncheck 'Require ISBN', and enter a title, author and language for your content (the other fields can be ignored). Next go to the 'Bookstore' tab to change the 'Bookshelf Category' - this will control what group the eBook is listed under on your ETI-2. Next in the 'Build Options' tab, uncheck 'Encrypt', but leave 'Compress' and 'Underline links' checked. Hit 'Ok', and select your project folder to save the eBook.

Step 7: If there are no errors, you will have an .imp file in your project folder. Send this file to your SmartMedia card's root, and place the card back in your eBook or use GEB/eBookwise Librarian or Impserve.

That's it.. a bit involved, but it works well. And the next time I forget how to do it, I can just look on my webpage. If this actually helps anyone, or you know a faster way, leave a comment.

September 26th, 2006 | Category: Hard to Find, eBooks |

4 Comments so far
Terri
February 13th, 2007 | 8:48 pm
Hey there,
Thanks for your post! It helped me a ton. I have the ebookwise reader and have been having a hard time with formating text.

Thanks again!

PS Any other info you have I would love to see.

peter
February 13th, 2007 | 9:08 pm
Terri,
Glad that it helped you. It took me a couple days to figure that much out, so I wrote it up for others. WRT formatting, I haven't tried to do anything more complicated than taking plain text and applying a font.

Free Ebooks
June 27th, 2008 | 7:52 am
Can you write this post with some helpful screen images for each step.
Thanks


Monty
July 15th, 2008 | 5:10 am
hi there,

three years ago I bought the ebookwise reader - and still having my fun with it but some little things are not so good as they can be (i.e. room for improvement):

a) the best way to display a cover image is to put it before a page break in the rtf and to change the line in the .odf-file like this:
the size of 290x440pix is the best to show in a cover; filling the page (or any other image in a file!)

b) when you have some indirect speaches in it, beginning/ending with > and < the conversion put them into » and « to prevent this you can search/replace the > < in the rtf-file and put an # before it.
then you take the .odf-file ("edit" in the ebookpublisher) and replace the #&raquo and #&laquo (double quotes) with &rsaquo and &lsaquo (single quotes)

(this can be done with a little word-macro - copy the text from the .odf in word, start the macro and copy the text back)

when you want to see some examples, look at public.box.net/imp-archiv - there are my personal books i converted in the last years (sorry, that they are all in German - but I'm from Germany :-))

- The fontsize and -style in the book depends from the size of the fonts in the rtf:
For me the best reading size is Times 12 or 13, smaller than 11 changes the font (I don't use smaller sizes) and 14 or higher, I use for headlines.

Sans Serif-Fonts, like Arial, I use in size 11 - it's too big to display on the ebookwise (useful only for headlines). So I convert every book I make in Times, normal Text in 12 or 13 pt size, headlines/chapters a little bigger, the title page like the original. (empty lines I delete or put in, so that the text fits the page.)

- Before you convert a book into imp, you can put your own category on the "edition settings" - click the tab "Bookstore" and type a bookshelf category of your choice (Crime, SF, Fantasy.) in the first field. After the book is converted, in the ebookreader, you will see the different categories and have a little bit more "sorting" in your book :-))

The converting first into rtf is very good - it results in a much smaller and faster build than from word .doc/.html.

If you create not only a *.imp but also an *.oeb, you can use it to also make some *.rb for Rocket-users or *.imp for ETI-1 (color) devices - or you can upload it to the "personal content" site at ebookwise. (but uploaded files can't be bigger than 2 MB; BTW, self-converted has no size-limit.)

[thunderchild]

Just done this and it works a treat! Thanks for the heads up!

[spear]

You can do the native IMP format from fictionwise, which allows you to connect thru the net via telephone line directly into your EBW (or is that only thru the Ebookwise specific site? I get confused), which I have done. However I like to download in the RB format then convert via the librarian because it allows me to put in a category for each book before putting on the EBW reader. I have created standard categories for my books, and this allows me to sort all of my books on the reader for easier access.

[sassanik]

I normally just download the half-vga imp format from fictionwise.

I edit the categories later in my librarian program.

Sometimes the font is a bit small for me, so I just use the enlarge font button on my eb1150. It seems to work good for me.

I like having alittle bit of space at the margins. If there is no space at the edge I am always worried that I am missing some words, even if it is not true.

Amy