Review: Mobi Pocket Publisher
Score:
70%
Version Reviewed: 1.x
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This is a free application that enables you to create eBooks that can be read using Mobipocket Reader on Epoc32/PocketPC/Palm palmtops, and on windoze PCs with an emulator. To be honest I glimpsed at this in the application list before I did my review of Mobipocket for the 9210, and tried it out after discovering that the mass of loose .txt and .htm files on my MMC were hell to look through. After trying it I had to do a review of how amazing it really is.
Installation:
Standard windoze installation, you download the executable, run it and it puts the files in the right place. Nice apart from having no say as to whether or not it dumps and icon on your desktop (I like to keep mine empty).
Starting The Program:
I must say that look at this screen for the first time made me close the program as I couldn't glance at it to get an idea of how to use it.
Clicking new brought up the next dialog box, on which I selected the default.opf option. Once done a dialog box I understood came up asking for a title and author to be entered, and where I wanted any working files kept.
Once that data in entered another mostly blank screen appears, which will show a list of files used in your publication. The constituent parts on an eBook are all HTML files, and only the basic HTML tags are used. For easy generation, my collection of the "Bastard Operator From Hell" HTML files were used.
Once populated it's on to making a table of contents. This can be very easily generated from your HTML documents as it parses the text and retrieves the content of tags that you specify in order to get a table of contents. It takes a few seconds, and saves you generating the list yourself. To start it, click on the "Table Of Contents" folder and then click on "Create New Table Of Contents". This starts up another straightforward wizard. In my example I chose the "First Level Tag" to be <H1> (which is the header of each HTML file), and the "Second Level Tag" to be <H2> (which is the title of each episode within the HTML files). I then let it generate the contents table and it retrieved a nice list.
This is then translated into the contents page shown below.
Once generated there was just the optional task of giving the book a front cover which is a simple picture file. The one used here is from the paperback book of the "Bastard Operator From Hell".
Once done the eBook only needs to be published, and to do that just click the Publish button in the toolbar, or select it in the Publish menu. This is again a very simple wizard and as it has no complex options I haven't included screenshots here. Now you can test the eBook in the luxury of the Mobipocket Emulator, I use the Psion Series 5 option as it has the same screen size as the 9210 so I get a good idea of how the eBook will come out.
Advanced Features:
It does even more than so far described too! You have the option to import from Plain Text files, M$ Word documents, M$ PowerPoint documents, and Rich Text Format files. These imported files are all converted by Mobipocket into HTML files. I have found the converter to not be up to my standard, with a few formatting errors, although they haven't taken more than a few seconds in Notepad to edit out.
Generation of the Contents Table from imported files is not the automatic process it is with normal HTML files, you will have to apply tags round your section titles (commonly various header tags) to have the generator pick them up. Otherwise if you are up to the task, you can let it generate a blank Contents Table and you can edit the HTML in that (which means you edit one file instead of lots) adding hyperlinks to the file, pointing to your target pages. If you are not fluent in HTML, there are plenty of WYSIWYG HTML editors available on various download sites as Freeware and Shareware, otherwise if you can afford to shell out a bit I'd recommend Macromedia Dreamweaver. Just don't get M$ Frontpage, it isn't worth it ;). I use Notepad myself, and that's what I'm writing this review in now.
There is also the extra option of exporting to M$ LIT files for use with M$ Reader, a program I've not heard about myself, but I'm guessing it's a similar thing to Mobipocket Reader. (Rafe's note: Standard program on the PPC platform and also available for desktop windows, there are large collections of .LIT files available on the internet (just try typing it in to a search engine).
Marks.
Installation: 19/20 (I don't want an icon on the desktop)
Graphics: 16/20 (It's quite pretty for what it is actually)
Use-ability: 19/20 (Simple to pick up and use, advanced functions are presented in a way that a complete fool could use. A brilliant app.)
Total: 90%
The Final Word:
A clean app, easy to use and is damn useful. The generated eBooks are almost half the size of the HTML files going into it. With 2 days of use this program has saved me lots of space on my 9210, and helped provide fast and easy access to documents I carry round on the 9210 and often have to view in the web browser or after a hunt through the eDocs section on the eBook Reader. Definitely worthy of the Premier Program Award that the Reader has, the Mobipocket boys have made software I will be definitely be using the whole time I own a 9210.
Reviewed by Dazler Dazler at