Using Open Office and Calibre for Ebook Creation

In my book, How to Make an Ebook: Using Free Software, I detail a method for creating epub, mobi, and in the appendix, pdb ebooks. One of the ways to accomplish that was through using some Open Office Writer add-ons for the epub and pdb ebooks. You could also create those through using Calibre, but I found, at the time, that the conversion from Open Office's odt file to be a bit buggy when it came to graphics.

That has since improved, and I've also discovered some steps you can take to ensure a more accurate graphic representation. I will be updating the ebook in the near future. But wanted to get this modification out also on my blog for any that can use the information before I get the ebook updated. Here are the steps which are more simplified using this method, and avoids some of the bugs of the method in my book (like the epub add-on, you couldn't use apostrophes in the description field without the app crashing).

PDB Ebooks Easier Than Ever to Create

Out of the popular ebook formats, the hardest to create without buying an expensive program is the Ereader.com's pdb files. Epub has Calibre, prc/mobi has MobiCreator, but pdb only has Dropbook. Whereas the others take an html formatted file, easy to do from Open Office or Word, and creates an ebook in those formats, Dropbook requires that you take your book, add in the tags designating chapter headings, italics, bold, etc., and then save it as a text file and "drop" it into the box. If all your tags are valid, it will spit out a pdb file.

The difficulty of course comes in adding those tags into your book. You can do it manually, which is a lot of work. Or you can use search/replace actions in Word to add the tags around the needed text, which I've done in the past. Or if you're like me, you can create your own macro that will do it for you. But I've found something that even beats my macro for ease and less pdb tech knowledge needed, and it produces good results.

If there are other easier to use formats out there, why worry about this one? Aside from those who use devices that have pdb on it, it has a killer Windows desktop application. I like reading stories in it much better than most any other method, including Acrobat Reader, Word, or their equivalents. It is easier on the eyes and gives more of a "reading a book" feel than most ereaders you can download onto your computer. The Apple version may be good too, I don't know since I do use Apple. And most any smart phone can get a version of the ereader software to read books on those devices.

What is the solution, you may ask? It is an Open Office extension add-on. Here's the free software you'll need to pull off this deal:

1. Open Office


2. OO Extension: odt2pml


3. Dropbook


4. Graphic editing program like FastStone Image Viewer which can save in 256 color

Once installed, open the document you wish to convert in Open Office Writer. In your toolbars you should have the buttons which will do the conversions. It is called "odt2pml" in the toolbar view options. It shows four buttons.

Before you start, you will want to make sure that your book and chapter headings are all using the Heading 1, 2, or 3 style. Mark each chapter heading and select "Heading1" from the style drop down list on the top-left. If no style has been changed, you're likely to see "Default," but it could be anything depending on what program was used and what changes were made to the document.

If you have any graphics in the file, like a cover page, you'll want to click on the "Convert graphics" button. It will create the behind the scenes pml language needed to import it, and save a copy of the image in a sub-directory as needed for Dropbook to work. However, there is another step you'll need to do before you go farther.

Dropbook can't handle True Color graphics, which most are, and the graphic can't be too big. You'll need to use your favorite graphics editor to resize as needed, and save the images to a 256 color png image. Check your program's documentation on how to accomplish that, but if you downloaded FastStone linked above, here's how you would do it there.

1. Using a file browser, find the sub-directory where the document's images were stored by the image conversion button you pushed.


2. Open the image(s) in FastStone.


3. If your image is more than 200 px wide, move your cursor to the left side of the screen to bring up the menu, and select "Resize." Enter "200" or less in the "width" field, the length should change automatically to keep the image in proportion. Select OK and it will resize the picture.


4. From the same menu, select "Save as..."


5. In the dialog box that pops up, use the drop down box by "Type" to select saving it in the png format.


6. Click the "Options" button in the right-bottom corner of the dialog box.


7. In the window that opens, using the drop down box, change "24-bit" to "256 color". Click OK and then again in the Save as dialog box, telling it to overwrite the old file when it asks.


8. Do the same for each image in your directory.

Once that is done, it is a simple matter to click on the "Convert Text" button. Once it runs, you should see a file with the extension "pml" in the same directory as your Open Office document.

Now open Dropbook. Then drag the pml file created by the OO extension into the "box" in the program's window. If all goes well, you should end up with a file with the extension of pdb in the same directory as your documents. If you've downloaded the ereader.com's pdb ereader program, you can now double-click on the file and it will open up in the reader. You can then examine to see if the output was as expected.

And that's it. While that may look on the surface like several steps, it is tons less than most any other method than buying a program that will do it all for you. And it doesn't require you to learn anything about the "Palm Markup Language."

Setting up OO Writer to Write a Novel

I had another post on this topic, but forgot that in that post, I linked to the article of mine on another site. Not knowing when that site will go down and this article is my most popular post, I figured I had better post that article here.

This information is based upon Open Office version 2.3.

Open Office is a suite of software applications, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, and database. It is an "open source" application which for the end user means it is free to download and use on your computer. It rivals MS Office for ability, and on the whole does a good job of it, actually improving in some areas. You can download and read more about it at: http://www.openoffice.org/.

One of the cool things for authors is the ability to set up Open Office's Writer (the word processor) to accomplish many of the task novel writing software claims to make easier. Task like easily navigating in your document, quickly moving scenes or chapters, automatic renumbering of scenes and chapters, as well as document wide task like saving to a Word doc file, printing, formatting, find/replace, etc.

However, it takes a little setting up to accomplish these task. But it is time well spent before beginning a big project like a novel.

Setting up styles

The first thing to do will be to set up some styles. There are three paragraph styles you will need. Novel Body, Chapter, and Scene.

Novel Body:

This should be the style the body of your text will be in. Naturally, you would want this to be in "Standard Submission" format. Open the "Style and Formatting" box by hitting the F11 button, or in the menu, "Format," "Styles and Formatting." A window box will pop open listing various styles.

1. Right-click on a default style, like "Text body" and select "New".


2. Give your new style a name, replacing the "Untitled" name it gives, such as "Novel Body" or whatever you prefer.


3. Select a font from the "Font" tab like "Courier New" and make it 12 point.


4. Select the "Indents and Spacing" tab, set the first line indent to "0.5" and the line spacing to "double."


5. Click "OK" and your new style has been created.

Chapter:

Do the same as above, right-clicking on "Heading 2". Modify this to select the font of your choice, you can left set it or center it. But in the "Organizer" tab, give it the name, "Chapter" and set "Novel Body" (or whatever name you gave it above) to be the next style used after pressing enter. In the "Indents and Spacing" tab make sure all indents are 0.0. Click "OK".

Scene:

How you set up the scene style depends on how you intend to use it. The most common way would be to set it up as a heading, which will work for most functions.

In the "Styles and Formatting" box, right-click the heading style you would like to show scene headings as (recommend Heading 3), and select "New." Give it the name in the "Organizer" tab as "Scene" and select "Novel Body" in the "Next style" field. Make any other adjustments necessary and then click "OK" to save this style. If scene headings are going to be printed out, you will probably want to set this as italics and centered.

You will be able to show either scene headers you type like, "The beast rips him apart," or you can simply show numbered scenes that will change automatically if you move them. Once you are ready to print, but don't want to print those as headings, you right-click the style in the "Style and Formatting" box, and select "Modify." Then "Font Effects" and click the "hidden" box in the lower-right corner. Once you click "OK" those headers will not print out. Remove that check to once again show them.

If you are going to use the first paragraph of each scene as it's "marker," then right-click the "Novel Body" style we created at the top and select "New." Simply give it the name "Scene" and select "Novel Body" as the "Next" text to pop up. The first paragraph of each scene will have this style.

Setting up Header Hierarchy

Now that the styles are set up, it is time to make them part of the heading outline. Click "Tools" in the menu, and then, "Outline numbering." In the "Level" window on the left, select "1". In the center drop down box, select the "Chapter" paragraph style we created earlier. In the "Number" drop down box, select "1, 2, 3..." from the list. In the "Before" field, enter "Chapter " with the space on the end. Leave it blank if you only want the chapter number to show up, but no additional text.

Now in the "Level" window, click "2". Select "Scene" from the paragraph style drop down list. If you want them automatically numbered, select "1, 2, 3..." in the "Number" drop down box. If you want "Scene" for a title, in the "Before" field enter "Scene " with the space on the end. In the "After" field, enter a ":" or whatever you might want.

You have set up your outline headers so that Chapter and Scene paragraph styles point to a level in the outline and will show up in the Navigator as well as automatically reflect numbering based on what order they are in the document.

Saving for future use:

Naturally, you'll want to save this so you can use it anytime. If you have these styles set up as you want them, and there is no text in the Writer document at the time, save this as a template.

Click in the menu "File," "Templates," and "Save." Click on "My Templates" to save there, and give the new template a name, like "Novels".

When you want to start a new novel file, click on the drop down arrow to the right of the new button and select "Templates and Documents". Select "Novels" from the "My Templates" folder and click "OK" to open a file. Your novel styles will be available for use, without affecting Writer's standard defaults.

Using the styles for writing a novel

To make use of the new setup, open the Navigator window in your document if not already open. This shows up as a compass looking graphic in the tool bar, or you can click "Edit" and "Navigator," or hit F5. If the window is floating, you can dock it by dragging it to a side. If you can't see it, make sure the right side of the Navigator box isn't slid all the way to the left by clicking on a handle and dragging the window open. You should see a list of several items, the first one being "Headings" which we are interested in. Open it up far enough so you can see the four boxes on the far right of the window's toolbar that allow for movement of the pieces. They look like "text" with arrows beside them going up or down, right or left.

Now, you can either begin writing a novel, outlining, or you can take a novel you have already started and prep it.

Outlining:

To outline, start with a synopsis. Type that out first. You can start with a small one, and build to a larger one. You can even detail out characters here if you wish, for easy future reference.

On the first chapter, click F11 and double-click the "Chapter" style. You will see the "Chapter 1" appear, centered and formatted as you set up. You can either leave it at that, or hit enter, then give the chapter a title by using a standard header style, like Header 2. Center if need be.

Below that, summarize the plot point(s) this chapter should fill. Once done, hit enter, and then do this over for the next chapter.

Once done, you can go back to the top to detail out each scene if you so desire. Click under the chapter summary/plot point. Hit F11 and double-click the "Scene" style. Type out any heading desired, or just a summary of that scene's plot point.

Just write it!

If you're the type that just starts writing, when you are ready to begin the first chapter, hit F11, and double-click the "Chapter" style. The Chapter and # will appear automatically. Hit enter.

Then click F11, and double-click "Scene". If set, it will automatically pop in the scene number and text in. You can then enter a header, or if set for it, the first paragraph of your scene. Then type away.

Next scene comes up, do the same thing. Next chapter, double-click on the "Chapter" style. Once used in your document, you can also see them in the style drop down box in the toolbar that is opened by default in Open Office Writer.

As an added tip, you can also set in the "Text Flow" tab of the style, to automatically start a new page at each chapter. Hit F11, right-click "Chapter" style and select "Modify." Select the "Text Flow" tab, and check the "Insert" box in the "Break" section. Make sure "Page" is in the next drop down box, and "Before" in the far right one. Now when you double-click the Chapter style, it will add in a new page as well as the text with automatic number formatting.

Import it:

This is a more tedious process. Open your novel in OO Writer. Hit Ctrl-A to mark all text in the document. Double-click the "Novel Body" style in the style window, and all the text will be changed to the standard submission format.

Now, go through your novel and apply the Chapter and Scene styles to the appropriate spots. You may need to delete chapter number info if you have manually entered it before.

Navigating and Moving Text

Now that you have done this work, you should see in the Navigator, under "Headings" a list of the chapters and scenes in an outline format. If you do not, make sure you have the "Display" set to show at least 2 levels, but safest to set it for all ten.

To go to a scene in the Navigator, double-click on that scene. You are now there.

To move a scene or chapter, select that scene or chapter. Unfortunately, within a document, you cannot use the "drag and drop" method to move things around (even though the help file says you can, you can't, maybe someday). Instead, you must use the buttons at the top of the Navigator window. They are square text boxes with arrows pointing up and down. If you have the tips turned on, it will call them "Promote a chapter" and "Demote a chapter." By clicking on the button with the arrow going down, it moves your scene or chapter one section down. Likewise, the up arrow moves it up. Click on it enough times till it is where you want it.

You will notice that automatic scene or chapter numbers will adjust as you move it around. This effectively allows you to shuffle pieces any way you want within your document.

And since this is all one document (not chapters in individual files), you can easily get a word count for the whole project, or do a find/replace if you need to change something over the whole project, set formatting for printing, etc. Anything you can do in a regular OO Writer document, you can do here because that is what this is.

The down side is if you want a word count of a section in the middle of your novel. Or if your publisher/agent wants one chapter of your novel sent to them. It means first marking the section in question, and then running a word count, or doing a copy/paste into a new document to save separately.

You can get a word count of a chapter fairly easily if it is the last chapter in your document. When ready, double-click on the chapter in the Navigator. Hold down the "Ctrl-Shift" keys and hit "End". It will mark the chapter to the end of the document. Then run the word count.

You can use the master document feature in OO Writer, which has its benefits. You can drag and drop the chapters to move them around, but creating scenes in it becomes cumbersome because you will either have a separate file for each scene or keep the scenes in each chapter file, which means to move scenes between chapters requires a mark, cut and paste operation. If scenes are in each chapter file, it also means you lose the detailed "overview" of your whole project, chapters and scenes, that you get with it all in one document.

However, the automatic numbering will still work for chapters in the master document. Within a chapter file, it will always say "Chapter 1" but in the master document, they will be numbered according to their position.

In the master document, you can also easily edit the chapter file (each chapter is its own separate file) and get a word count of just that chapter, or send the file to someone who wants that one chapter without any fuss. The downside to it, is it is harder to move scenes from one chapter to another, and there are restrictions on what you can do in a master document. (You can't save it to one large file, for instance without the master document "features," but have to copy/paste the whole document into a regular Writer file.)

Some of the duplication here is a bit crude, like story plotting and character notes. You may find it easier to keep track of those either in another Writer file, or other application like Excel or a database. But this can give you a free, novel-writing application with the flexibility of the big boys, but with a full featured word processor (unlike many of them). Just a little time investment to set it up.