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).

How to Make an Ebook: Step 6 – Creating the MOBI Ebook and Uploading toAmazon

If it wasn't for Amazon adopting this format for the Kindle, we wouldn't bother creating this file format. It is used on some other minor ereaders that have been used in the past, but when a modified version of it was adopted to use on the Kindle back in 2007, it suddenly became an important ebook format to have in one's list. Not necessarily because the "Kindle Direct Publishing" requires this format to upload a book into their service, but because if you sell directly, people can "side-load" this file onto their Kindle and read it. Between the EPUB and the MOBI formats, you are covering the main two ereaders people use most, and the bulk of non-dedicated ereader devices.

As of this writing, Amazon has recently announced their new line of Kindles, including the Kindle Fire, which is planned to be updated to use HTML5 instead of the MOBI format. It will be able to handle graphics for children's books and the like better than the MOBI format. As that develops and gets implemented, I plan on updating this book to include creating ebooks in that format. However, according to Amazon, the updated ereaders will be backwards compatible. Which means the files you create now will still be readable on the newer devices, and they will still be able to read files loaded on them in the MOBI format. For text-only books, there will be little loss to worry about updating then into the HTML5 format when it comes out.