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New Update to The Keep - New EBook Support!

Ed_NBOSEd_NBOS
edited February 2013 in The Keep General
Hi All,

There's a new update, 1.10d, available for The Keep:

http://www.nbos.com/nox/index.php?action=1001&id=422

This new build of the Keep can export text and image topics to EPUB formatted eBooks, for reading on eReaders and tablets such as the Nook, iPad, Sony Reader, and the Kindle (with further processing). This support is experimental! As such, this is considered a Beta release - you should only download this if this new feature appeals to you.

I dont have access to a wide variety of eReaders, so if you do create eBooks with the Keep, please let me know how they work on the devices you try them on.

Covers
You can assign a cover image by placing an image entry as the first 'child' under the root topic. The first image entry found will be used as the ebook cover. So your book should look like this:



Tables
Be aware that table rendering on most eReaders is fairly rudimentary, so topics with complex or wide tables may not display well.

Fonts
The eBooks created by the Keep ignore the base selected font you have assigned (though bolding and other formatting still apply). Most eReader devices ignore font faces anyways, and use their own built in fonts.

Metadata
Titles and Authors are required by the file format. Books without them may not load in eReaders. The book id will be generated for you if you leave the field blank. Though if on the remote chance you happen to have an isbn for your book, you can assign that as the id.

Kindles
The Kindle, unlike most eReaders, does not support the EPUB format. But Amazon has a tool called KindleGen which will convert an EPUB book into a .Mobi book for use on the Kindle. I have not tried the conversion process yet, but if you do let me know how it goes. You should also be able to email your .epub book to your kindle's email address, and the conversion will be done automatically.

PDF's, Maps, and others
The Keep can only export Text entries (including log entries) and images into EPUB books. Maps, PDFs, Character Sheets, and other types of entries will not be exported. They will simply be ignored. There's no intention to have it support PDF's, as thats simply not a document type epub supports, but I may expand the support to maps and character sheets in the future (by converting them to images first).

Comments

  • JohnTaberJJohnTaber
    Hi Ed: I'm not sure how to put this and not come off wrong so I am just gonna put it out there...

    I was kinda disappointed by this post. There is this huge list of 2.0 features most of which would help anyone using the Keep but instead you guys do a release for people who want to use The Keep with an eReader. That has got to be a smaller subset of an already small set of people who use The Keep. I guess I would have spent precious development time on some of those other more general improvements... :cry:

    I realize there might be other reasons for this release...just wanted you to know my take...
  • Ed_NBOSEd_NBOS
    This update isnt version 2.0. Its a proof of concept for functionality intended to be included in 2.0 and other projects. Dont read any more into it than that. But since it was a discreet piece of functionality that needed to be implemented early on in Keep 2.0's development for a number of reasons, I didnt see a particular reason not to make it available to people who might want to try it in v1.0. This way I can gather feedback on the experimental feature, so that by the time v2.0 comes out, any major problems can be addressed.
  • JohnTaberJJohnTaber
    Ed_NBOS wrote:
    This update isnt version 2.0. Its a proof of concept for functionality intended to be included in 2.0 and other projects. Dont read any more into it than that. But since it was a discreet piece of functionality that needed to be implemented early on in Keep 2.0's development for a number of reasons, I didnt see a particular reason not to make it available to people who might want to try it in v1.0. This way I can gather feedback on the experimental feature, so that by the time v2.0 comes out, any major problems can be addressed.

    Thanks for the details. Gotcha. :)
  • esmaleeesmale
    Hi Ed,

    I'm experimenting with this feature, particularly for use in exporting rulesets (as opposed to campaign notes).

    I don't own an eBook device - can you suggest an eBook viewer for the PC?

    Cheers,
  • Ed_NBOSEd_NBOS
    Hi Erin,

    I've been testing it with:

    Adobe Digital Editions
    Sony Reader for PC
    Barnes & Noble Nook for PC
    Barnes & Noble Nook for Android

    Kobo is also another popular reader, though I havent installed it yet.

    Ed
  • erroneousgrogeerroneousgrog
    I think this is a great addition to anyone who is interested in self publishing their own material.

    I noticed one thing, on export to epub if a page has more than one embedded graphic it will use only one and repeat it several times. I cut and pasted a bunch of small images from my clipboard into the text in TK. I only get one image for all of them.

    I had put a carriage return between paragraphs in TK but that results in extra spaces between paras in the ePub. It puts <p class="sgc-3"><br /></p> between the paras which is only natural since the line was blank. Note to self, clean that up in TK first!

    I used Sigil to look at the ePub and edit it.

    I used Calibre to view the ePub.
  • erroneousgrogeerroneousgrog
    Hi Ed,

    Here's some more feedback for you. I noticed that the hyperlinks are not encoded in the epub.

    I get

    <span class="sgc-8">Dunghills</span>

    My previous HTML output was

    <a style=" font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'Times', serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; color: #008000; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: underline;" href="Dunghills.html">Dunghills</a>
  • erroneousgrogeerroneousgrog
    I should mention that before you came out with this update I did try converting an html export to epub. I used Sigil to bring in the HTML, graphics, etc. In that route you have to create the toc manually so this update is a real treat.
  • Ed_NBOSEd_NBOS
    http://www.nbos.com/nox/index.php?action=1001&id=422

    (3/27/12) The beta has been updated with:

    [fixed] Information was not being saved in text & log entries if a new log entry was created.
    [added] Hyperlinking support in ePub books, and the option to use the reader device's default font rather than embedding font information
    [fixed] ePub export, text entries with multiple images were not exporting correctly.
  • erroneousgrogeerroneousgrog
    Hi Ed,

    You'll have to laugh, last weekend I took some HTML output from TK (not the epub beta) and I brought that into Sigil, and manually assigned H1 to the headings in order to get Sigil to create a TOC. The result is pretty good. The hyperlinks worked out of the box and I didn't have so much dead space.

    Your new version solves all that workaround! I am getting some extra white space between paras though because In TK I put in CR between each para. It's also squeezing the cover image a bit. Your fix solved the multiple graphic issue, they all show up now and in the correct order. The TOC generates well, and all the hyperlinks appear to be working with the exception of one, to a png inserted as a topic.

    I can send you both your epub output, and the one I created from TK's HTML if you like for comparison. Both are approximately 4mb. I can also send you the TK source.

    I'll tinker with it a bit more, but wow!

    All the best,

    Greg
    :-)
  • Ed_NBOSEd_NBOS
    Are you trying to make an actual in-document table of contents? If so, I think I can automate that. It already creates the .ncx file, so the info is all there.

    The HTML exports used by the HTML export feature and the epub creation are actually two different systems. So they will look a bit different. ePub readers can be a lot stricter, so the ePub export outputs xhtml. Plus it tries to simplify the output to allow for the widest possible compatibility.
  • erroneousgrogeerroneousgrog
    Hi Ed,

    Replies in-line:
    Ed_NBOS wrote:
    Are you trying to make an actual in-document table of contents? If so, I think I can automate that. It already creates the .ncx file, so the info is all there.

    Ah, no. I went off on a wild tangent doing my own thing. I think the built in TOC as generated from TK is great.
    Ed_NBOS wrote:
    The HTML exports used by the HTML export feature and the epub creation are actually two different systems. So they will look a bit different. ePub readers can be a lot stricter, so the ePub export outputs xhtml. Plus it tries to simplify the output to allow for the widest possible compatibility.

    I understand. I took the html body output, and I brought those into Sigil. I was tinkering... They retained the look of the HTML, and although they do have the additional spaces in between paras in the form of spans, the presentation in epub isn't so obvious a gap. Mind you, In mine I manually deleted a few troublesome ones.

    I used the Calibre software to view both the export from TK to epub, and the one I've been fiddling with in Sigil. They both look pretty good. I've used Calibre to convert them to mobi, and both work. I don't have a Kindle or epub reader, only the pre-viewer for KIndle, which simulates their various readers and ipod, and Calibre, which also works.

    Going by the pre-viewers, the results are quite good, and I'm bugging a couple of friends to try my epub and mobi on their devices. The Kindle-Fire preview retains almost all of the appearance of the epub. The epub retains the shading I put behind some text in TK. Other than that, not a lot of difference. I've changed the font size, flipped through pages, it all works. The Kindle DX preview turns all the graphics to grey but they are still readable.

    Greg
  • erroneousgrogeerroneousgrog
    epub Method

    Basically what I'm doing is this:

    I export the publication directley to epub from The Keep, which does a really good job. Any subsequent edits are mostly to suit myself. There is a second strategy here, which is based on exporting the HTML as topics only, but epub assembly required!

    Data Issues:

    epub: Going in I set myself up for a few problems. I put in some extra carriage returns in my Keep files and these add up to extra spaces. Typically the HTML output has lines with </br> in them.

    HTML (second strategy): The output has its line-height set to 0.0 which causes the lines to over write each other when they are displayed in the browser (Firefox, sorry I didn't test IE.). As part of my editing I change the line-height to 1.0.

    epub As a Zip...

    epub is basically a container, a zip file. You can open it with software such as 7 zip and extract the content for editing with Kompozer, or a text editor. It has some special coding which is required for the epub reader so you can't just rename a zip file epub.

    Editing the epub Direclty With Sigil

    Sigil is a program which can open and display the content of each HTML file in the epub. You can edit the HTML for each page, add and remove content, type, set chapter headings H1, H2, H3, etc., edit meta data, and recompose the table of contents. You can add new HTML to the file, along with images etc.

    Sigil is extremely useful for touch up. It does lack some of the more common editing features found in Kompozer. If you use it to look at TKs epub you can see if it is displaying as you intend. Note that epub has a lot of the typical display you'd find in HTML removed by default. This is because in the readers you do not want this clutter.

    After you've edited the content to your satisfaction you can save the epub.

    The Advantage of Kompozer

    If you've unpacked the HTML you can edit it separately with Kompozer. The Keep does not support a link to an anchor within a file, but you can use Komposer to create anchors and create links to any of your content withing an HTML file in the epub, including referring to the other HTML files by name. The HTML can be saved, and copied back into the original epub, or better yet the copy of the epub you made before you started messing around!

    Second Method

    You can export the topics in The Keep to HTML. It retains a little more of the formatting. You are asked if you want friendly filenames. I don't recommend this as the export will number the HTML files in sequence as they are exported. If you choose friendly file names you'll have to assemble all of your topics in the correct order, that is you'll be doing so in Sigil.

    You can import the existing HTML files into Sigil and all the graphics in them will be added. The content will appear in the correct order if you don't use friendly filenames. You will have to manually add each of the H1 through H4 to each of your titles. As you can see, the epub export from The Keep really shines in this regard as the labour involved in retitling everything is considerable.

    You will then, after having performed the retitling, use Sigil's tools to compose a Table of Contents.

    Resolving the Data Issues

    I used Textpad to replace the line-height in all of the HTML where I found it, which was basically in the HTML Topic export but not in the epub.

    I used Textpad to find and replace all of the unwanted </br> line breaks. These I found in the epub but not so much in the HTML Topic output. Look carefully before replacing! You may want some of the breaks.

    Graphics

    I had a couple of graphics that I figured would work better if rotated 90 degrees. I extracted them from the epub with 7zip, rotated them in the Gimp, and dropped them back into the epub with 7zip.

    Conversion to mobi

    I used Calibre to convert the resulting epub to mobi, the conversion goes very well and the display is sharp in the Kindle Pre-Viewer for Windows.

    Conclusions:

    The epub output from The Keep is outstanding and a lot less work! Flavour to taste if you find you want a few tweaks of the HTML in Sigil or Kompozer.
  • AdamQuarkAAdamQuark
    Speaking of updates, I got a new computer which has 64-bit Win8. I ran my copy of the Keep and it works, but when I tried to run the 1.04d update, I got a "sqlite3.dll is missing from your computer."

    Is the Keep compatible with 64-bit Win8?
  • Ed_NBOSEd_NBOS
    Same problem you had with Astro, I believe. The Keep update is a replacement of the main executable, not an installer. It needs to replace your existing KeepCM.exe.
  • ImaTargetIImaTarget
    Hi all,

    I need help me thinks. I am trying to export my database to ebook so I can have it on my tablet for GMing. However it simply does nothing? If I publish to HTML, that works fine. If I use publish to Ebook the window stays a second after clicking OK, disappears and there is nothing in the designated folder. Anyone any idea what is gong on?

    Running The Keep as administrator on 64 Bit Vista logged in as Administrator also. Version 1.10D. I am baffled.

    This is what I try to Export.

    keep.gif

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