KindleBookHelper

Overview

Converts raw text file to MOBI html format that can be consumed by Kindle Previewer. It provides fairly basic formatting/functionality and only includes code for poetry at the moment. It will generate navigation, including a linkable table of contents to each poem. Some additional text can be included via the book metadata file.

Usage

• -f JSON file with book metadata (required)
• -e Text marking the end of each poem (optional; defaults to "[END]")
• -p If provided, pauses the application after running (useful if running within an IDE)

Output

All files utilize an url-friendly version of the book title (lowercase with special characters and spaces encoded or removed)

• book-title.opf Xml document that serves as the book's manifest. This is the file fed into Kindle Previewer.
• book-title.ncx Xml document that lays out the book's navigation.
• book-title.html Html document that has all content.
• poetry.css Stylesheet used by book.

Notes

• Program assumes that the first line is the name of the poem and that each stanza is separated by a line break
• A unique identifier Id field will be generated on first run; be sure to clear it if re-using json for additional books.
• CSS is initially pulled from the application DLL. It will not override it, so you can edit the file freely.

Examples

Book Metadata

{
  "RawFilePath": "G:\\Documents\\Books\\Book Title\\raw.txt",
  "Title": "Book Title",
  "CoverFileName": "cover.jpg",
  "Publisher": "Author Name or Company",
  "Creator": "Author Name",
  "Author": "Author Name",
  "AuthorAlphabetical": "Last, First",
  "AuthorDescription": "Author description",
  "AuthorWebsite": "Author web site (no http://)",
  "Forward": "Forward text"
}

Raw text file

A Title

First Line
Second Line

Another Stanza
Last Line

[END]

Another Title

Another line
Yet Another line
The line to end all lines

[END]