Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related The (Archive) Times They Are A-Changin'

I don't have a Kindle but I use the Kindle for Mac application. I download the file (using ctrl+click instead of right-click on the Mac), and then rename the file with the azw extension (get rid or the .mobi.html and add.azw). Once I drag the newly named document into my Kindle Content folder and open the application, it shows up as an available book with all the formatting. It also works if you just remove the .html from the file name and leave it a .mobi file (just tried it). Don't know if this will work for the handheld Kindle but it would be faster than copying and pasting, etc. if it works.

Amy

Lauren, when I try to do that, the only "Save" choices I get are "Save Target as..." and "Save Picture as..." When I've tried "Save Target as..." the only option I get is to save an .html file, which doesn't open on my Kindle. When I click on "Save picture as..." my computer tries to save the Mobi-green file as a .gif, which is just the picture of the green icon.

So I tried opening the file and, of course, got the mobi file language. But when I tried to save that, my only "Save as type" options were the following:
Webpage, complete (*.htm, *.html)
Web Archive, single file (*.mht)
Webpage, HTML only (*.htm, *.html)
Text file (*.txt)
When I tried renaming it, the .azw wouldn't save as an extension, and I just ended up with an html file with .azw in the name.

I'm running Windows Internet Explorer on Vista. I suppose I could do what lcfan99 has done, but it just seems like a waste of time when the archive has already provided a mobi conversion--except that it can't be downloaded onto my computer as a mobi file to run on Kindle.

Can you guys help? Please don't bother telling me how to do a mobi conversion myself. I can already download the files as .txt files, and my Kindle reads them fine. I just have to get rid of the line breaks (a few keystrokes in Word), replace the double spacing between paragraphs with tabs, and replace the strings of asterisks between scenes with a 2" underline (again, a few keystrokes in Word), and the document is as beautiful on my Kindle as those prepared especially for it. It just seems like a waste to do all of that when the archive is trying to provide Kindle-ready files.

Have you tried renaming the file in the "Save target as..." dialog? And try to rename it as .mobi, that's what it is. You could also try saving it as an .html or .txt on that dialog and rename it afterwards.

Don't save the opened file, your browser likely fiddled around with it, trying to turn it into an html (mine did) and now the file is corrupted.

For some reason the file automatically gets an html extension when you save the file. You need to rename the file after it has been downloaded. Ignore any warnings about changing the extension.

Amy

Okay...
In IE, there's the option "Save Target As..." when you right-click the link. You get the Save-As dialog and on the bottom there's text field with the file name and below a drop-down box with "HTML" selected. If you switch that to "All Files" you can save it with any extension you want. Otherwise it will append the html file extension. Also, it's possible that the behavior is different if you have displaying file extensions switched off in Windows Explorer.

Hope this helps

Michael

Thanks for the tip Michael. I have a Mac and use Safari and Firefox. Firefox has the same option as IE but I have not found the equivalent in Safari so far.

Amy

I'm sorry for the problems with downloading epubs and mobi files, everyone. I use Firefox and don't remember testing the files using Internet Explorer, which wasn't a bright move on my part. I tried earlier tonight on IE -- frustrating! Many apologies. But I think it may be solved.

Right-clicking should now let you download the file without having to rename or otherwise do anything special. But you may not have to right-click anymore. Left-clicking should bring up a dialog box that allows you to save the file or open it in an appropriate application (an e-reader like Stanza Desktop or Calibre if you have one installed).

Rereading our epub conversation from another thread, I came across a tip from dcarson about configuring mime types in DocuWiki, which I'd forgotten about. Mime types are what tell browsers how to deal with different file types. I tried that, and then that led to changing the mime types for the entire web site using something called an .htaccess file. Was a night of educational reading!

Now when I click on the mobi and epub icons using either Internet Explorer or Firefox, I get a dialog box asking to either open or save the file. Hope that's what happens for you too.

If anyone has any more problems, please let me know.

Thanks, dcarson!

Michael, do you have your Word converter program somewhere online? We could post a link to it on the archive.

Best wishes,

Lauren

Lauren,

FYI - I just tested the Kindle option on my Mac using Firefox and Safari. Firefox gives the dialog box and downloads the mobi file without the html extension when I choose to Save. Safari does not give the dialog box but simply downloads the .mobi (again without .html) file.

Thanks for all of your hard work!

Amy

Lauren, my converter's not ready yet. I'm thinking sometime in March (a.k.a after RL). But once it's done, it would be great to just offer it for download on the archive site.

Michael

It works!!! Now when I click on the green triangle, it saves it as a file my Kindle can read. Thanks so much Lauren!

Artemis, I'm glad the epubs are working with your Sony Reader. Thanks for letting us know!

Sheila, I hope the downloads are working OK now. Thanks for listing your system specs. It didn't occur to me that Internet Explorer was acting differently from Firefox until I'd read your post.

lcfan, I'm glad the mobi files are working for you too. Thanks for the offer of the Kindle ebooks you've created. We probably should start a mobi/Kindle downloads page on our wiki, and your ebooks would be welcome. If you like, please e-mail them to me as an attachment at lcfanfic[at]gmail.com, substituting @ for the [at].

Michael wrote:

That sounds great, Michael. We'd love to host it!

Best wishes,

Lauren

Thank you, Lauren!!! It worked perfectly. And thanks to all of you who took the time to try to answer my questions. It's good being part of a helpful group like this.

You're welcome! *grins sheepishly* Obviously the reason I've gotten to responding to that so late is . . . I haven't had time YET this year to work on them! (So if you've been wondering why I haven't gotten to your favorite Wendy story yet, well, now you know.) Other projects (which deal with work and education and stuff), real life, all kinda got in the way. But I do intend to at least finish up Wendy's when I have time to just sit down and work on them again. Beyond that, we'll see. Life just keeps getting busier.

For those still having some measure of interest:
I'm actually hacking away on my docx to all sorts of formats converter Should have a v1 in a few days

Michael

In Stanza (on iPod Touch at least) you can
touch Get Books at the bottom of the screen
touch Shared at the top
touch Edit on the right top
touch Add Book Source
make the Name LC Fanfic or such
make the URL http://www.lcfanfic.com/epub/
touch Save

When you then use that as your book source you get the page that lists the ebooks in the wiki.
Touch Author or Title under
Fanfic in e-book epub format
Than touch the fic you want an it will ask if you want to download it. No need to download to the computer first or type in the whole URL and can be done anywhere you can access the net.

Let me know if this isn't clear enough.