* Creating an eBook from FH data

[Valkrider]

Breaking this thread off from gedcom files and ipad (5571).

As a proof of concept (POC) I have created an eBook from a Family Historian project. As a POC it is not fancy in any way and has not been customised.

I created a website using the standard FH option Publish > Create a Website with all its default settings and nothing customised. The project I used was the FH Sample Project. As you know this produces a set of html and css files that can viewed in any browser.

I created the book from these files using a programme called Jutoh as it is what I always use to produce eBooks. A book could be created using the following free applications Calibre, Sigil or using the Writer2ePub extension for Open Office (there are probably some others too).

An ePub file is just a set of specially formatted html pages stored in a zip file with an ePub extension. (You can always open an ePub file with WinZip or similar to see exactly what files are in it).

If you don't wish to edit data this may be a more convenient way to carry your FH data with you on a phone or tablet as all have eBook reading programmes.

To see what the output is like I have loaded two files onto Google drive that you are welcome to download and take a look at.

ePub: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_iwK ... VJWSEEzYlk
mobi (Kindle): https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_iwK ... XUwbWxxZnc

With some more editing of the initial website and then of the eBook before publication something fancier could easily be produced.

[Gowermick]

Colin,
Thanks for posting this, as I've been considering this for some time.

I created the web pages, zipped them, and am currently converting the zip folder to ePub using Calibre, so far so good.
How long did this conversion take you?

I have in excess of 16,000 in my tree, and although Calibre is converting the Zip folder, it has taken 20 minutes to convert 1% so far, and I want to get some idea if this is normal, or has Calibre encountered problems?

Update: After 64 minutes, processing, Calibre crashed out -Memory error - ah well, you can't win em all

I'll give it another go some other time, as I'm not too fussed at present.

[Valkrider]

Mike

How many html files are there in your website? I presume 16,000+. That may well be too much for Calibre to handle as it is not a dedicated eBook creator and does many other things too. You may be better off giving Sigil a try.

One other thing just to try is to zip all the html files into one and then just change the file extension and see what that is like.