CreateSpace Book to eBook Kindle Conversion of Books With Images
We make no warranty that this will work for you. Perhaps another,
simpler method is available. When we first did this, none was. The
procedure described below is complicated, but doable and it works for
us. Here is what we do.
The objective: Creating a
MOBI file usable in a Kindle publication when the book to be converted
to Kindle format includes images. Normally, this can be difficult or
impossible to do, since Kindle is set up mainly for text-based books.
When we used the automatic CreateSpace link to convert our print book to
Kindle, all we got back was impossible garble. We needed a different
solution.
The method: Converting native (i.e.
normal) pdf files of text and images to a pdf file consisting of each
page as a singular graphic image page, i.e. including text and graphics
as one image, which is then shown in that format on Kindle.
First: Create a normal "native" pdf file of your book
from e.g. a .docx file which can be done in Microsoft Word (latest
version) via the "Export" function under the menu item "File". This
works for us in the subsequently described conversion procedure. We can
not speak for pdf files created by other programs.
Second: Download and use K2pdfopt. Load that native pdf file into the file list of the program
K2PDFOPT (download the version suitable for your system). K2pdfopt has dozens of commands for tweaking pdf files.
Our
objective is to obtain each page of our book as a separate image for
our pdf file and then automatically obtain a new pdf file of the whole
book formatted in that manner.
Here is how you do it with k2pdfopt.exe.
The Command settings in k2pdfopt for conversion of pages as graphic images:
Load
your normal "native" pdf file into the file list (do not click "native"
! in the lower commands or you just get a "normal" pdf file again).
Add these options from the options below that list:
Additional options:
- enter exactly the following text with hyphens and space
-bp -mc
Command-line version options
- enter exactly the following text with hyphens and spaces
-mode copy -de 1.5 -odpi 167 -h 1180 -w 800 -ws 0.2
Settings
- Max columns: 1
- Document Resolution Factor 1.0
- Crop Margins (in): Left 0.00 Top 0.00 Right 0.00 Bottom 0.00
- Pages to convert: (all)
Check (select) with the checkmark the following options:
- Color output if your pdf has pages in color
- Ignore small defects
- Forget the rest unless you have special option requirements
At the right top of that same command page at k2pdfopt,
enter the following settings:
- Device: Kindle 1-5
- Width 800 px
- Height 1180 px
- DPI 167 (not sure if this is standard or determined by the pdf)
- Conversion Mode: copy
Make sure the conversion mode is "copy". Then click "Convert All
Files" and each page of your pdf will be converted to a graphic image,
one by one as you can see on the screen. If not, you may have to
reformat your Word file and make sure you have "page breaks" after each
page or your result can lead to different pages on the screen than what
you had in the original.
The resulting pdf is a pdf
composed of each page of the original source converted to one graphic
image (both text and graphic image parts). This, however, reduces what
the reader can do with the text in Kindle but is better than any other
alternative known to us. The reader can zoom any page like a graphic
image for easier reading, which is not only useful for texts, but also
great for graphic images. Negative is that the font and text sizes can
not be changed as such per se but can only be "zoomed". But it works.
Download Calibre. That k2pdfopt pdf "image" file of a book can then be converted to the necessary Kindle "MOBI" format using the program
Calibre which can be downloaded online at
http://calibre-ebook.com/.
Load
the resulting k2pdfopt pdf file into Calibre and select the "Convert
books" option and then pick MOBI from the list of options. Calibre
converts the pdf file to MOBI -- if memory serves correctly, placing it
into an automatically created CalibreBooks directory in a file named
after the book author. At least, that is what we use.
Download KindlePreviewer. Check now to see how the book looks with the
KindlePreviewer, which allows you to see the book in all Kindle versions, also iOS. You can now upload your book to Kindle.
Caveat Emptor:
Please note that we do not do any personal consultations on this
matter. We are simply reporting our experience, and if it is useful to
you, fine. If not, you may have to tweak your own solution. We have at
least shown then how it "could" be done. Surely improvements are
possible.
