Save as html file

users
#1

Thomas Blasejewicz wrote:

Good evening from Japan
Maybe I did ask a similar question before ...

I wrote a book using Writer which I am now trying to upload to Kindle.

The instructions say, I must save the file as html and then create a zip
file from the html file + the images.
"Save as ... html" creates a content file and a whole long list of files
for the images.
However, that did not work. I got an error message and asked for help.
Below a copy the relevant portion of the answer from Amazon.

Since I hate MS Word, I would love to do this with LO.
My question:
Is LO NOT capable of producing the necessary html file as Word does?
What trick is required, apart from "save as html file", to make this work?

Thank you.

I think the Kindle (or at least some versions) can read PDF files, so perhaps try exporting from LibreOffice to PDF and load that onto your Kindle? If it works, it's probably a lot easier than messing around with HTML and ZIP!

Mark.

#2

Thomas Blasejewicz wrote:

Good evening from Japan
Maybe I did ask a similar question before ...

I wrote a book using Writer which I am now trying to upload to Kindle.

The instructions say, I must save the file as html and then create a zip
file from the html file + the images.
"Save as ... html" creates a content file and a whole long list of files
for the images.
However, that did not work. I got an error message and asked for help.
Below a copy the relevant portion of the answer from Amazon.

Since I hate MS Word, I would love to do this with LO.
My question:
Is LO NOT capable of producing the necessary html file as Word does?
What trick is required, apart from "save as html file", to make this work?

Thank you.

Thomas,

I've been playing with different tools to create e-books for the Kindle. I can find no clean way of going straight from LO to Kindle (MOBI) format. You may need to combine several tools. Here's what I've found.

1. If you haven't already done so, install Calibre, a free open source e-book manager and converter. It can convert a wide variety of file formats into MOBI for the Kindle. It has a depth of features that I have only begun to scratch. In my experience, it seems to work best converting HTML and EPUB files, but it can also convert LO's ODT files directly, if not elegantly. When using Calibre, I first save my LO document as an HTML file. Make sure to use the "Save as" command rather than the "Export" command. For some reason, in my experience, "Save as" has created cleaner HTML files than "Export". I have no idea why. Once saved as an HTML file, I then load it into Calibre and convert it to MOBI. It works fairly well. For my work, I've found some quirks with the way numbered lists are formatted, but otherwise, things go relatively well. My work, however, has been all text, with no images.

2. There are (at least) two extensions for LO that convert ODT files to EPUB formats; Writer2Epub and Elaix. They work well with fairly simple documents. I've only played with them a little, but I sense they are both deeper and more fully featured than I have yet discovered.

3. There is another neat free program out there called Sigil. You can load your HTML file into it and then edit the HTML code in either a WYSIWYM screen or text-based code screen. It will then save the file as a well-compiled EPUB file, which you can then convert to MOBI using Calibre.

4. The best solution I've found for this task, however, is a shareware product called Atlantis (free download, $35.00 registration). It's a lightweight Word clone that has a built-in converter to EPUB format. It is *very* well behaved and does the best job in preserving my formatted documents. It also produces very well structured EPUB files (that you can see by loading it into Sigil and examining the code). It can also convert directly to MOBI if you have the free Kindlegen utility (available from Amazon) installed. Atlantis reads ODT files very well, although it's default file format is RTF. The main downside to Atlantis is that it doesn't support tables.

The obvious frustration about all this is that, using free or inexpensive solutions will mean an involved learning curve along with a lot of trial and error experimentation. I know of no "quick and easy press F7 and get a fully formatted Kindle e-book" solution.

Virgil

#3

I am using Version: 4.1.2.3 and all of a sudden my formulas are not working correctly.
I'm using average, stdev and median.

At one point I copied these formulas and have seen that sometimes they don't update. Usually if I close the spreadsheet and reopen it they are okay but that isn't the case today.

Pat

#4

So i got the formulas to work by recopying them and hitting F9 but I'm really worried that other formulas are producing incorrect values and I have many and wouldn't always know when that happens. Should I change to a different version?

thanks,
pat

#5

No. Ensure that Tools | Cell Contents > | AutoCalculate is ticked.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#6

It is ticked. This happened to me before. I don't know why.

Pat

#7

How did you solve it before?

Can you create a minimal sample document showing the problem but containing no sensitive data and send this to someone for testing? That may give you an idea whether the problem is with your document or your installation of LibreOffice (including your user profile).

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#8

Okay this is happening again. This time I copied an entire file to enter different data. I entered that data but some of my formulas will not recaclulate. I made a copy of one of file and deleted some sheets to send it to you but the formulas recalculated in that one.

Ugh~!

#9

I could not duplicate this with a smaller spreadsheet, but when I attempted to make the smaller file it recalculated. So, to solve my problem, I copied a sheet and deleted the copy...then everything recalculated. Ugh this is not good. I would assume if atleast when I exit the program and get back in it would calculate. I am using formulas such as average, stdev and harmonic means. I hope someone can duplicate this and find out what is happening.

Pat

#10

(2013/10/30 21:27), Virgil Arrington wrote:

Thomas Blasejewicz wrote:

Good evening from Japan
Maybe I did ask a similar question before ...

I wrote a book using Writer which I am now trying to upload to Kindle.

The instructions say, I must save the file as html and then create a zip
file from the html file + the images.
"Save as ... html" creates a content file and a whole long list of files
for the images.

Thomas,

I've been playing with different tools to create e-books for the Kindle. I can find no clean way of going straight from LO to Kindle (MOBI) format. You may need to combine several tools. Here's what I've found.

1. If you haven't already done so, install Calibre, a free open source e-book manager and converter. It can convert a wide variety of file formats into MOBI for the Kindle. It has a depth of features that I have only begun to scratch. In my experience, it seems to work best converting HTML and EPUB files, but it can also convert LO's ODT files directly, if not elegantly. When using Calibre, I first save my LO document as an HTML file. Make sure to use the "Save as" command rather than the "Export" command. For some reason, in my experience, "Save as" has created cleaner HTML files than "Export". I have no idea why. Once saved as an HTML file, I then load it into Calibre and convert it to MOBI. It works fairly well. For my work, I've found some quirks with the way numbered lists are formatted, but otherwise, things go relatively well. My work, however, has been all text, with no images.

2. There are (at least) two extensions for LO that convert ODT files to EPUB formats; Writer2Epub and Elaix. They work well with fairly simple documents. I've only played with them a little, but I sense they are both deeper and more fully featured than I have yet discovered.

3. There is another neat free program out there called Sigil. You can load your HTML file into it and then edit the HTML code in either a WYSIWYM screen or text-based code screen. It will then save the file as a well-compiled EPUB file, which you can then convert to MOBI using Calibre.

4. The best solution I've found for this task, however, is a shareware product called Atlantis (free download, $35.00 registration). It's a lightweight Word clone that has a built-in converter to EPUB format. It is *very* well behaved and does the best job in preserving my formatted documents. It also produces very well structured EPUB files (that you can see by loading it into Sigil and examining the code). It can also convert directly to MOBI if you have the free Kindlegen utility (available from Amazon) installed. Atlantis reads ODT files very well, although it's default file format is RTF. The main downside to Atlantis is that it doesn't support tables.

The obvious frustration about all this is that, using free or inexpensive solutions will mean an involved learning curve along with a lot of trial and error experimentation. I know of no "quick and easy press F7 and get a fully formatted Kindle e-book" solution.

Virgil

Thank you everybody!
I tried out each and every advice given here, the softwares indicated above and other things.
To the best of my understanding (which does not mean much!) none of it worked.
Neither could I make most of the software work. For example that "Sigil" thing tells me, that EVERY line of my file contains errors, but does not tell me what to do.
And at a screen covered with those html codes is way beyond my capabilities.

HOWEVER ... I succeeded in uploading the book!
As far as I know, I did everything the same way I did it the first time, except I changed the setting for "html compatibility" under Tools -> Options -> Load/Save.
There are 3 different settings. I tried them all. The last one I tried was "IE Explorer".
MAYBE that did the trick.
If it is (I am currently waiting for an answer from Amazon support) ... then all that is required to upload something to Kindle is save a file as html and make a zip file.
Would that not be refreshing?

Thomas

#11

Hi :slight_smile:
When converting a document from MS Office to LibreOffice i usually just use
"Save As ..." and choose ODt, Ods or whatever. However the document
sometimes doesn't work properly. In those cases i usually find copying the
contents into a fresh new document created afresh in LibreOffice and
pasting in as "unformatted text"
Ctrl Shift v
rather than normal paste of
Ctrl v
seems to be the only way to get rid of weird MS coding that has been
stuffing-up the document. I've not actually done this with spreadsheets
and don't know if there is an equivalent. I would try creating a new Ods
file and then copy the contents of each tab at a time. Moving the whole
tab into the new file is likely to keep whatever weird coding is in the
worksheet so i would click into the worksheet and do
Ctrl a
Ctrl c
and then click into the new one and do
Ctrl v

Is it possible to test just a couple of worksheets that way or do the
formulas feed off other worksheets?

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#12

The formulas feed off a couple of worksheets. I will try this when i see it again. This is an intermittent problem and there was a time i was using the xls format because I was sharing with someone who doesn't have LO. I have gone to only using the ods format but there could be left over formulas.

thanks,
Pat