How to create my own books for Classics.app?

February 2, 2009 7:45 PM

How would I automate converting Project Gutenberg books into ebooks for Classics.app on the iPhone?

Or more specifically, I have recently finished reading some classics on the wonderful Classics program for the iPhone/iTouch and I want to start adding my own favourites for on-the-go reading.

I've figured out that each book in Classics is just a collection of PDF files, one for each chapter, and a simple XML file that acts as a chapters index. The PDF page have a specific size and I have a Pages template and some defined styles that have the right margin, page size, font size, styling and all.

I've done a simple book with a few chapters as a test and they showed up great but it was incredibly tedious. Basically, for each chapter:

1. Create a new blank document in Pages and apply the saved page size settings


2. Copy and paste the chapter text into the document


3. Apply a title style to the chapter heading and a paragraph style to everything else


4. Run a quick find-and-replace to convert straight quotes into smart quotes


5. Save file with relevant meta info (in case I need to manually touch-up)


6. Finally, print as PDF with relevant meta info

Is there any way to automate all this? I'm OK with scripting and am willing to learn Latex if that is the way but I'd rather use Applescript and use the Pages engine to format, hyphenate and style everything.

posted by tksh to computers & internet (4 comments total)

The free iphone ap Stanza will do some of this for you.
posted by eccnineten at 8:24 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]

Yeah, Stanza is linked in to both Gutenberg and Feedbooks, and it can work with most commercial and free eBook formats. Lovely app.
posted by Happy Dave at 2:12 AM on February 3

Sorry to derail, but how are you getting your test book to be displayed by Classics? Only thing I can think of is via jailbreak then add these to the app bundle, but I thought that would invalidate the code signing and make the iPhone not open the app.
posted by BaxterG4 at 11:45 AM on February 3

I have used Stanza before but I found the UI to neither as slick nor as comfortable as Classics. I prefer Classics' rendering, chapter and bookmark support. Though Stanza is easier to transfer my own books of course.

BaxterG4 Yes I had to play around with jailbreaking and a patched mobileinstallation to get around the code signing. Not for the faint of heart.
posted by tksh at 2:57 PM on February 3