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Main Area and Open Discussion => General Software Discussion => Topic started by: HankFriedman on June 26, 2016, 11:50 PM

Title: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: HankFriedman on June 26, 2016, 11:50 PM
I've been searching the web for days now for a program that will convert an entire website (with links) into an ebook that will work on a Kindle ebook reader.

Does anyone out there know a program that will do this?

I was able to download a website completely using HTTrack and have it function offline, but when I tried to convert it to an ebook using Calibre, Calibre failed every time, even using the command line web2book and other methods.

I know that there are several programs that will convert one HTML page to mobi format, but I need to convert a whole website.

Help please!
Title: Re: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: wraith808 on June 27, 2016, 12:45 PM
I don't know specifically... but have you tried googling your title?  There are several links that look like they might be good starts for investigation unless someone else has a solution offhand.  Just a suggestion.
Title: Re: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: HankFriedman on June 27, 2016, 11:24 PM
Of course I searched and searched for those terms but to no avail, which is why I have asked all of you for help.
Title: Re: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: 4wd on June 27, 2016, 11:56 PM
Did you try zipping up the downloaded website and sending it to your Send-to-Kindle email address?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email

Mentioned on StackExchange (http://ebooks.stackexchange.com/questions/2/how-can-i-convert-an-html-site-into-an-ebook).

Might be dependent on how complex the website is though.
Title: Re: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: wraith808 on June 28, 2016, 08:25 AM
Of course I searched and searched for those terms but to no avail, which is why I have asked all of you for help.
-HankFriedman (June 27, 2016, 11:24 PM)

Apologies.  After what I saw from the google search, I figured I'd ask.  Did you try those entries?  What didn't they do?
Title: Re: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: kunkel321 on June 28, 2016, 09:07 AM
There's a tool called iSilo. (no relation to Apple)  http://isilo.com/ I first started using it back in my Palm Pilot days.  I never use it anymore, simply because I'm always near wifi, so I just view the live sites rather than downloading them.  There's an Android version that works on my Kindle Fire HD 7.  It's expensive though...  $30 US as I recall.  And the formatting is not all that great.  Still though... It works.  There's a free component called iSiloX that parses the pages/site.  Then you send it to your device and read it with iSilo.  As I recall, iSilo can be used in "free mode."  Links are disabled in free mode, but at least you can see how the formatting is.  Tips:  There's a feature on iSiloX to limit parsing to only certain URLs.  It allows wildcards.  For example: https://www.donationcoder.com/*  Use this and only use a link-depth of one, otherwise you'll end up downloading gigs of data. 
Title: Re: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: HankFriedman on June 28, 2016, 04:25 PM
Thank you both of you for your replies.

iSilo does not create ebooks for Kindle, which is my goal, and the other software that I tried either didn't succeed at the conversion (Calibre) or only converts one page at a time, not a website.
Title: Re: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: wraith808 on June 28, 2016, 07:38 PM
Thank you both of you for your replies.

iSilo does not create ebooks for Kindle, which is my goal, and the other software that I tried either didn't succeed at the conversion (Calibre) or only converts one page at a time, not a website.
-HankFriedman (June 28, 2016, 04:25 PM)

There were several on the search for the title of your post, which is why I asked, and knowing why they fall down might point to another solution.

https://dotepub.com/
http://lifehacker.com/5870376/dotepub-converts-websites-to-ebooks

- this creates epub, but you can use calibre to convert to .mobi

http://ebookconverter.blogspot.com/2013/11/its-more-complicated-issue-how-to.html
http://readlists.com/

- its a bit more manual, in that it doesn't crawl the site for you.  But the end results seem ok.

http://ebooks.stackexchange.com/questions/2/how-can-i-convert-an-html-site-into-an-ebook

- I've used send to kindle before, and it works well.  But I haven't tried this manner.



Title: Re: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: Target on June 28, 2016, 07:47 PM
how many pages are there in the site in question?  seems like there are quite a few options that don't crawl, but will do a single pages so maybe consolidating the pages might be an option (this also gives you the option to edit out any cruft!)
Title: Re: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: HankFriedman on June 28, 2016, 07:50 PM
I have created a tutorial website with about 150 articles, so a page at a time just won't work
Title: Re: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: Target on June 28, 2016, 08:53 PM
n
I have created a tutorial website with about 150 articles, so a page at a time just won't work
-HankFriedman (June 28, 2016, 07:50 PM)

you should be able to consolidate all those pages into a single page, you just need to setup the relevant bookmarks and convert the links, and there are probably tools around that will help with that (if not do it for you!)
Title: Re: converting whole website to kindle-compatible ebook
Post by: HankFriedman on June 28, 2016, 09:21 PM
Did you try zipping up the downloaded website and sending it to your Send-to-Kindle email address?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email

Mentioned on StackExchange (http://ebooks.stackexchange.com/questions/2/how-can-i-convert-an-html-site-into-an-ebook).

Might be dependent on how complex the website is though.

I just tried this and got an error message from Kindle: only 25 objects (including each graphic, page, etc.) are allowed, so no go