Creating Kindle e-books on Windows

Before you start: Download this sample e-book and install it on your Kindle. It will show you what you can expect from e-books created by Universalis.

If you are happy with the result, carry on reading this page to see how to do it for yourself.

Creating the e-book

If you have not already done so, Download and install Universalis for Windows. The instructions given here assume that you have a version downloaded on or after 14 October 2010 (the About Universalis command will report version 1.45c or later).

Open Universalis. (The Universalis program on Windows, not the Universalis web site).
Choose the settings you want: local calendar, and psalm/bible translations.
Go to the date you want. If you're going to make an e-book for a week, a month, or a year, you can pick any date in the period in question.
Open the Options menu. In the normal mode, you do this by clicking on the arrow in the top left-hand corner of the Universalis window. In Screen Reader mode, you'll find the Options menu in the menu bar along the top of the window.
You will see a menu item saying "Save in Mobipocket Format". Click on it.
Next, choose how many days you want your e-book to contain: today, this week, or this month.
Choose the pages you want to include in your e-book. The About Today page must always be included.
Finally, navigate to the folder into which you want to store the e-book (we suggest your desktop, because it's easy to find afterwards) and then click on "Save".
After a moment, a window will appear telling you that the 'mobigen.exe' program is creating your Mobipocket book.
When the window disappears, your e-book is ready.

Getting the e-book onto your Kindle

Follow the instructions that came with your Kindle for transferring files from your PC to the Kindle. This normally involves plugging your Kindle into your PC, and then dragging the e-book file from your desktop to a specific folder in the Kindle — but do read the instructions because additional steps may be necessary after you have done this.

Once you have transferred your e-book to the Kindle, you can delete the file from your desktop.

If you want more than one month at a time

Universalis creates e-books for a day, a week, a month or a year. If you need more than a month but don't want to create an e-book for a whole year, you can easily create multiple e-books for multiple months. For example, to get January, February and March, get Universalis to view a date in January, create a one-month e-book, get it to view a date in February, create a one-month e-book, and so on. All the e-books have a different filename, so there won't be any confusion.

About About Today

If you are looking at (say) 11 September, "11 September" will appear as a chapter. It will contain the About Today text followed by separate sections for each Hour that you have chosen to include.

Some e-book readers do not allow you access to the text of a chapter if the chapter has sections. This is incorrect, and we can't work round the defect by putting in a separate About Today section because that would cause problems for e-book readers that work correctly. You will have to go to the first visible section in your chapter (for example, "Invitatory Psalm") and step backwards from there.

About Greek

If you are displaying Greek on the screen then it will be included in the e-book. Whether it is readable there depends on the e-book reader. Some, such as Adobe Reader, display an unreadable mess; others, such as Stanza and iBooks, work perfectly.

Please note that the e-books you create are for your private use only and must not be given or distributed to other people.

Downloading and installing mobigen.exe

If the Universalis program reports that it cannot find the 'mobigen.exe' program, you will have to download it from the Web.

Download

'mobigen.exe' is contained in a file called 'mobigen.zip'.

You may be able to download 'mobigen.zip' directly if you click on this link.
If Mobipocket have moved the file so that the link doesn't work, then visit this page and look for the "Downloads: Mmobigen" link at the bottom right.
If Mobipocket have rearranged their site completely, visit their home page and look for a link labelled "Developers", possibly at the very bottom of the page.
If all else fails, contact us for advice: see the link at the bottom of the page you are reading now.

Installation

Double-click on the downloaded 'mobigen.zip' file and it will open into a window that contains a single folder called 'mobigen'.
Double-click on the 'mobigen' folder and the window will show you two things: a folder called 'samples' and a program called 'mobigen.exe' (though your system may choose to display its name as simply 'mobigen').
Drag 'mobigen.exe' onto your desktop.
You can now close the 'mobigen.zip' window.
Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the folder that contains the Universalis program files. This will normally be C:\Program Files\Universalis, and you can recognise it because it will contain a data file called 'univ.dat' and a program file called 'NewDisp.exe' or simply 'NewDisp'.
Drag 'mobigen.exe' from your desktop into that folder.

Once you have done this, the installation of 'mobigen.exe' will be complete and you will be able to use Universalis to create e-books in the Mobigen format.