This is the help file included with Makebook 4.92b. Modern Windows don't come with support for reading old help files like these, so here is is converted for the web.
Makebook Help
[08 Nov 04]
Summary
Makebook allows you to make a text file into a book which you can read on the GameBoy or GameBoy Advance. You need to program the .GB or .GBA file produced onto a suitable FLASH memory cartridge.
Makebook Functions
You can edit two sorts of file, a text file (.txt) of a font file (.gbf).
In the File Open or File New menus you can choose between these two kinds of file.
To make a book...
Codepage Selection
When you open a text file it may be in a language using a ‘codepage’ or character set which is different from the one you use from day to day. Provided that you have installed suitable fonts, particularly Arial, in your Windows setup, the correct font will be chosen based on the language you specify when opening the text file. Arial is mentioned here as the automatic feature tries to specify Arial when selecting a font. You may try using the font select icon if the automatic selction was not successful.
Paragraph marking
The book is made from a text file. Paragraphs may be indicated in the text file in one of two ways:
· Each line of text is terminated with a CR LF pair. A paragraph end is indicated by two CR LF pairs. In practical terms this means that a paragraph end is indicated by leaving a blank line.
· Each paragraph is one long string of words with a CR LF pair at the end of the paragraph. The lines are usually wrapped in an editor, but you can tell if this is the format by changing the width of the editor window and seing if the lines reformat to fit the window.
To make a book from the first format you should select ‘Reduce Sequence of Newlines by 1’ in the export wizard. To make a book from the second format you should uncheck that box.
Preparing the text
Note that all editing and saving is done in the specified codepage - not Unicode.
Open an existing text file, and remove all unnecessary text.
Paragraphs
Depending on how you want to mark paragraphs...
Make sure that you have a blank line anywhere you want a new paragraph. If you want a blank line to appear in the final display, put 2 blank lines in the text (and so on).
or...
Make sure that you have a newline anywhere you want a new paragraph. If you want a blank line to appear in the final display, put 2 newlines in the text (and so on). Include no newline within a paragraph.
Chapters
Put ~c in front of each chapter heading, eg:
~cChapter 1
THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY
Books
Put ~v in front of each separate book.
Pictures
Put ~b{pathname.bmp} to include a bitmap image in the text.
Put ~b{pathname.jpg} to include a jpeg image in the text.
For GameBoy
Bitmaps must be monochrome, 160 pixels wide, and a multiple of character height (8, 12, or 16) up to 96 pixels high. They must also be in ‘Windows’ .bmp format. Use JPEGs where possible as they are MUCH smaller than bitmaps.
For GameBoy Advance
Bitmaps must be 1 bit colour (ie monochrome) or 24 bit colour. They can have a width up to 240 pixels and may be any height. For best results, limit them to 156 pixels high if you use 12 pixels high characters, otherwise 160 pixels high. They must also be in ‘Windows’ .bmp format.
JPEGs must be 240x160 or less. They must also be baseline sequential images. (Not progressive). Use Photoshop ‘Save For Web’ or Paintshop.
Titles
To set up the 2 header lines in the final display (Title and Author), highlight text containing the title and click on the toolbar button (Set Title Line 1), then highlight text containing the Author’s name and click on the toolbar button (Set Title Line 2). This is just a time saving function, and can be done manually later.
Please note that the second title line is only available with an 8 pixel high font, although it is always shown on the cover page on GBA.
Links
A further powerful feature is hyperlinking (GBA only). You can mark targets anywhere in the book (e.g. ~t{targetname} ), and mark small sections of text to link to this target (e.g. ~g{targetname}text being marked up~/g ). Any number of links can point to the same target. The function is controlled by giving each target a label (up to 8 letters or numbers, no spaces) and using this label in the markup for the link text. The whole thing is a lot easier using the 2 toolbar icons and the target labels are autonumbering, so you could quickly mark all the chapters with labels like chap1, chap2 etc without having to type in the target label each time.
Using the toolbar icons
These icons help to speed text mark-up:
Set Title Line 1
Highlight text (on a single line or less) for the book’s title then click on this icon
Set Title Line 2
Insert Index Mark
Place edit caret at the position in the book where the contents or index is, then click this icon.
Insert Volume Mark
Place the edit caret at the start of the book then click this icon. For a text containing more than one book, do this at the start of each book.
Insert Chapter Mark
Place the edit caret at the start of each chapter of the book then click this icon.
Insert Bitmap Mark
Place the edit caret at the position in the text that you want the picture (.bmp or .jpg) to appear then click this icon.
Make Link
Highlight text which you want to link to a target elsewhere in the book then click on this icon. Enter the label name when prompted. Label names which end in digits are auto-incrementing.
Insert Link Target
Place the edit caret at the position in the book which is the target of a link then click this icon. Enter the label name when prompted. Label names which end in digits are auto-incrementing.
Insert Link To Play MIDI File
Highlight text which you want to link to play a MIDI file then click on this icon.
Insert List of MIDI Files
Place the edit caret at the position in the book where you want to place a list of links to MIDI files, then click this menu item. The file selection menu allows you to select multiple MIDI files for inclusion in an automatically generated list of links.
Export Wizard
Click on the Make GB image toolbar button (a green book), or the Make GBA image toolbar button (a blue book). This will open the first export dialog.
Export Wizard - Dialog 1
Select the correct encoding for your file, and select the font file you want to use. The standard fonts supplied are font_8.gbf font_12.gbf, font_16.gbf and f_trd_ch12.gbf. (The last one is specially designed for Traditional Chinese.)
The number refers to the height in pixels.
The dialog shows which codepages are supported by the font chosen. If your codepage is not supported, choose a different font.
Now click on Next...
Export Wizard - Dialog 2
The Reduce sequence of newlines by 1 when making book check box should be set to reflect how your text file marks paragraphs.
The paragraph indent will usually default to a sensible number for your font and codepage - but you can change it if you wish.
Now click on Next...
Export Wizard - Dialog 3
The next dialog is fairly self-explanatory.
Text compression, if selected, will reduce the size of the text by a factor of up to 2:1.
When you click OK, the book ROM file will be made in the location you specified.
Font Files (used in the target book ROM)
You may edit these by opening them.
Select the codepage you are interested in and the characters used in that codepage will be accessible to you to view and edit.
in Makebook. Editing is straightforward, if tedious.
You can view 256 characters at a time by clicking on View Page.
Each fontfile (eg font_12.gbf) contains the whole unicode basic multilingual plane; up to 65000 characters from all over the world. Not all characters have been added. If you want to add some you could also send the file to me so I can include them in the master file.
Makebook’s reader engine uses 1 font at a time, but makes a selection of character based on the codepage selected.
Other Files
There are files gbfd1252.gdf and similarly named files included with the package. These font description files are used by Makebook if you edit fonts. They should be kept in the same directory as Makebook.exe and should not be altered.
Import Functions
Added in V4.92 are 3 import functions ‘Import from HTML’, ‘Import from RTF’ and ‘Import from PDF’. These functions can be accessed when you have a text file open for editing into which to accept the imported text. Here is an important note about the PDF importer:-
Importing PDF files.
The specification for PDF files is pretty complex, and writing a program for extracting text from a PDF is not something for the faint-hearted. I'm afraid I took one look and decided against trying. However Glyph & Cog, LLC have produced a very capable suite of PDF programs. This is released under a GPL license, and I have chosen not to build their libraries into Makebook, or even to provide a copy of any of their software, as part of Makebook. But it is possible to run a chosen separate import function in Makebook if you specify it correctly.
Go to http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/ find the download page and get the compiled binary package e.g. xpdf-3.00-win32.zip (obviously stop there and look around as xpdf is a great piece of work). Then unpack this zip file, and read all the readme's. The main thing to do is to copy pdftotext.exe into the same directory as makebook.exe (C:\Program Files\Bookreader\Makebook if you used the default). You may also need a configuration file called xdpfrc in this directory. However you will need to read the xpdfrc.txt help file.
You may for example like to include the line:
textEOL dos
in your xpdfrc file for consistancy with windows conventions, although this appears to be the default setting anyway.
When you Select 'Import from PDF' Makebook will then automatically run this pdftotext converter.
Note that the xpdf is a very sophisticated and flexible system, which you may need to spend some time understanding to get the best results in some applications.
Both the other two import functions are work in progress and could be improved. They are only of much use at the moment for Western Languages - particularly ‘Latin 1’.
Registration
If you find this program useful I would appreciate it if you could register your copy. Registering means paying a small fee for a registration code which you can enter into the Help...Register... dialog in the program. The code can be obtained from my website www.bookreader.co.uk
There are no time limits on the program if you carry on using an unregistered copy. I realise that some people are not in a position to register. However please remember how much you paid for your FLASH cartridge when you decide not to register.
As a thankyou to those who do register there are some bonus features. Most of these advantages are not for the GB, just the GBA, but even GB only users will get a deep feeling of satisfaction when using the registered version.
· The NOT REGISTERED label is removed from both Makebook and from the books you make with it.
· The number of bookmarks you can add is increased from 3 to 50 (useful when proof-reading!) (GBA)
· The Goto Index function is enabled in the book (GBA).
· The limit of 20 on the number of hyperlink targets is removed (GBA).
· The book itself can be set to skip the opening splash screens (GBA).
· It can also skip the Cover screen if required (GBA).
· Makebook remembers most settings from one session to the next.
· GBA header can automatically be fixed up if you have the appropriate file available. Ask me by email after you’ve registered.
· You can play MIDI files as clickable links in your book.
Further bonus features are planned.
Registration will enable me to continue to develop the Book Reader system. If nobody registers I will have to assume that noone enjoys Makebook and the project will have to stop.
If I carry on I have some more fun features to add. Immediate plans include:
· A search facility (initially only for western languages!)
· A minimum footprint option - ditch the splash screens entirely
· Further languages.
Capability Chart
Markup Format GB GBA Registration
Book (volume) ~c YES YES
Chapter ~v YES YES
Index ~i NO YES Only if registered
Bitmap ~b{pathname} 1 bit colour only, 160 wide, height multiple of font height 1 bit or 24 bit colour, width up to 240, height any, 160 high to fit on screen, 156 high preferred if 12 pixel font mode
Link (Goto) start of text ~g{label} NO YES
Link (Goto) end of text ~/g NO YES
Target ~t{label} NO YES Only 20 targets allowed unless registered
Play MIDI file link start ~p{midifilepath} NO YES Only if registered
Play MIDI file link end ~/p NO YES Only if registered
Play MIDI file during splash screens ~ms{midifilepath} NO YES Only if registered
Play MIDI file during cover screen ~mc{midifilepath} NO YES Only if registered
Play MIDI file as background to text from this line onwards ~mc{midifilepath} NO YES Only if registered
Don’t Play anything as background to text from this line onwards ~mc{ } NO YES Only if registered
Acknowledgments
My thanks go to many people who have helped. I don’t have the space to thank them all here, but I hope everyone realizes I am grateful.
Contact
Web Site: www.bookreader.co.uk
Email: pc@bookreader.co.uk
