Kindle Mobi2Mobi GUI Vista/XP

From MobileRead

This page of the Visual Kindle Guide was created by Leep, pilotbob and daffy4u.

These instructions for using the Mobi2Mobi GUI, are based on the contributions of MobileRead members, Tommy Persson and Jad. We thank you!

If you have any questions, please post in this thread on MobileRead.

[edit] How to use the Mobi2Mobi GUI on .azw, .mobi and .prc Books - Vista/XP

Mobi2mobi is particularly useful in fixing the missing or incorrect Metadata. It may be used on DRM’d ebooks converted using Kindlefix which sometimes causes the metadata to get mangled or on books you've downloaded directly from Amazon. It can also be used manipulate the metadata to display in a different way (author "lastname, firstname" or for book organization).

If for some reason you are unable to install and run the Mobi2Mobi GUI, please visit the Visual Kindle Guide pages on how to use the command line version of Kindle Mobi2Mobi Vista/XP.

Note 1: If you use Mobi2Mobi GUI on books you've already read that have bookmarks, or highlights or notes, that information 
will not transfer to the new book. That information *will* stay with the original copy, so if it's important or you're in the 
process of reading the book, keep the original copy. And as always, back-up your Kindle books before using any of these commands.

Note 2: Please note that Mobi2Mobi does not work on Topaz formatted books (.azw1, .tpz).

Note 3: We also have 2 videos which will give you an overview of the installation and use of the Mobi2Mobi GUI.
Each video is approximately 5 minutes long. Vista video & XP video

Software needed:

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
mobiperl-win-0.0.41.zip - or most current version
Mobi2Mobi GUI v0.16

Note: Though this guide was created using GUI v0.16 and Mobiperl 0.0.41,there are new versions of both. 
Mobi2Mobi GUI VB .v6 and mobiperl-win-0.0.43.zip should be used together. There are some cool features that have been added. 
Read the GUI thread on MobileRead for more information.

[edit] How to make changes to a book downloaded from Amazon

Step 1) Download and installed Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5. Let it install into it's default directory. The .NET Framework install will take several minutes (everything after this goes pretty quickly).

Step 2) Download and install the Mobiperl scripts. You may unzip the files into their own folder or add them to an exiting folder with other scripts. For instance you may have the Mobi2Mobi folder on your desktop. There is no need to add this script folder to the path as we did for KindlePID.

Since we have been using the the folder "c:\Python26\Tools\Scripts on previous pages of the Visual Kindle Guide (for KindlePID and KindleFIX) to store all of our book converting scripts and will continue to do so for convenience and consistancy (we won't be using any of the Python scripts). It's advisable to keep the books you want to convert in a separate folder. For our example we are using "desktop\downloaded books" (the same folder we've used on previous Visual Kindle Guide pages).

Step 3) Download and install Mobi2Mobi GUI v.0.16. It's such a small program that we are installing it directly to the Desktop.

Step 4) The first time you open the Mobi2Mobi GUI, you must tell it where to find the Mobi2Mobi scripts and the name of the folder containing the books you want to convert.

Step 5) Click on "Open File" and find the book you want to change. In this sample we used the book "Bite" by Angela Knight, Laurell K. Hamilton, MaryJanice Davidson, and Charlaine Harris. For our example, we are going to change the title from "Bite" to "I'll Bite"

Step 6) In the output file box, we've changed the file name from "Bite.azw" to "I'll_Bite.azw". We placed a check in the box to the right to confirm that we want to make this change.

Step 7) We then use the book title box to change the title from "Bite" to "I'll Bite" and again place a check in the box to the right to confirm that we want to make this change.

Note: it is VERY important to check the box next to the fields you want changed. If you don't they won't.

Step 8) In this case, the author is already in a "lastname, firstname" format so we don't need to change it. We have left it's box to the right un-checked. You may also add or change the data in the "publisher, subject, description and language boxes", though none of this information will show on your Kindle.

Step 9) Click the "Convert" button located on the far right of the window.

Step 10) The Mobi2Mobi GUI does it's thing and you'll see a lot of information scroll by. Your final results will show the changes you've made. Notice the file name has changed to a .mobi file. This will happen with every conversion you make using the GUI. The file will still work on your Kindle and the DRM is still intact.

Here is how the new book title looks on the Kindle (along with a version we called "Don't Bite").

Here is a look at the original file and the two versions we made.

[edit] How to make changes to a KindleFIXed book.

Now we're going to work on the book we Kindle-ized using KindleFIX Vista/XP after downloading it from a non-Amazon site. During the Kindlefixing of this book the metadata for the title was mangled and now reads as "EXTH".

Step 1) Open the "Natural-583.azw" file.

Step 2) Make the changes we want.

- Change the output file from "Natural-583" to "RevNatural"
- Fill the blank book title box with "The Natural"
- Change author from "Abby Gaines" to "Gaines, Abby" (this will come into play when sorting by author)
- Fill the blank subject box with "Romance"
- Fill the blank description box with a description we pulled the book's sell page on Amazon (even though the book 
came from another site)

Note: A check mark was placed in the check-box next to every change we made (we made no change to the "publisher" box).

Step 3) Click the "Convert" button.

You now have 2 files, the original .azw and the new .mobi files. You may now delete the .azw file and transfer the new .mobi file to the "documents" folder of your Kindle.

Just for fun, here are the final results showing how the new and old files look on the Kindle.