Some feedback for the developer and anyone else considering this. In no particular order:
You have to be “logged in” to be able to export to an ebook format. You can create and edit your ebook without being “logged in” but you can’t save it to a ebook format. “logging in” requires that you enter your serial number. But if you “log out” then you need to enter your serial number again when you want to save to ebook format. I’m not sure why you have to be “logged in” to an account to use a piece of software installed on your PC. Also I’m not sure what would happen if you didn’t have internet connection when you wanted to use it.
It will import from Word .docx files but not .doc files. You can copy and paste from Word files but when I copied from a .doc Word file, and pasted into the software, it double-spaced the lines.
The program connects to a website: lowpricessmith.net No idea what that is
Every time you open the program you get a popup asking whether you want reflowable or fixed layout, import from pdf or open a saved file. While this may be functional, I initially only saw the ‘reflowable or fixed layout’ options as they are large and take up most of the popup screen – it took me a while to realise there was an option there to open a previously saved file. I prefer a program to open up without popups – maybe consider that as an option in settings.
The program sets itself as the default program to open .epub files (without asking). I have another program I use to open epub files so I had to reset that.
The “Author” of the book defaults to “Kotobee”. There is no setting where you can set up a default Author, so you have to type this in for each book you create.
The default book title and chapter are filled is as ‘Untitled book’ and ‘untitled chapter’, but to overwrite those you have to delete those default words. It would be a lot easier if the text was a ‘hint’ rather than actual text. In the book manager screen the ‘publisher’ ‘description’ and ‘ISBN’ fields are ‘hints’ rather than actual text, so I can’t see why all the fields can’t be ‘hints’
I resized the window of the program. When I closed and re-opened the program it was back to the default window size. It would be good if it remembered the window size from when it was last open. Also it opened up partly off the screen rather than being centered or in the last location it was in when I closed it.
I inserted an image into my book. I couldn’t find any info in the online support on how to resize an image after you insert it. I accidentally found out how when I double-clicked on the image. I would find it useful to have ‘edit’ in the right click menu for the image (along with the cut, paste, copy menu items)
I added some reflowable layout chapters to my book and then a fixed layout chapter. I couldn’t enter any text in the fixed layout chapter. You couldn’t click in the edit area. If I went to ‘source mode’ I could put in text, but still couldn’t edit it in ‘edit mode’
I couldn’t see any way of changing the layout of a chapter once you’d created it
It does correctly remember the folder location of the last file that you saved, when you choose ‘open’.
When I tried to export to pdf it said it needed a plugin to be able to do that and did I want to download it. Why not just include that plugin in the install? Same for creating a windows desktop app – it needed a plugin.
When I exported to a word doc, the images were missing. Also the font was times new roman instead of the Arial that I had set. Internal links didn’t work in the word doc.
I have not used any other ebook authoring software before so can’t comment on how it stacks up to the competition.
I’m using Windows 7 Professional 64bit
The above comments are meant as constructive feedback on the use of the program and not as a criticism of it. The ebook I created in epub format worked well and as expected on my android smartphone using fBreader.
Thanks for giving us the opportunity to try this program