I just uploaded the third novel in my 1980s New Romantic Murder Mysteries series today (it’s called ‘Death Wears Sequins’, by the way, and, by Jove! it’s a damn’ riveting read!).
All was going well when suddenly – eek! – Mobipocket Creator threw a wobbly.
I’m using Mobipocket Creator 4.2 installed in the advanced mode rather than the simplified ‘Home’ version. You can download a copy here: http://www.mobipocket.com/.
I was just in the process of adding the ‘guides’ for my Cover image and Table Of Contents as I’ve explained in a previous post when suddenly a dialog box popped up displaying an inscrutable message telling me that an unexpected JavaScript error had occurred. Well, that had me flummoxed. Until, that is, I recalled some comments on this very blog from people who’d come across the same problem.
A quick scan though the comments soon found the answer. The commenter named krakondack wrote: “I've found the solution to my problem, so if anyone else gets the problem, all you need to do is uninstall Internet Explorer 9 in "Installed Updates" section of Control Panel's list of software. There's some kind of conflict there, and uninstalling 9 simply reverts your system to IE 8 which then works fine.”
OK, so I loaded up the Control Panel from the Windows Start menu (this is on Windows 7), opened Programs and Features and searched the list for Internet Explorer. The damn’ thing isn’t there! If I’d read krakondack’s comment more carefully, I might not have been so surprised; but I didn’t and I was. After a bit of creating Googling, I eventually discovered that in order to uninstall Internet Explorer 9 you have to click the View Installed Updates link at the left of the Programs and Features window. Then you scroll down until you find a group called Microsoft Windows and, lurking somewhere in the list there is the Windows Internet Explorer 9 item. Right-click this and select Uninstall. When it’s finished, reboot the PC and Internet Explorer will have changed back to version 8.
Having done this, when I used Mobipocket Creator, all is well. Don’t ask me what it is about version 9 of Internet Explorer (IE9) that cause the problem because I don’t know. And, since I hardly ever use Internet Explorer (these days I generally use Chrome) I don’t much care.
If you do use IE9, you will have problems. Probably the simplest way around them is to use a different Kindle-book generator. Many people like Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/) which, like Mobipocket, is free. I’ve tried Calibre and it seems fine but I prefer to use Mobipocket Creator for the simple reason that I’ve already fought my battles with it and now I know how to get myself out of most of the tight corners that initially baffled me. Maybe I’ll try Calibre for my next Kindle book. For now, though, I’m happy with Mobipocket Creator – and Internet Explorer 8!
