Stanza:Transfer Books to iPhone

There are several ways to transfer content from your computer to your iPhone or iPod Touch, which range from sharing your books over your local WiFi network, uploading them to the internet, and transferring them over via USB. Following is a list of ways you can transfer your books to Stanza iPhone:

Using iTunes

In Stanza 3.0 and higher, you can transfer your ePub, eReader, PDF, CBR, and DjVu book files to & from your desktop PC by iTunes by dragging files into the “Stanza Documents” part of the “File Sharing” section at the bottom of the “Apps” tab that appears when you select your iPad from the “Devices” list in iTunes. This option is only available for devices running iOS 3.2 and higher (available now for the iPad, and will be available for the iPhone and iPod in late June). Note that if your books are in another format, you must first convert them using a tool like Calibre.

Using Calibre

Calibre is a free application for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux that manages your library and integrates with Stanza iPhone over your local wireless network. It can be downloaded for free from http://calibre-ebook.com. See at the thread at http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=391919 for a discussion of how to use Calibre on Windows, Mac, or Linux to share books with Stanza iPhone over your local WiFi network.

Sharing by uploading books to a web site (for epub or eReader)
If your books are in any format but eReader or epub, you need to first convert your books to epub using Stanza Desktop.
Create a free account at http://box.net if you don’t already have one.

Upload the ePub or eReader files to your box.net account.
In Stanza on your iPhone, go to the “Get Books” tab.
Tap the “Shared” segment and hit the plus sign.
Select “Add Web Page”.
For the name, enter “box.net”, and for the URL enter “box.net”. Tap “Save” in the upper right corner.
Select “box.net” from the “Book Sources” section.
The box.net mobile site will load in Stanza’s embedded browser. Log in with your username and password.
You should see the book(s) you uploaded. Tapping the link to the book will automatically download the file and install it in Stanza’s library.

Uploading to http://bookworm.oreilly.com (for epub format books only)
On your computer: if your book is not in ePub format, then convert your book to ePub (called Open eBook format in the Stanza Desktop Export menu) using Stanza Desktop or Calibre. (If your book already is in eReader format, try the eReader-specific solutions mentioned above and below.)
Go to http://bookworm.oreilly.com, and create an account for yourself.
Upload your books to your new account at http://bookworm.oreilly.com.
On your iPhone: launch Safari.
Go to http://m.bookworm.oreilly.com in Safari on your iPhone and sign in.
Select the arrow button under Read in Stanza.
This will launch Stanza in the Direct Downloads screen. Your book will appear, though it will have a long name with numbers with a URL underneath. Don’t worry — it really is your book.
Tap on your book. If Stanza asks you whether you want to download the book, tap Download. The book will open, and it will appear in the categories on the main Library page.

e-mailing books to yourself (for epub or eReader)
If your books are in any format but eReader or epub, you need to first convert your books to epub using Stanza Desktop.
Create an e-mail account at gmail.com if you don’t already have one.
Create a mail message to your @gmail.com address from your desktop PC and add the ePub or eReader book as an attachment to the mail and send the message.
In Stanza on your iPhone, go to the “Get Books” tab.
Tap the “Shared” segment then hit the plus sign.
Select “Add Web Page”.
For the name, enter “Gmail”, and for the URL enter “gmail.com”. Tap “Save” in the upper right corner.
Select “Gmail” from the “Book Sources” section.
Gmail will load in Stanza’s embedded browser. Log in with your username and password.
Important There is a bug in how gmail.com interacts with the iPhone’s embedded browser, which means that clicking on an attachment in a message from the mobile window won’t do anything. You first need to scroll to the very bottom of the page where it says “View Gmail in:” and tap the “Desktop” link to display the non-mobile version of the site.
You should now see the mail that you sent yourself in step #2. Tap on the list item to see the message.
Tap the link corresponding to the attachment you sent. The book should then be automatically downloaded and installed into Stanza.

Note: this same method may work for other webmail providers. For example, it is known to work well with http://webmail.aol.com, but http://mail.yahoo.com has some problems. We would be interested in hearing your comments about the success or failure of using other providers for this method of transferring books.

Uploading to stanza.fictionwise.com (for eReader format books only)
Unless your books are already in the the eReader format (e.g., you purchased them in the eReader format), then follow the instructions above and convert your books to ePub (a.k.a. Open eBook) format. You cannot use Stanza Desktop to convert a book to eReader format.
On your computer, go stanza.fictionwise.com. If you don’t already have an account on this website, create one.
Once you’ve logged into your account, go to Bookshelf, and then click on the Personal Content for iPhone and iPod Touch button.
Follow the instructions there to upload your personal content to your Bookshelf.
Open Stanza on your iPhone.
Go to the “Get Books” tabs, then go to the Fictionwise Book Store.
Tap on My Bookshelf at the bottom of the Fictionwise Book Store screen.
Click on Set Login Info, and enter your stanza.fictionwise.com account information.
Your personal content should now appear in My Bookshelf.
Pick the items you want to download, and then tap the blue Download button in the upper right corner.
The items you downloaded from My Bookshelf will now appear in the top-level Library under Recent Downloads and Titles.

If you already have an account at eReader.com or http://www.fictionwise.com, you can follow the exact instructions above using those websites (instead of stanza.fictionwise.com) for uploading and then entering account information for those accounts when you go to My Bookshelf.

Getting Books from a URL (“Direct Downloads” – for epub or eReader)
If any of your books is in any format but eReader or epub, then convert that book to epub using Stanza Desktop.
Upload your epub and eReader files to your personal website.
Launch Stanza on your iPhone, and go to the “Get Books” tab.
Select the “Downloads” segment.
Tap the plus sign at the bottom of the screen.
Enter the URL for your book on your personal website, and then tap Download in the upper right corner.
You’ll now see your file in Direct Downloads. Tap your book to read it. It will also appear in the categories in the main Library page.

Adding your own Web Page Full of Books (for epub or eReader)
If your books are in any format but eReader or epub, then convert your books to epub using Stanza Desktop.
Upload your epub and eReader files to your personal website.
Create a single webpage that has links to all of your books. We recommend using the full path to your book in the link (e.g., http://www.mywebsite.com/myebook.epub).
In Stanza on your iPhone, go to the “Get Books” tab.
Tap the “Shared” segment then hit the plus sign.
Select “Add Web Page”.
For the name, enter a name for your webpage, and for the URL for your webpage with all the links to your books. Tap “Save” in the upper right corner.
Select your webpage name from the “Book Sources” section.
Your webpage will open right there in Stanza.
Select the book you want to download.
Go back to the main Library page in Stanza, and your books should appear in Recent Downloads.

Sharing using Stanza Desktop
The Stanza iPhone application, which can be downloaded onto the iPhone via the Apple App Store, can upload books from your computer using Stanza Desktop. The Stanza Desktop application is currently available for Apple Macintosh and Windows computers from http://download.lexcycle.com.
Launch Stanza Desktop.
Go to File->Open, and open a book or document in one of Stanza’s supported formats. Note: The text of eReader books will not be displayed, but you can still use this interface to share books with Stanza iPhone.
Go to the “Tools” menu, and ensure that the “Enable Sharing” menu item is checked.
Ensure that your iPhone is connected to the same wireless network that your PC is on.
Launch Stanza on your iPhone.
From the top-level library menu, select “Shared Books”. You should see your computer name. Select it.
Stanza Desktop will then notify you that your iPhone is attempting to connect to your shared library, and request your permission to allow the connection.
Once you have granted permission, Stanza iPhone will display a list of books that are open in Stanza Desktop.
Tap on the book to download it Stanza on your iPhone. It will appear in Titles and Recent Downloads.

Deprecated: Transferring books via the USB cable (for epub or eReader) this option is no longer be available in Stanza 2.1. It is replaced by iTunes Sharing in Stanza 3.0.
If your books are in any format but eReader or epub, then convert your books to epub using Stanza Desktop or Calibre.
Download and install the free “iPhone Explorer” utility from http://www.iphone-explorer.com, which allows you to transfer files over to your iPhone using the USB cable
Connect your iPhone to your computer using the USB cable and launch iPhone Explorer
Click the “Change Root” button and select the “/var/mobile/Media/DCIM/” option.
Click the “New Folder” button rename the new folder “Stanza”.
Browse your computer for your books in the ePub or eReader format and drag them onto the “Stanza” folder.
The next time you launch Stanza, all the books in that folder will be automatically imported into Stanza’s library (and removed from that folder).
Note: any other software that can transfer files over to the iPhone can be used for this method of transferring books in bulk. When Stanza launches, any files it finds in the folder named “/var/mobile/Media/DCIM/Stanza” will be imported into Stanza. For example, you can use the shareware “DiskAid” software to also transfer files.

Can I transfer books from Stanza iPhone to Stanza Desktop?

We do not currently support transfers from Stanza on the iPhone/iPod Touch to Stanza Desktop, though this is something we are considering for a future version of the software.

Note that most books available in the Online Catalog are also available for download from the web. If you ever have a choice of format, pick ePub. If ePub is not available, pick plain text (.txt).

Feedbooks => http://www.feedbooks.com
Project Gutenberg => http://www.gutenberg.org
Munseys => http://www.munseys.com
Fictionwise => stanza.fictionwise.com
Books On Board => http://www.booksonboard.com
All Romance eBooks => http://www.allromanceebooks.com
Smashwords => http://www.smashwords.com

Also note that Stanza iPhone’s books are backed up as part of the normal iTunes backup process, and so will usually be available on your local machine. For one way to extract your books from backup, see http://www.lexcycle.com/content/stanza-book-restore-tool

http://www.lexcycle.com/faq