Problem: Merge two ebooks paragraph by paragraph...

[akayacik80]

I have two ebooks. They are the same but in different language. For example German and English.

I want to merge them into one ebook paragraph by paragraph. Why, because l want to learn language, i'll read the paragraph in english first and read the paragraph in german second.

Thank you...

[mrmikel]

This is a pretty stiff problem. Any automated solution would require that there was ABSOLUTE correspondence of one to the other, which I would doubt in most cases.

There has been some talk on the forums of putting each of the different languages in two columns which would be potentially less of a problem to do. But maintaining correspondence of one column to another then becomes an issue, especially if text size is changed. There is also the issue that columns are not well supported across all readers.

This might be a job for a word processor in two columns and then published/printed as pdf so as to maintain the layout if it is for your personal use.

[eschwartz]

https://github.com/pettarin/epub3reader

Has some interesting ideas for parallel multi-language support. As of now, it is only supported AFAIK by his proof-of-concept app, though.

[Doitsu]

Assuming that both books are in the Public Domain, I could create an interlinked book for you (like my French-English Three Musketeers version) if you align all paragraphs (or sentences) and put them in a two-column spreadsheet.
Aligning can be done using LF Aligner (free) or Abbyy Aligner (volume license).
BTW, for a couple of language combinations read-to-use bitexts already exist. What language combination(s) are you interested in?

[SBT]

I'm tempted to goad you into being young, wild, and reckless and do it as an epub3 book. This is the kind of project where I find the limitations of epub2 most enervating. Do it in epub3, on the other hand, and the possibilities are as near to boundless as makes no difference... Tweaking the stylesheet to either have the text side-by side, or switching language for a single paragraph – the choice is yours, or rather, your reader's. Always assuming they can find an epub3-compliant e-reader, of course...

[elibrarian]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Aligning can be done using LF Aligner (free) or Abbyy Aligner (volume license).
BTW, for a couple of language combinations read-to-use bitexts already exist. What language combination(s) are you interested in?

Abbyy Aligner seems to have gone into some sort of limbo - there are buying links on Abbyys pages, but clicking them doesn't lead to any buying options, at least for the freelance version.

Anyway, FWIW, I'm presently testdriving a product called Nova Text Aligner, priced at ~40$. It exports to epub, but the code generated need some work to be useable. It also seems to be somewhat easier to use than the LFAligner, once you get the hang of it.

Regards,

Kim