Learn how to export your library as a Web app with Kotobee Author.

Why export as a Web App?

If you'd like to enable offline access for your users, you need to do so before your libraries are exported.

Web apps are one of the most versatile formats as they can be read in any web browser, and they automatically adjust to whatever screen they're being displayed on. The Web apps exported are HTML5 based. Many businesses display catalogs and product manuals in their websites as web apps.

 To export Web apps:

  1. Click on Manage in the header bar.
    The Manage screen will open.
  2. Click on Libraries in the left panel.
  3. Select your library from the drop-down menu in the top bar. 
  4. Select Export from the Libraries menu in the left panel.
  5. Click on the Export Web App tab.

Options

Once the Export Web App page opens, you'll see that it offers you three options before you can head on to creating your Web App.

Segregate long text

To make your ebook easier to read on old mobile devices, clicking on the box next to Segregate long text divides the content into parts that will be visible or hidden when needed. (There may be a slight jittering effect. Therefore only enable this feature if you are targeting older mobile devices.)

Website icon

This option will create a shortcut icon for your web app using an image (a favicon).

Optimize

Optimizing helps you decrease the size of your ebook by removing unused images and files. If you've manually added images through the file manager and will access them using Javascript, you shouldn't optimize your ebook.



If you want to distribute your ebook app privately or for sale, you'll need Kotobee Cloud Services. For more information on this feature, please refer to Understanding Cloud Ebooks.

Uploading the Web App to Your Website

If you already have your own website, you need either FTP access to your website's server, or some sort of File Manager in your website's administration panel, allowing uploading of files directly to your website's server.

If you do not already have a website but interested in starting one, you will need to subscribe with any of the thousands of web hosting companies available online. Some of the popular examples: HostGator, GoDaddy, HostPapa, and BlueHost.

If you want to avoid the hassle of getting your own website and uploading files, you can subscribe to a Hosted Ebook license with Kotobee, which makes the process of having your ebook online as simple as clicking a button.

Uploading Files with FTP

An FTP Client is needed to upload your Web App files to your web server. A recommended FTP Client which we personally use is FileZilla, which is available for free from https://filezilla-project.org

Once you download and open FileZilla, you'll find 4 pieces of required information at the top in order to connect to your web server:

You can get this information from your hosting company (it should have been sent to you once you have subscribed). For any technical help you may contact their support center.

Once you are connected, here is the interface you should be seeing:

Don't be intimidated by the multiple panels of the interface. All you need to know is that the left column is your computer, and the right column is your website's server. You can drag any file or folder from the left to the right and this way it would be uploaded to your website. Subsequently, you can drag any file or folder from the right to the left and this way it would be downloaded to your computer.

Say your website is http://www.example.com. Once you connect with FTP, in most cases you should see a folder named "public_html". Any file or folder underneath the public_html folder, can be accessed under http://www.example.com. So if you upload report.pdf to public_html/report.pdf it can be accessed by anyone through http://www.example.com/report.pdf. If you add several subfolders under public_html these subfolders will need to be included in the path under http://www.example.com.

All that is left for you to do is to navigate to your ebook web app files (from the left column) and drag them all to an appropriate folder (under public_html). At the bottom panel (with the large white area) it will keep you informed of the upload progress. Once all the files have been successfully uploaded, you may access them from under your website's domain.