Sunday, March 9, 2014

Adding custom dictionaries to Kobo devices

I recently bought a Kobo Glo. Great little e-reader, that one.

I spent a while struggling to figure out how to install a Turkish-English dictionary on it, because it's not supported by default. I decided to write a little tutorial about installing other dictionaries on a Kobo device, in case I or anyone else ever need it to do this again.

Check whether the dictionary you want is already available

1. Check here whether Kobo already made the dictionary you want. If yes, download the file, connect your Kobo device to your computer and place it in the ".kobo\dict" folder and you are done. If not, go to step 2.

2. Check here whether someone else already made a custom dictionary for the language pair you want. If so, you can skip to step 13 for instructions on how to put the file on your Kobo device.

Make a custom dictionary

3. Download the dictionary you want in StarDict format. This website has a lot of dictionaries.

4. Unzip it the .tar dictionary file. You will get a .dz, .idx and .ifo file. Rename the .dz file to .gz. Extract the .gz file so you end up with a .dict file. Give the .dict, .ifo and .idx representative names, eg. tur_en.dict, tur_en.idx, and tur_en.ifo.

5. Go here and download the latest version of Penelope.

6. Unzip the Penelope script and place it in the folder of your choice, for example "c:\Penelope". Put the dictionary files in the same folder as the Penelope files.

7. Install Python 3.3.4.

8. Download the marisa.zip file here or here. It containes two Windows executables It was built from open source Marisa code by the user EbokJunkie on mobileread.com. Penelope script invokes these executables. You can put them anywhere; I put them to "C:\tmp".

9. Right click the file penelope3.py and choose Edit with IDLE. Find the variables MARISA_BUILD_PATH and MARISA_REVERSE_LOOKUP_PATH and set their location to "c:/tmp/marisa-build.exe" and to "c:/tmp/marisa-reverse-lookup.exe" respectively, or wherever you saved the marisa files. Save penelopa3.py.

10. Open the command prompt and make the Penelope folder your current folder by typing the command "cd c:\Penelope".

11. Type the following command to start the conversion: "penelope3.py -p tur_eng -f tur -t eng --output-kobo". Replace the variable "tur" with the language you want to translate from and "eng" with your target language.

12. You will end up with a Kobo dictionary file now, for example dicthtml-tur-eng.zip.

Transfer the dictionary file to your Kobo device

13. Connect your Kobo device to your computer and go to the ".kobo\dict" folder on the reader.

14. In order to get your Kobo device to recognize the dictionary files, you have to use it to replace an existing original dictionary. To do this, you have to use the file name of an existing original dictionary. For example, I don't use the Spanish dictionary, so I renamed the file "dicthtml-es-en.zip" on my Kobo device to "dicthtml-es-en-backup.zip", so I will still have a backup in case I need it later. Then I renamed my Turkish-English dictionary to "dicthtml-es-en.zip".

15. Unplug your Kobo device, tap a word in a book and use the "Spanish" dictionary to look up words in your dictionary.

Credits:
Posed by at

45 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 27, 2014 at 4:25 PM

    Thanks very much! I could make and install a German English dictionary into my Kobo glo. I am really happy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousApril 20, 2022 at 1:57 PM

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      Delete
  2. bloggerSeptember 20, 2014 at 1:21 PM

    Star ingilizce sözlüğü yerine OED gibi daha kapsamlı bir sözlük çevirebilir miyiz. Bunların kaynak dosyalarına ulaşabilir miyiz?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ZalimaOctober 27, 2014 at 10:58 PM

      Please comment in English, my Turkish is not very good yet and this blog is supposed to be in English. :)
      As far as I know, we are limited to the dictionaries available in StarDict format, unless you can find a way to convert dictionaries.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousNovember 1, 2014 at 4:30 PM

    This worked like charm. The only issue I faced was os.rename wasn't working in penelope script.

    ReplyDelete
  4. viclefNovember 20, 2014 at 10:42 PM

    Hi, thank you. It works well:)

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousDecember 11, 2014 at 6:09 PM

    I would be forever grateful to you for this tutorial. Worked like a charm on my Kobo Aura.

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownMarch 15, 2015 at 10:23 AM

    thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousMarch 15, 2015 at 8:14 PM

    Hi, I'm Alberto Pettarin, the author of Penelope.

    SG pointed me to this post. I am glad that you find the tool useful and took time to write this tutorial.

    Just a two updates:

    1. the code is now hosted on GitHub, including some documentation: https://github.com/pettarin/penelope

    2. on this MobileRead thread there is an index of custom dictionaries, mostly done with penelope, for several languages: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=232883

    (Maybe you want to update the post, thank you.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ZalimaMarch 23, 2015 at 11:19 PM

      Thank you for creating the tool and also informing me of the updates; I updated my blog post accordingly. Don't hesitate to let me know if you have any other updates or comments. :)

      Delete
    2. AnonymousApril 18, 2015 at 10:52 PM

      Excellent, thank you.

      Alberto

      Delete
  8. namazuJune 14, 2015 at 1:57 AM

    Thanks for the post.
    I tried but it didnt work for me. I encountered following error

    UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xa0' in position 1: ordinal not in range(128)

    can you give me some hints to solve this?

    thanks

    Nam

    ReplyDelete
  9. CrazyCatJuly 3, 2015 at 3:43 PM

    Thanks a lot, really simple to follow.
    Notice that if you want a definition dictionary, and not translation, you have to set the same "from" and "to" language.

    ReplyDelete
  10. UnknownJuly 6, 2015 at 3:40 AM

    Hello, is there a link where I can download that English - Turkish dictionary you made?:) Many thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousAugust 28, 2015 at 3:34 PM

    Hello, I had problems with the preffix, it just doesn't accept it and aborts the operation (even having done it the same it was shown here). Can anybody help me? Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousAugust 29, 2015 at 10:35 PM

    Hello, I need help
    I followed the instructions and instead of getting the dicthtml zip file within the penelope folder I get another folder named pycache with a pyc file inside it (small size 15 KB)
    What am I doing wrong?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousAugust 30, 2015 at 12:52 AM

      Nvm, got it to work.
      Now how to combine two dictionaries (part 1 and 2)?

      Delete
  13. UnknownNovember 14, 2015 at 3:00 PM

    Hello!
    Thanks for great instructions! Only, now when I tried I didn't get a zip-file in step 12. Instead of using the file penelope3.py in step 9 and 11 you should use the file penelope.py (without 3). :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. UnknownNovember 28, 2015 at 12:53 AM

    I've penelope-3.0.1 and no penelopa3.py file.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Laci (Macsek)December 16, 2015 at 11:27 AM

    Thanks for the detailed instruction. This method was working in the past but the actual firmware replaces the changed dictionary to the default quite often (I suspect at sync).
    Do you know a way to have the custom dictionary persistent?
    Thanks in advance

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousApril 18, 2016 at 5:36 PM

    Hello!
    TNX for so good manual!
    But...
    I can't find penelope.py when I use penelope 2.1.40 and the same when I use penelope 3.0.1.9 - can't find penelope3.py.
    Where is my mistake?
    Evmolp

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousNovember 22, 2017 at 12:20 AM

      Please use penelope 2.02 then you can get the penelope3.py

      Delete
  17. UnknownMay 8, 2016 at 5:45 PM

    I am experiencing the same problem above. I downloaded and extracted the penelope files, but there is no penepole file in the directory. There is another "penelope" directory in the "penelople" folder and it contains many python files. please help. I need to get it work to use on my kobo. I am trying to convert Oxford and Merriam Advanced eng to eng. Thank for the froum

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownMay 8, 2016 at 6:15 PM

      i am woking with stardict and need to create kobo

      Delete
    2. UnknownMay 8, 2016 at 9:31 PM

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. UnknownMay 8, 2016 at 9:33 PM

      this is the file I am trying to covert

      http://www.mediafire.com/download/p0hhhfn680yazsv/MWADICT_EN-EN.tar.bz2

      Delete
  18. AnonymousDecember 7, 2016 at 1:00 PM

    I am trying to install the english to hindi dictionary, but when i search in the dictionary, it comes up as squares

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shaukat AliJuly 2, 2020 at 7:25 PM

      Download hindi Fonts and install it in your kobo by simply making a font folder (you must name it fonts) in the root directory of your kobo and place the hindi Font in it. When u will have hindi fonts, only then it wil show you the hindi language. Kobo does not support Hindi font so u hav to install Hindi font in it. For details, please check out, how to install custom fonts on kobo ereader

      Delete
  19. KostasTMarch 10, 2017 at 10:45 AM

    I discovered this 2014 forum that addressed the issue of Kobo custom dictionaries and I followed the instructions but, although I renamed the existing Kobo English-Spanish dictionary to dicthtml-en-es-backup.zip and my custom dictionary to dicthtml-en-es.zip, my reader continued using the English-Spanish dictionary, despite the fact that it was now in ...-backup form. If anyone is still monitoring this forum I would be grateful to have a suggestion. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousJuly 12, 2019 at 12:01 PM

      Hi, I do have similiar problem. I think no solution has been given yet.

      Delete
  20. UnknownJanuary 6, 2018 at 6:35 PM

    You have made nice post but you can know more about 7-zip (compressor/extractor) it at:
    https://basusoftgame.blogspot.com/2017/12/7-Zip-Unzip-file-for-Windows.html

    ReplyDelete
  21. UnknownJanuary 24, 2018 at 5:19 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  22. UnknownJanuary 24, 2018 at 5:20 PM

    Hi,
    I have found an english-indonesian dictionary already in .dx.gz, .ifo, .idx, .dict
    I have downloaded penelope, python and marisa but when unziped the latter shows 2 folders with the right names but there are empty.
    Since I work on a mac, I went to a windows PC with the same result.

    Where did I go wrong ?

    Also, I can find any penelope3 file.

    Thanks for your help

    Alain.

    ReplyDelete
  23. AnonymousJanuary 30, 2018 at 2:43 AM

    hi,
    I have a hard time find English-Chinese dictionary for my kobo touch. could you please help?
    thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  24. hardhatAugust 3, 2018 at 1:43 AM

    It's quite ridiculous how developers assume an average Joe is able to compile a piece of Python code on their own. "Hey, since you can read books, you probably know how to compile a dictionary converter." It really boggles my mind.

    ReplyDelete
  25. UnknownDecember 30, 2018 at 6:04 AM

    Following these instructions I was able to create 2 versions of French dictionaries, and install them on my Kobo Aura ONE. But I see and I understand that non-engineers may get stuck with these instructions. I am an engineer, so I was able to get past a few obstacles. So here are a few issues you may encounter:
    1. Make sure to get penelope version 2.0.2
    2. Set the path for marisa as instructed in penelope.py
    3. Run penelope.py with the parameters instead of penelope3.py

    Thank you so much Zalima for figuring this out and posting it for everybody.

    ReplyDelete
  26. SansayDecember 30, 2018 at 6:07 AM

    I posted the comment above.

    ReplyDelete
  27. GregorMarch 11, 2019 at 8:32 PM

    Does this tutorial still work?
    I've followed by the instructions above but I couldn't find penelope3.py file?? Is there any updated tutorial how to convert StarDict format dictionary for Kobo reader?

    ReplyDelete
  28. SansayApril 13, 2019 at 7:23 AM

    Gregor, yes, like I said in the comments just before yours, it works but you will have to follow my instructions.

    ReplyDelete
  29. AnonymousNovember 19, 2019 at 4:42 PM

    Hej,

    I can not find any Swedish dictionary. Does anyone have one?

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  30. AnonymousJune 17, 2020 at 8:58 PM

    I'm also looking for a swedish dictionary...

    ReplyDelete
  31. AnonymousOctober 13, 2020 at 1:41 PM

    Hello, I need help
    I followed the instructions and instead of getting the dicthtml zip file within the penelope folder I get another folder named pycache with a pyc file inside it (small size 15 KB)
    What am I doing wrong?

    ReplyDelete
  32. AnonymousJanuary 22, 2021 at 3:21 PM

    Hell Guys

    i am searching for dictionaries : german arabic
    italian arabic
    french arabic
    in dicthtml for my kobo h2o
    i upoaded dictionaries from archive.org
    but they are in zip forma
    any help i am desperate !!
    thanks

    ReplyDelete
  33. Zoura TulipFebruary 23, 2021 at 5:33 PM

    Someone please help! I have a bulgarian_dictionary.mobi but need it be converted for Kobo. Can someone please do that for me, I have read the Penelope guide, but this is too complicated for me, never done anything like that. If you can help me, please email me at zornitsapl@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  34. AnonymousApril 20, 2022 at 1:57 PM

    Sweet Pepperspray: Adding Custom Dictionaries To Kobo Devices >>>>> Download Now

    >>>>> Download Full

    Sweet Pepperspray: Adding Custom Dictionaries To Kobo Devices >>>>> Download LINK

    >>>>> Download Now

    Sweet Pepperspray: Adding Custom Dictionaries To Kobo Devices >>>>> Download Full

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    ReplyDelete

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