problem with ebooks in .arc file

[freckledcarolyn]

I downloaded a kindle book selection and unzipped it with winrar and it has a .arc file extention. I tried adobe, but it says it can't open it..etc... Anyone know what to do with it to get it opened? There appears to be one up every month, so someone has to be using them.

Thanks

[hector]

ARC is a lossless data compression and archival format by System Enhancement Associates (SEA). It was very popular during the early days of networked dial-up BBS. The file format and the program were both called ARC. The ARC program made obsolete the previous use of a combination of the SQ program to compress files and the LU program to create .LBR archives, by combining both compression and archiving functions into a single program. Unlike ZIP, ARC is incapable of compressing entire directory trees. The format was subject to controversy in the 1980s—an important event in debates over what would later be known as open formats.

The .arc file extension is often used for several file archive-like file types. For example, the Internet Archive uses its own ARC format to store multiple web resources into a single file [1][2]. Th what i read.he FreeArc archiver also uses .arc extension, but uses a completely different file format.

Nintendo uses its own version of ARC for resources, such as MIDI and voice samples, in GameCube and Wii games. Several unofficial extractors exist for this type of ARC file.

I do not use this file my self hope some 1 better than me can help you but believe that file needs extracting or put on your gadget hope you find more Knowledge than i gave you. http://freearc.org/Download.aspx i have not tested this file or that dowload take the top if yer running windows im just going with what i read

[bpfine]

Arc in my opinion was the best zip program......

Hector, have you ever unpacked a video-game-app with arc?
350 MB arc file decompressed to a whopping 2 GB.

[LightninBug]

Prior to this past year, I had never seen an arc file before. But I discovered when having to use them, that they are pretty easy to figure out. Lucky thing too as I have a real itch to collect books and the arc format is the only one that they seem to come in. I'm not the best "explainer" on the web, but I'll try to stay simple and brief.

After downloading an arc file, often I will just double click on it to see if it will open that way which it quite often does. But it looks and operates a bit differently from things you might have seen before. Just below the arc menu, tool bar, and location bar there might be some horizontal lines with words in them indicating what you'll find by clicking on them. Try that and then, just like me and everyone else, you will have to go through some trial and error for a time until you finally know arc and feel comfortable with it. Same as with most apps that you've tried.

Now, this method is the one I like the best. Right click on the arc icon and one or two down in the context menu you will see another free arc icon, click on that and on this menu, the third selection should be "extract here". I recommend giving this a shot as it will download the entire archive into a folder in the context menu which will contain what you're looking for.

That's it. I will come back to read what I have offered here to make sure that I haven't forgotten a step. Nothing more frustrating that to get downloading instructions with a step left out. I wish you good luck with the venture and I will add here that the folks who are bringing eBooks to this site are getting better at it, making it simpler, and are now concentrating mainly on Kindles which is just a great way to read an eBook.

But, eBooks are also made available in ePub and other formats besides Kindle which can be easily (and swiftly !) converted to Kindle or whatever format one might desire with the free Calibre application. Just Google "calibre", follow the link, download the free app. If you cannot figure Calibre out, well, I reckon we'll see you in here again. But it is simple and if you just stick to converting a book or a batch of books, you shouldn't have any trouble.

UPDATE: Had to make good on my word to return and make sure that I had not left out any steps. And. . . . .I see that I have. Have you activated the free arc program yet? I assumed (and I shouldn't have) that you have downloaded the freearc program to your hard drive and done whatever little things that one must always do to get a program up and running. No big deal really. But you won't be able to do anything with free arc until you do this.

Best of luck friend.

LM

[hector]

Never tried it bpfine need to look into it though. Looks interesting.

[freckledcarolyn]

Thanks for all your help.... got it working! I just have it opened in Calibre so far, and now I just have to see if it needs converting to send to my Kobo Ap on my iphone. (or kindle ap if it won't work there... so far so good! woohoo. You are all amazing. Thank you~ And thanks to the uploader as well!

[gnv64]

I don't understand why these people still insist on using that outdated ARC format.
It is much better to use a modern compression format like RAR or ZIP.
You have to install freeARC or IZArc or PeaZip to extract files from such ARC archives. The extarction is very slow.
Since no one is willing to download ARC archives, they have started using a new trick.
The ARC archive is further compressed to RAR so you think you are downloading a RAR archive.
But when you extract it, you end up with another archive in ARC format!
Such a waste of time!

[hector]

It will be a Scene release & they r old fashioned they like sticking to their ways. And i am happy you got it working happy reading.

[jamienuche]

"I like this thread:problem with ebooks in .arc file.Thanks for sharing"