No. The Mac App Store doesn't know about your purchase from our online store so it will charge you the full price for a new license. If the Mac App Store does not say Audiobook Builder is installed do not press the Buy button.

If you purchased outside of the Mac App Store stay up to date with new versions of Audiobook Builder by making sure its preferences are set to check for updates on launch or by selecting "Check For Updates…" from the Audiobook Builder menu at the top left corner of your screen.

Yes. In fact, we encourage you to do so. Audiobook Builder is fully functional before registration but it will limit output to the first twenty minutes or so of each Project.

Please send us an email outlining your feature request and some specific examples of how you would use the feature to feedback@splasm.com.

You can download Audiobook Builder in Disk Image format at http://www.splasm.com/downloads/audiobookbuilder/Audiobook Builder 1.5.7.dmg. Double-click the file to reveal a window named Audiobook Builder X, where X is the version you have downloaded. The window will have two icons inside: ReadMe and Audiobook Builder. Drag Audiobook Builder to your Applications folder or wherever you keep your applications. Return to the Audiobook Builder X window, select the File menu and choose Eject.

Disk Image files are special files that allow us to deliver Audiobook Builder in a single package that acts very much like a CD or USB drive. When you double-click a Disk Image, your Mac reads the file and places a new icon on your Desktop that looks just like a hard drive icon. This is known as a Disk Image. If you open this new icon you will see the actual files we want you to have - the ReadMe and the Audiobook Builder application. While you can use these files directly from the Disk Image, it is best that you copy the Audiobook Builder application to your Applications folder on your hard drive and use it from that location. Once you have copied Audiobook Builder to your Applications folder you can safely eject the Disk Image by dragging its icon to the Trash. If you like, you can save the Disk Image file for future installation of Audiobook Builder.

Each update is designed to completely replace previous versions, so download the latest version of Audiobook Builder at http://www.splasm.com/downloads/audiobookbuilder/Audiobook Builder 1.5.7.dmg and overwrite your existing copy. Your registration for Audiobook Builder entitles you to all updates before Audiobook Builder 2.0, so feel free to download and install the latest version at any time.

No. Audiobook Builder does not work on Mac OS X 10.3.x.

Yes. The regular download is a Universal Binary and will run natively on PowerPC and Intel Macs.

No. Audiobook Builder is only for Mac OS X.

You can use Audiobook Builder on another Mac, as long as you respect your license agreement. The single-user license states that you are licensed to use Audiobook Builder on only one Mac at a time. Make sure each copy of Audiobook Builder using the same serial number is not running on more than one Mac at any given time and you're welcome to copy it to as many Macs as necessary. The family pack license expands the number of Macs you may use Audiobook Builder simultaneously on to five (5).

Audiobook Builder should be able to read the audio from any QuickTime-compatible file with discrete audio tracks. It can also import directly from audio CDs.

Audiobook Builder can also handle Ogg, FLAC, and Speex with the help of the following:

Ogg Vorbis: Visit xiph.org/quicktime/download.html to download the Xiph QuickTime Components (XiphQT) which provides support for the Ogg Vorbis format.

It depends. Most tracks purchased from the iTunes Store are protected by Apple's FairPlay® digital rights management technology and the audio they contain is not available to third-party applications like Audiobook Builder. However, Apple offers some tracks without FairPlay in a format called iTunes Plus. These tracks should work just fine with Audiobook Builder.

No. Audible.com content is protected by digital rights management technology and is not accessible to applications like Audiobook Builder.

Unfortunately, the 3G iPod and earlier models do not support Audiobook chapter stops.

The iPod and iPhone can handle files that contain approximately 2 billion audio samples or less. This translates into roughly 27 hours for Audiobook Builder's Low Quality preset (22.05 kHz), 18 hours for its Normal Quality preset (32 kHz) and 13 hours for its High Quality preset (44.1 kHz). The lower the audio sample rate the longer your parts can be. It's possible to reach a maximum part length of 74 hours by selecting the Custom... Quality option and choosing an 8 kHz sample rate. Files that exceed the 2 billion sample limit will not play properly on the iPod or iPhone.

The icon and Kind info you see in the Finder were chosen by Apple to describe M4B files, but they do not apply to Audiobook Builder's output.

M4B files aren't necessarily in a "protected" format, but they can be. For example, Audiobooks purchased from the iTunes Store are usually protected by digital rights management technology, meaning their audio data is encrypted and cannot be read by any unauthorized applications or iPods. However, Audiobook Builder's output, even when it's in an M4B file, is not limited in any way and can be freely edited in most QuickTime applications and shared with users on other Macs. It's not protected at all.

No, Chapter Tool is not required.

iTunes may be set up to automatically import audio CDs when they are inserted into your Mac. Importing into iTunes while importing into Audiobook Builder will be extremely slow. Set iTunes to simply show the inserted CD, instead:

1. Launch iTunes

2. Select Preferences... from the iTunes menu at the top left of your screen

3. In the General section look for the "When you insert a CD" option, just below the middle of the window, and set it to "Show CD"

In some cases. Audiobook Builder can usually pass through AAC encoded at the same constant bit rate (CBR), sample frequency, sample size and channel layout. Unfortunately, some applications, including iTunes 7.6 and later, encode AAC in a way that does not allow Audiobook Builder's pass through feature to work properly. Audiobook Builder cannot join MP3 data.

When pass through will not work Audiobook Builder will re-encode the audio data to match the settings in the current Project's Build Options.