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SauliusP. · 06-08-2012, 02:45 AM

Hello,

THIS PLUGIN IS OBSOLETE FROM Calibre version 0.9.34, as a native plugin supersedes it. This plugin won't be supported anymore.

As an article writer I have lots of DOCX and tried to find good free alternative for DOCX to EPUB, AZW3 or MOBI conversion. However, good EPUB tools are not free, and Amazon's conversion service did not satisfy me, it makes formatting crappy and "not book like". So here they are, my own conversion tools. Please feel free to use them for your own purposes. Development will continue, I will constantly add new features. I was quite surprised there is no other plugin for Calibre, as DOCX format is comparatively simple.

DOCX Input plugin converts a DOCX file format to OEB (if I'm not mistaken, bunch of HTMLs with OPF file and CSS stylesheets). Then Calibre converts it to anything it supports. My main target is AZW3 (KF8) and MOBI, but no hacks included for better support.

Did you know that with this plugin you can view DOCX files in the Calibre without opening them in Word?! Just go to Settings > Behavior and tick the DOCX format in the list Use internal viewer for!

TTF and OTF (type "OTTO") font embedding is supported.
Note: it is your legal responsibility to embed fonts (check copyright before).
OTF is supported only of TTF type or type "OTTO", i.e. single font/family in the file. TrueType Collections are not yet supported.

The next post contains features, userguide, other information and also a demo docx file, to show off the supported features of the plugin.

SUPPORTED FEATURES

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NOT SUPPORTED

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PLANNED

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User Guide

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When you call conversion dialogue, there you'll see "DOCX Input" icon on the left. There you might want to choose some options to adjust conversion from DOCX.

1. Use first found image as cover. Default: ON. The very first picture in the document will be used as a book's cover during conversion.
2. Skip contents until first page break. Default ON. This is tightly tangled with above. I usually have a book like this: first page contains cover image and it is followed immediately by page/section break. So if I'm using this cover image as a cover, there is no need to repeat it again in the output book.
3. Replace paragraph spacing with empty lines. Default OFF. If paragraph has a "before" or "after" setting greater than 0 and option is ON, an empty paragraph will be included appropriately before or after it. Otherwise "before" or "after" will be set as a margin.
4. Embed fonts: All (all TTF fonts, found in document), DejaVu Serif (if you are not sure if it is legal to embed another fonts), None (when converting to font-unaware format, like MOBI).
5. Set "Normal" font family to "Serif". This is particulary useful, when one converts book to AZW3 (KF8) format and wants to leave majority of the text to be displayed in native Kindle font (Caecilia LT or another, configured by user). I.e. leave font family styling only for headers, captions and other types of highlighted text.
66. Scan fonts. It is to save some extra CPU and I/O cycles. Fonts are not installed very often, so it is best to scan for them occasionally. For the first time use click this button for plugin to gather all installed TTF fonts in your OS (tested on Windows and Linux, Mac font directories are also included).

To get best results Calibre should be also tuned a bit.
1. To generate TOC, go to Common Options, Table of Contents and add expressions for HTML headings (use wizard or input //h:h1 for Level 1 TOC, //h:h2 for Level 2 and //h:h3 for Level 3).
2. For EPUB conversion go to EPUB output options and tick "No default cover" and "No SVG cover".

All critiques, crashes and suggestions are most welcome, but I will not be quick in responses or new features development. At the moment I'm quite satisfied with plugins.

Version history:

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