03-16-2012, 03:22 PM | #1 |
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Adobe Acrobat and Sigil
I realize that those with money use InDesign with Sigil; however, recently, I've been experimenting on how I can, as best as possible, do some quicker dirty conversions without doing a lot of html/css code editing. After creating a document with tables in Microsoft Word, I've used Acrobat 10 (driver) inside Word to create a PDF file. I then opened the PDF in Acrobat and saved it as an html file.
Next I opened the html file in Sigil and saved it as an epub. I haven't examined the html code yet, but visually, I note that tables resize well with text that reflows inside the tables. In fact, Sigil validation found no errors. (I've also opened up some Adobe Digital Edition ebooks that don't have digital management and saved them as html files. Again, tables seem to resize well) Has anyone done any extensive testing of using Adobe Acrobat to save PDF files as html files and then using these files in Sigil? |
03-16-2012, 03:25 PM | #2 |
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This is what I do with PDF's I want to convert to ePub and it's the best method I've found for that, but I've never done it with a PDF I created on purpose. If I want to do an ePub from a Word doc I either save in Word as filtered HTML or open the word doc in Open Office and export with Writer2ePub and then in both cases work with it in Sigil.
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03-16-2012, 03:49 PM | #3 |
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Like you, I was creating the filtered HTML with Word before, but my gut feeling is that creating the PDF with the Acrobat driver and then the HTML afterwards, a cleaner HTML file is being created without the idiosyncrasies and garbage code of Word. Right now, I'm just judging by the results, but again, I haven't really examined the code.
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03-16-2012, 03:52 PM | #4 | |
Berti
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Somewhere in the epub-forum I've seen a word-macro from toxaris which generates a clean html-output from word. Maybe you wnat to give it a try ? |
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03-16-2012, 08:15 PM | #5 |
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Here's a link to Toxaris's Word macro, Unfortunately it's in Dutch, so it might not be that helpful (I'm trying to translate it, but I'm only about a quarter of the way through).
Depending on your input source, Word's html isn't that hard to clean up in Sigil. Some of the scans conversions I get from Finereader can be a pain though. Last edited by Keroberos; 03-16-2012 at 08:18 PM. |
03-17-2012, 01:58 PM | #6 | |
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*Update* I have updated all text that will displayed into English and also all of the comments. Last edited by Toxaris; 03-17-2012 at 02:51 PM. |
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03-18-2012, 04:26 PM | #7 | |
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I have AA X Pro, and of course Sigil, and every other tool in the box, and Acrobat's html output is HORRIFIC. I wouldn't use it for love or money. I'd rather export the AA to Word, and then import-export from there. I know that sounds cracked, but the html output by AA is just AWFUL. I mean, AWFUL. Moreover, what everyone seems to be overlooking is that the underlying "junk" is still there...GIGO still works no matter how you dress it up. We're a professional house, and while we use InDesign, we don't use it for any titles that are not going to have a print edition. It's easier and faster, honestly, to export from a Word processing program and clean up the html in an actual html editor like NoteTab Pro (it's our in-house tool of choice) than any other method we've found. INDD outputs TONS of garbage, as well, and a lot of garbage that can't be used in ePUBs and/or MOBI, either. If you're struggling with Word, you can use that macro that guy here has--what is it called, BookCreator?--to clean up a manuscript fairly well, save it as RTF and then output it to html, and save yourself a bunch of brain-damage. It's how I rolled for a while when I was still a small shop, with 2-3 people, including me. It's a perfectly decent process, and if you use the 'tag italics" and "tag bold" and "tag X (insert style or whatever here)," and then clean all the other formatting, it works remarkably well. I wouldn't use it to actually MAKE the book--but to clean up Word to export fairly squeaky HTML, it works surprisingly well by making clever use of Word's built-in features, styles, etc. HTH, Hitch |
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03-19-2012, 02:28 AM | #8 |
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Hitch, you are so right... BTW my macro where mmat1 refers to is not the same as BookCreator. It is something I have created for myself and thought others might find it useful...
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03-19-2012, 01:22 PM | #9 | |
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@Hitch: If I say that something is "interesting", then this doesn't actually mean that i want to say that it's good (IMO) |
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03-20-2012, 03:30 AM | #10 | |
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@mmat1: Yes, sorry--I didn't mean to overreact, I just suddenly had this horrid vision of tons of newbs coming here and exporting html from XPro, and I foresaw a future of posts here in the Sigil forum saying something like..."...and then I exported my html from a PDF with Acrobat Pro (free trial, of course!), and then I ran it through Calibre, and now my TOC won't work, and all the fonts that were embedded are gone, and I don't know how to indent the first line of a paragraph..." and my brain imploded. (Of course--it could still be the fractured-foot painkillers at work, too. ) I realize that was drama-queening. Obviously, simply exporting html from Acrobat Pro won't cause the REST of that exemplar post...but if my wee fit saved ONE poor schmuck from trying to export html from Pro and make an ePUb with it, I've not lived in vain. (Okay--that WAS the fractured foot painkillers speaking--sorry, long week last week, long day today, and some loon on the KDP just makes it very hard to keep posting there to try to help poor DIY'ers--makes me cranky). HTH, Hitch |
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