e-Book Tools - a Word add-in

[BetterRed]

I don't understand what I'm supposed to to about small caps, I appreciate they're only available in some fonts, but given I rarely use anything other than Times Roman and Verdana I would like to retain them in the Generated EPUB - see attached Zip.

Also it would 'nice' if the file name for the EPUB could default to be the same as the DOCX filename, and for the Title & Author to default to whatever is in the DOCX properties Title & Author.

BR

[BetterRed]

I am getting strange results with Dialogue Check when dialogue spans paragraphs, I used the Paragraph Tag button.

I would expect that the paragraphs would retain their style (my Normal Style) but they dont, in fact I cant figure out what happens, I do see that I get empty paragraphs where there were none, (which for me are a no-no), and I lose the paragraph formatting in respect of the first line indent and the 6pt after spacing. It's made worse by the fact that I can't 'fix' it, by re-applying my Normal style.

See attached zip - it contains before and after DOCX files.

BR

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I really like this new version, for various reasons I didn't like the previous version.

In the dialogue checker I get 12 popups (see attachment) on a clean document, are they really necessary, I find them... distracting

BR

Necessary, of course not. But they give information about what is going on. For example you know what type of quotation marks are checked. I will look into an option to turn these off or lessen them.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I don't understand what I'm supposed to to about small caps, I appreciate they're only available in some fonts, but given I rarely use anything other than Times Roman and Verdana I would like to retain them in the Generated EPUB - see attached Zip.

The procedure is to mark them out as smallcaps. If you already made all your smallcaps, the procedure is not required. However, OCR processes are not always that good in recognizing smallcaps. During the export, the smallcaps are set within a span with a class. By default that class is 'scaps', but you can name it anyway you want (Settings --> HTML Export). So, as long as you have that class in your stylesheet, they are retained already. If not, also not a problem, you just need to add that class to your stylesheet yourself.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Also it would 'nice' if the file name for the EPUB could default to be the same as the DOCX filename, and for the Title & Author to default to whatever is in the DOCX properties Title & Author.

BR

I will add an option to the naming convention to keep the original Word filename as an addition to the other options.
As for the other request... That was already in the previous version(s). In the Settings --> ePUB settings there is an option to prefill the author and title from the metadata of the document, aka the document properties.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I am getting strange results with Dialogue Check when dialogue spans paragraphs, I used the Paragraph Tag button.

I would expect that the paragraphs would retain their style (my Normal Style) but they dont, in fact I cant figure out what happens, I do see that I get empty paragraphs where there were none, (which for me are a no-no), and I lose the paragraph formatting in respect of the first line indent and the 6pt after spacing. It's made worse by the fact that I can't 'fix' it, by re-applying my Normal style.

See attached zip - it contains before and after DOCX files.

BR

I will see what is going on. The empty paragraphs should absolutely not happen, so I will for sure investigate. That is very strange. The procedure does nothing with styling, but Word sometimes does strange things with styling when you remove a paragraph mark if the styling is not consistent (even if it looks exactly the same). Re-applying your normal style should fix it. However, sometimes you need to apply the style twice in a row. No idea why.
I will check your example and see if I can trace what happens there. Since normally during the export the first line indent and the spacing is ignored anyway, it is normally not a big issue. I do understand that sometimes it can be, especially if you want to retain the original Word document.

[Toxaris]

I checked you small caps example. You haven't set a smallcaps class in the settings yet apparently. In that case the smallcaps will of course not have a distinction in the result but will be set in an empty span.

I also checked you dialoge example. I can reproduce the style issue, but not the empty lines. I do not get them. I have an idea with regards to the styles though, but I need to test.

*update* I think I know where the empty lines are coming from. You get two questions. The first is that a paragraph mark is found and you are asked what you want to do with it. So, you choose the tag paragraph option. The second question is that another opening quotation mark is found instead of closing. You most probably again said to replace it with a paragraph mark instead of just removing the mark (by clicking/pressing Yes). Thus, you have to paragraph tags next to each other. At the end of the procedure that will be replaced by 2 paragraph marks and thus an empty line.

[BetterRed]

@Toxaris thanks for your response

Re multi paragraph dialogue item - I thought most style guides stipulated that each paragraph starts with a quotation mark, but only the the last has a closing quote mark.

The absence of the closing quote gives a clue that the following paragraph (which should start with a quotation mark), is spoken by the same character. If each paragraph has a closing quotation mark you don't know its a continuation of the previous characters speech.

Example ==>> The Editor's Blog - How to Punctuate Dialogue

Multiple paragraphs of dialogue

Dialogue may stretch across paragraphs without pause. To punctuate, put a terminal punctuation—period, question mark, or exclamation point— at the end of the first paragraph. There is no closing quotation mark at the end of this paragraph.

Begin the next paragraph with an opening quotation mark.

Follow this pattern for as long as the dialogue and paragraphs continue. At the last paragraph, use a closing quotation mark at the end of the dialogue.

“He was my best friend. I told you that, didn’t I? And then he stabbed me in the back. Stole my wife and my future. I hated him for that. Still do. Hate him bad.

“But he’s been punished, yes he has. He went to jail for embezzling thousands. Not even millions. Just thousands. Serves him right, the petty crook. He’s just a petty man.”

Re the pop-ups - in that dialogue fragment I sent there were 24 pop-ups, I'm reminded of Windows UAC pop-ups, people just click though them

Re the small caps - I only use them in a couple of instances, its in a macro, I'll replace the inline formatting with a style

I tried using a Style but I still don't get small caps in the EPUB. I put the Style name (Title) in Settings->HTML ¿Why does the ebook world have this 'hang up' with small caps one asks.

Did you notice that in the example I sent the EPUB acquired the string  . There is no such thing in the DOCX, where it would show as '°'.

FWIW - very few of my documents originate from scans.

Re the Title and Author - didn't notice the scroll bar in the settings

Thanks again BR

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@Toxaris thanks for your response

Re multi paragraph dialogue item - I thought most style guides stipulated that each paragraph starts with a quotation mark, but only the the last has a closing quote mark.

The absence of the closing quote gives a clue that the following paragraph (which should start with a quotation mark), is spoken by the same character. If each paragraph has a closing quotation mark you don't know its a continuation of the previous characters speech.

That apparently differs per language. In dutch it is not that common. There there is a beginning quote and, if the dialogue goes on over multiple paragraphs, one ending quote. That is also the current behavior. I have to think about this, perhaps I can create an addition for this specific style. There is one problem I have with this however. How would you know if you are just missing the end quote or if the conversation is continued?

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Re the pop-ups - in that dialogue fragment I sent there were 24 pop-ups, I'm reminded of Windows UAC pop-ups, people just click though them

Got the point already, I will greatly reduce the number of screens. Actually, almost done already.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Re the small caps - I only use them in a couple of instances, its in a macro, I'll replace the inline formatting with a style

I tried using a Style but I still don't get small caps in the EPUB. I put the Style name (Title) in Settings->HTML ¿Why does the ebook world have this 'hang up' with small caps one asks.

Did you notice that in the example I sent the EPUB acquired the string  . There is no such thing in the DOCX, where it would show as '°'.

I think we mean something different here. If you have smallcaps in the document, they will be converted to CAPS and placed in a span with the class as defined in the settings, if you want to retain them. The characters will not be replaced by/converted to the smallcaps Unicode characters. The reason is because no reader currently support that. All ePUB creators I know use a class to specify either pseudo smallcaps and/or text-transform. That part works. Actually, I made a change today that as of the next release it is not possible to retain smallcaps without specifying a style for it. If that is not what you mean, please contact me with a PB.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

That apparently differs per language. In dutch it is not that common. There there is a beginning quote and, if the dialogue goes on over multiple paragraphs, one ending quote. That is also the current behavior. I have to think about this, perhaps I can create an addition for this specific style. There is one problem I have with this however. How would you know if you are just missing the end quote or if the conversation is continued?

By reading the text - should be obvious that its continued speech.

Originally Posted by Toxaris

I think we mean something different here. If you have smallcaps in the document, they will be converted to CAPS and placed in a span with the class as defined in the settings, if you want to retain them. The characters will not be replaced by/converted to the smallcaps Unicode characters. The reason is because no reader currently support that. All ePUB creators I know use a class to specify either pseudo smallcaps and/or text-transform. That part works. Actually, I made a change today that as of the next release it is not possible to retain smallcaps without specifying a style for it. If that is not what you mean, please contact me with a PB.

I am attaching a new Small Caps Test.zip - the two lines are Styled with Title 1 (the Times Roman) and Title 2 (the Verdana) - I seem to have a worse result now - there are 2 of the   strings and a 'strange' extra line. The zip also includes the results of a conversion of the same DOCX by calibre.

I do much of my reading on Windows because I also do number crunching Excel, modelling etc, the rest I do on Android - hence the font limitations of e-readers don't bother me so much.

Small caps is not a big issue, I'm happy with the calibre DOCX conversion and I want the DOCX and the EPUB to be stored in the calibre library. So don't spend any undue time on it.

See attached image for some suggestions on EPUB Settings.

BR

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

That apparently differs per language. In dutch it is not that common. There there is a beginning quote and, if the dialogue goes on over multiple paragraphs, one ending quote. That is also the current behavior. I have to think about this, perhaps I can create an addition for this specific style. There is one problem I have with this however. How would you know if you are just missing the end quote or if the conversation is continued?

Tox:

We run into this all the time, particularly with older writers--many of today's newer authors don't even know the convention, but yes: if a person is having a moment of soliloquy, and going on and on with a long, multi-paragraph speech, the convention is, opening quotes on all the paragraphs, but closing quotes only on the last. And yes, it's a major pain in the tuchus, as you CANNOT know unless you read it.

I don't actually see any good way to automated-ly identify "run on dialogue" from "missing closing quotes.' When I've used your ePUBTools to help me clean something up, usually a bad scan we'll receive, I just muddle through by saying "no" on those paras that should NOT have a closing quote. NBD, FWIW. To my way of thinking, given how handy the tool is generally, it's a small price to pay.

Hitch

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Tox:

We run into this all the time, particularly with older writers--many of today's newer authors don't even know the convention, but yes: if a person is having a moment of soliloquy, and going on and on with a long, multi-paragraph speech, the convention is, opening quotes on all the paragraphs, but closing quotes only on the last. And yes, it's a major pain in the tuchus, as you CANNOT know unless you read it.

I don't actually see any good way to automated-ly identify "run on dialogue" from "missing closing quotes.' When I've used your ePUBTools to help me clean something up, usually a bad scan we'll receive, I just muddle through by saying "no" on those paras that should NOT have a closing quote. NBD, FWIW. To my way of thinking, given how handy the tool is generally, it's a small price to pay.

Hitch

Could there not be a "Continued Speech" button when the 'missing' closing quote is detected - maybe it would be necessary to insert a closing quote with a marker - eg ”<C> - that, like the <A>, gets removed later on in the process.

I edit a lot of transcripts from TV interview/talking heads programmes and the like, full of the usual suspects - politicians, polemicists, soothsayers, worthy establishment members….

If the interviewer asks "Is it raining?", they respond with a ten-minute rant and rail on climate change, about which of course they know diddlysquat

If you were to put their response into one paragraph it would look like Joyce, but still have the same number of clichés per hundred words (cliché index)

BR

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

That apparently differs per language.

True, and in Spanish it is the closing quote mark that is used for continuation. To make things more complicated, dialogues don't actually use quote marks but a dash at the beginning, and still use the same continuation mark.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

By reading the text - should be obvious that its continued speech.

Well, duh. But that cannot be automated. So, it seems it is not possible to check that type of style in an automated way.

There was a small period I think the 70s or early 80s where this style was also used here, but not that much.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I am attaching a new Small Caps Test.zip - the two lines are Styled with Title 1 (the Times Roman) and Title 2 (the Verdana) - I seem to have a worse result now - there are 2 of the &NBSP; strings and a 'strange' extra line. The zip also includes the results of a conversion of the same DOCX by calibre.

I get the following HTML after the conversion:

<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
</head>
<body>
<p><span class="scaps">THIS IS A TEST OF VERDANA IN SMALL CAPS</span></p>
<p><span class="scaps">&NBSP;</span></p>
<p><span class="scaps">&NBSP;</span></p>
<p><span class="scaps">THIS IS A TEST OF TIMES NEW ROMAN IN SMALL CAPS</span></p>
This is a Test of Small Caps
</body>
</html>

Besides the &NBSP; (which is blatantly wrong of course and will be fixed), it is as expected. It is identified by spans with the smallcaps style set in the settings for HTML Export. Empty paragraphs are by default converted to <p>&nbsp;</p>. I opted to use this instead of <p></p>, since empty tags are sometimes ignored.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

See attached image for some suggestions on EPUB Settings.

What are the suggestions??? I don't see it, but that is probably me. I do see that not all the settings are entered consistently. For example, you have set to open the ePUB with the selected program, but no program is selected...

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Could there not be a "Continued Speech" button when the 'missing' closing quote is detected - maybe it would be necessary to insert a closing quote with a marker - eg ”<C> - that, like the <A>, gets removed later on in the process.

Of course I could implement this. However, it would require attention, since if the end quote is indeed missing, there might be a mistake when the next person starts to speak and it is wrongly interpreted as continued speech.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Jellby

True, and in Spanish it is the closing quote mark that is used for continuation. To make things more complicated, dialogues don't actually use quote marks but a dash at the beginning, and still use the same continuation mark.

Wow, that would be seriously irritating. In some old books of around 50 yrs old the dash is sometimes used. For those books the procedure would be worthless of course.

But to get it clear, just as a stupid example, this would the prolonged dialogue be with the Spanish style:

«Dialogue line 1»
Dialogue line 2»
Dialogue line 3»

Have I understood you correctly?

Why oh why can't we have a common style...

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

But to get it clear, just as a stupid example, this would the prolonged dialogue be with the Spanish style:

«Dialogue line 1»
Dialogue line 2»
Dialogue line 3»

No. For a prolongued quotation it would be:

«First paragraph.
»Second paragraph.
»Third and final paragraph.»

Dialogues don't use quotes (only for continuation):

—First paragraph.
»Second paragraph.
»Third and final paragraph.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Well, duh. But that cannot be automated. So, it seems it is not possible to check that type of style in an automated way.

Not everything can be automated. I for one would rather it wasn't, over automation is either hard to maintain or it does not deal adequately with the exceptions - some of which we haven't even thought of yet. Manual intervention to deal with exceptions introduces real intelligence.

Originally Posted by Toxaris

There was a small period I think the 70s or early 80s where this style was also used here, but not that much.

I'm confused, is the style as per the Editors Blog post I linked to yesterday, used in The Netherlands never, sometimes or always. You seem to have said all three in different places. Not that that matters.

As someone posted elsewhere pick up any quality book published in the English Speaking world and you will see the style I prefer, as per the Editors Blog, which is as per Cambridge and Chicago, maybe not the OUP, by definition they're all card carrying members of the Contrarian Society.

Originally Posted by Toxaris

I get the following HTML after the conversion:

<html><head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
</head>
<body>
<p><span class="scaps">THIS IS A TEST OF VERDANA IN SMALL CAPS</span></p>
<p><span class="scaps">&NBSP;</span></p>
<p><span class="scaps">&NBSP;</span></p>
<p><span class="scaps">THIS IS A TEST OF TIMES NEW ROMAN IN SMALL CAPS</span></p>
This is a Test of Small Caps - where did this come from, its not in the DOCX
</body>
</html>

Besides the &NBSP; (which is blatantly wrong of course and will be fixed), it is as expected. It is identified by spans with the smallcaps style set in the settings for HTML Export. Empty paragraphs are by default converted to <p>&nbsp;</p>. I opted to use this instead of <p></p>, since empty tags are sometimes ignored.

Mate, to be honest I don't care what the HTML looks like, its a means to an end. I only care about what the EPUB looks like in a viewer or on my Android Tablet and maybe in an Editor like Sigil or calibre's. As I already said, I am quite happy to forego the creation of EPUBs from my consideration because I already have an acceptable working solution for converting a DOCX to EPUB.

Originally Posted by Toxaris

What are the suggestions??? I don't see it, but that is probably me. I do see that not all the settings are entered consistently. For example, you have set to open the ePUB with the selected program, but no program is selected...

I forgot to save the edited screen shot here 'tis

BR