Audio in epub format using sigil

[TStphnsn]

Hi.

Sorry for probably very basic questions. I have a book coming out and I'm hoping to be able to convert it to the ebook/epub format.

Can you add links to audio files in an ebook using sigil?

Are there limitations to how many pictures you can put on a page or whole document? (there are many pictures and sonograms for audio links in the book)

Can I take the book in a PDF or MS Word format and convert it using Sigil (or calibre?) and if so, will the audio links and photos convert OK if they display and play properly in those other formats?

Thanks very much.

Tom

[user_none]

Originally Posted by TStphnsn

Can you add links to audio files in an ebook using sigil?

Audio is an EPUB 3 feature; Sigil is an EPUB 2 editor.

Originally Posted by TStphnsn

Are there limitations to how many pictures you can put on a page or whole document? (there are many pictures and sonograms for audio links in the book)

This is going to be reading system (device) dependent.

Originally Posted by TStphnsn

Can I take the book in a PDF or MS Word format and convert it using Sigil (or calibre?)

Calibre for PDF. Word you would need to save to HTML first.

Originally Posted by TStphnsn

and if so, will the audio links and photos convert OK if they display and play properly in those other formats?

Neither format (PDF or DOC) convert well. Most likely you won't like the result.

[TStphnsn]

Thanks for the response. Are there better editors, then, or conversion programs, that work better?
the book is large (650 pages) with many photos (over 2,000) and lots of audio links.

Thanks

[DiapDealer]

There are no conversion programs that can "poof" a PDF/DOC file into an visibly identical ePub. Unless it's the very simplest of text documents. And even then, there's often much, much hands-on work yet to do after conversion.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

There are no conversion programs that can "poof" a PDF/DOC file into an visibly identical ePub. Unless it's the very simplest of text documents. And even then, there's often much, much hands-on work yet to do after conversion.

Well....if the OP has a Mac, he can use iBooks Author, to make a multimedia ePUB. It won't work anywhere else, but only iBooks uses multimedia anyway. {Shrug}. It's not steely-eyed ePUB-making, but it is functional for people that can't use HTML. It's a drag-and-drop interface. I wouldn't use it for paid commercial work, but I've seen some nice products, suitable for the type of consumption that Apple encourages, made with it.

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

iBooks is basically "hands free" with PDF/DOC source files? Cool if so... I just had no idea.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

iBooks is basically "hands free" with PDF/DOC source files? Cool if so... I just had no idea.

Hey, Diap:

I have only experimented with it (I mean, for crap's sake, I have this Mac Mini sitting here that I had to buy, just so I could test-upload iBooks, for intake issues). Last night I played with the drag-n-drop from a text file, which worked poorly only because I chose a bad title (I grabbed an old text file I had from Gutenberg, and every line was a para, duhr), but it worked fairly simply. It reminded me of either the old Adobe Pagemaker or MS Publisher. I have not yet tested the PDF drag-n-drop, but allegedly, it will handle it. (Of course, allegedly, you can export HTML from PDF in Acrobat, too, and we all know how well THAT works.) It does embed media with a snap. The resulting files, even without media, are immense. I have not yet made a book and then torn it apart to see the guts, so I can't speak to that yet, and to be honest, as we're in High Season now, I don't know when I'll have the time...maybe over our Xmas holiday, when we close the shop.

It's supposed to support MathXL and LaTEX, for equations, which is of interest to me as we receive inquiries for math/science textbooks often. Of course, the downside is that it's limited to that platform, which means a fairly small market segment. Hard to know how clients would react to that type of ROI, but I'm always very clear with them about what to realistically expect from Apple-only distro, in terms of sales. It may be completely different with textbooks, as well.

Hitch