Converting from Word

ljstreet · 10-17-2011, 02:09 PM

Hi - I am new at this and getting very frustrated.
I have written and published a hard-copy book, 440 pages with 220 illustrations, originally in MS Word.
I want to make it available as an e-book, but can't seem to get it to convert.

I have tried converting the .doc file but get an error message right away.

I converted the .doc file to pdf, it converted quite nicely but none of the internal hotlinks worked, which made the file useless in this situation.

I saved the .doc file as html which looked great, converted it to epub and the links work fine, but the images were not converted as they are in many different folders and I can't upload them without hours of work, if at all.

I dl'ed Open Office and converted the Word file to their format, as I heard it was more easily converted - same result, error message as follows:

calibre, version 0.8.22
ERROR: Conversion Error: <b>Failed</b>: Convert book 1 of 1 (What Deas THAT Do?)

Spoiler:

Any ideas???

Thanks!

Starson17 · 10-17-2011, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljstreet

Hi - I am new at this and getting very frustrated.
I have written and published a hard-copy book, 440 pages with 220 illustrations, originally in MS Word.
I want to make it available as an e-book, but can't seem to get it to convert.

I have tried converting the .doc file but get an error message right away.

Calibre doesn't convert Word's .doc format.

Quote:

I converted the .doc file to pdf, it converted quite nicely but none of the internal hotlinks worked, which made the file useless in this situation.

PDF is a particularly bad format to try to convert from.

Quote:

I saved the .doc file as html which looked great

This is the approach I use. It works best if you save it from Word as HTML (Filtered).

Quote:

, converted it to epub and the links work fine, but the images were not converted as they are in many different folders and I can't upload them without hours of work, if at all.

I don't understand this. My images convert when used in a Word .doc file. I'm not sure what "upload" you are referring to. I just insert the images into the Word document, then convert to HTML Filtered and drag the file into calibre.

Quote:

I dl'ed Open Office and converted the Word file to their format, as I heard it was more easily converted - same result, error message as follows:

I've heard this works well, but I've never tried it.

HomeInMyShoes · 10-17-2011, 02:40 PM

I'd suggest never convert to PDF. You might try going to RTF or to HTML and then reworking tags that don't work out. You might also be able to copy your images into one place and then do some regex to path the images to the correct location.

My opinion is that a book with 220 illustrations is not going to be an easy thing to get to work well on an e-reader.

theducks · 10-17-2011, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljstreet

Hi - I am new at this and getting very frustrated.
I have written and published a hard-copy book, 440 pages with 220 illustrations, originally in MS Word.
I want to make it available as an e-book, but can't seem to get it to convert.

I have tried converting the .doc file but get an error message right away.

I converted the .doc file to pdf, it converted quite nicely but none of the internal hotlinks worked, which made the file useless in this situation.

I saved the .doc file as html which looked great, converted it to epub and the links work fine, but the images were not converted as they are in many different folders and I can't upload them without hours of work, if at all.

I dl'ed Open Office and converted the Word file to their format, as I heard it was more easily converted - same result, error message as follows:

calibre, version 0.8.22
ERROR: Conversion Error: <b>Failed</b>: Convert book 1 of 1 (What Deas THAT Do?)

Spoiler:

Any ideas???

Thanks!

Try adding the Writer2EPUB plugin to OO
it does a fair job of taking a DOC and making an EPUB.

slm · 10-17-2011, 03:54 PM

Atlantis also does a nice job of converting directly from doc to epub. I think there is a free trial.

ljstreet · 10-18-2011, 02:50 AM

Thanks for the advice!

I tried the Open Office writer2epub plugin and it converted the file nicely except that the internal hyperlinks don't work - they appear to just be text. They work fine in the OO .odt file, same as in the MS Word file. I don't see any options to change this.

As I mentioned, the conversion from pdf, though having it's own problems, allowed the internal links to work.

I'll keep plugging away at it and post if I come up with a solution.

DoctorOhh · 10-18-2011, 02:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljstreet

I tried the Open Office writer2epub plugin and it converted the file nicely except that the internal hyperlinks don't work - they appear to just be text. They work fine in the OO .odt file, same as in the MS Word file. I don't see any options to change this.

Have you added the .odt file to calibre and tried converting the odf to epub?

ljstreet · 10-18-2011, 02:56 AM

dwathny - yes, I tried that first, same result.

DoctorOhh · 10-18-2011, 03:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljstreet

dwathny - yes, I tried that first, same result.

I missed that part, then it is back to square one. Saving it as html filtered and converting it should have worked fine. Why were the images not in the document?

Maybe someone can help, because Word -> HTML -> ePub is the natural progression for converting Word documents using calibre.

ljstreet · 10-18-2011, 02:28 PM

From what I understand, images are not embedded in the file when you save a Word document as html, so when you convert the html to epub, you have to have all the images in one place (?) - not sure how that works. In any case, my image files are all over my computer in multiple different folders, none of which are the same as the one containing the html file. So, when I convert, I get a bunch of little question marks where the images should be.

The author of the OO convert extension has said there is a bug that prevents the links from converting, hopefully he can work that out, as otherwise the conversion from odt to epub worked well.... images and all!

DebbyS · 10-18-2011, 02:49 PM

LJStreet said s/he was using Word, but not what version. I have Word 2000 at home and have successfully done the word>html>epub thing with Calibre, though I've only had one illustration, at the end of the doc (and I add a page cover just before converting the html to epub). I hope to use the same process in the future when converting some books with lots of small drawings. As later versions of Word get more complex (Microsoft must think this is helpful...), therein may be a problem. However, using OO may be like using a simpler version of Word so... LJ may need to embed the illustrations

Starson17 · 10-18-2011, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljstreet

From what I understand, images are not embedded in the file when you save a Word document as html, so when you convert the html to epub, you have to have all the images in one place (?) - not sure how that works.

If your .doc or .docx file has images, they are embedded into the file, unless you've taken special steps to prevent that. If you then save as filtered html (from Word), the images will all be saved into a folder with the html file itself. The resulting html will have relative links to the files in the adjacent folder. It should be accepted into calibre and convert just fine. I've never had any trouble with this process.

Quote:

In any case, my image files are all over my computer in multiple different folders, none of which are the same as the one containing the html file.

Your source images can be all over the place, but they'll also be in the filename_files folder with the filename.html file produced when you saved the filename.doc file in filtered html format.

It is possible to insert hyperlinks to pictures, instead of the picture files, or to use other methods that would cause trouble with this process, but if you used the normal Insert | Picture | From File process it should work without trouble.

ljstreet · 10-19-2011, 02:40 AM

Thanks, Starson - things are gradually becoming clearer... the light is starting to glow.

I had been so wrapped up in the whole thing that I saved the html file to one of my regular folders and didn't even notice that a new folder had been created with all the images. Now that I see this folder and its files, I can try the conversion with Calibre again.

10-17-2011, 02:09 PM	#1
ljstreet Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 50000 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: none	Converting from Word Hi - I am new at this and getting very frustrated. I have written and published a hard-copy book, 440 pages with 220 illustrations, originally in MS Word. I want to make it available as an e-book, but can't seem to get it to convert. I have tried converting the .doc file but get an error message right away. I converted the .doc file to pdf, it converted quite nicely but none of the internal hotlinks worked, which made the file useless in this situation. I saved the .doc file as html which looked great, converted it to epub and the links work fine, but the images were not converted as they are in many different folders and I can't upload them without hours of work, if at all. I dl'ed Open Office and converted the Word file to their format, as I heard it was more easily converted - same result, error message as follows: calibre, version 0.8.22 ERROR: Conversion Error: <b>Failed</b>: Convert book 1 of 1 (What Deas THAT Do?) Spoiler: Convert book 1 of 1 (What Deas THAT Do?) Resolved conversion options calibre version: 0.8.22 {'asciiize': False, 'author_sort': None, 'authors': None, 'base_font_size': 0.0, 'book_producer': None, 'change_justification': u'original', 'chapter': u"//[((name()='h1' or name()='h2') and re:test(., 'chapter\|book\|section\|part\|prologue\|epilogue\\s+', 'i')) or @class = 'chapter']", 'chapter_mark': u'pagebreak', 'comments': None, 'cover': None, 'debug_pipeline': None, 'dehyphenate': True, 'delete_blank_paragraphs': True, 'disable_font_rescaling': False, 'dont_split_on_page_breaks': False, 'duplicate_links_in_toc': False, 'enable_heuristics': False, 'epub_flatten': False, 'extra_css': None, 'extract_to': None, 'fix_indents': True, 'flow_size': 260, 'font_size_mapping': None, 'format_scene_breaks': True, 'html_unwrap_factor': 0.4, 'input_encoding': None, 'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x056F91D0>, 'insert_blank_line': False, 'insert_blank_line_size': 0.5, 'insert_metadata': False, 'isbn': None, 'italicize_common_cases': True, 'keep_ligatures': False, 'language': None, 'level1_toc': None, 'level2_toc': None, 'level3_toc': None, 'line_height': 0.0, 'linearize_tables': False, 'margin_bottom': 5.0, 'margin_left': 5.0, 'margin_right': 5.0, 'margin_top': 5.0, 'markup_chapter_headings': True, 'max_toc_links': 50, 'minimum_line_height': 120.0, 'no_chapters_in_toc': False, 'no_default_epub_cover': False, 'no_inline_navbars': False, 'no_svg_cover': False, 'output_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.GenericEink object at 0x056F93D0>, 'page_breaks_before': u"//[name()='h1' or name()='h2']", 'prefer_metadata_cover': False, 'preserve_cover_aspect_ratio': False, 'pretty_print': True, 'pubdate': None, 'publisher': None, 'rating': None, 'read_metadata_from_opf': 'c:\\users\\kangal\\appdata\\local\\temp\\calibre_ 0.8.22_tmp_p0gvmi\\eu9fw4.opf', 'remove_fake_margins': True, 'remove_first_image': False, 'remove_paragraph_spacing': False, 'remove_paragraph_spacing_indent_size': 1.5, 'renumber_headings': True, 'replace_scene_breaks': u'', 'series': None, 'series_index': None, 'smarten_punctuation': False, 'sr1_replace': None, 'sr1_search': None, 'sr2_replace': None, 'sr2_search': None, 'sr3_replace': None, 'sr3_search': None, 'tags': None, 'timestamp': None, 'title': None, 'title_sort': None, 'toc_filter': None, 'toc_threshold': 6, 'unsmarten_punctuation': False, 'unwrap_lines': True, 'use_auto_toc': False, 'verbose': 2} InputFormatPlugin: ODT Input running on c:\users\kangal\appdata\local\temp\calibre_0.8.22_ tmp_p0gvmi\czonvf.odt Extracting ODT file... Python function terminated unexpectedly (u'urnasis:names:tcpendocument:xmlns:drawing:1 .0', 'class-id') (Error Code: 1) Traceback (most recent call last): File "site.py", line 132, in main File "site.py", line 109, in run_entry_point File "site-packages\calibre\utils\ipc\worker.py", line 187, in main File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.py", line 31, in gui_convert_override File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.py", line 25, in gui_convert File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plumber.py", line 947, in run File "site-packages\calibre\customize\conversion.py", line 204, in __call__ File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\odt\input.py", line 159, in convert File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\odt\input.py", line 121, in __call__ File "site-packages\odf\odf2xhtml.py", line 1501, in odf2xhtml File "site-packages\odf\odf2xhtml.py", line 1486, in load File "site-packages\odf\odf2xhtml.py", line 1492, in _walknode File "site-packages\odf\odf2xhtml.py", line 1492, in _walknode File "site-packages\odf\odf2xhtml.py", line 1492, in _walknode File "site-packages\odf\odf2xhtml.py", line 1492, in _walknode File "site-packages\odf\odf2xhtml.py", line 1492, in _walknode File "site-packages\odf\odf2xhtml.py", line 1490, in _walknode File "site-packages\odf\odf2xhtml.py", line 555, in startElementNS File "site-packages\odf\odf2xhtml.py", line 572, in handle_starttag File "site-packages\odf\odf2xhtml.py", line 763, in s_draw_object_ole KeyError: (u'urnasis:names:tcpendocument:xmlns:drawing:1 .0', 'class-id') Any ideas??? Thanks! Last edited by theducks; 10-17-2011 at 03:21 PM. Reason: Wrapped in Spoiler

10-18-2011, 02:50 AM	#6
ljstreet Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 50000 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: none	Thanks - still having problems Thanks for the advice! I tried the Open Office writer2epub plugin and it converted the file nicely except that the internal hyperlinks don't work - they appear to just be text. They work fine in the OO .odt file, same as in the MS Word file. I don't see any options to change this. As I mentioned, the conversion from pdf, though having it's own problems, allowed the internal links to work. I'll keep plugging away at it and post if I come up with a solution.

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10-17-2011, 02:40 PM	#3
HomeInMyShoes Grand Sorcerer Posts: 19,226 Karma: 67780237 Join Date: Jul 2011 Device: none	I'd suggest never convert to PDF. You might try going to RTF or to HTML and then reworking tags that don't work out. You might also be able to copy your images into one place and then do some regex to path the images to the correct location. My opinion is that a book with 220 illustrations is not going to be an easy thing to get to work well on an e-reader.

10-17-2011, 03:54 PM	#5
slm Fool Posts: 377 Karma: 3557934 Join Date: Feb 2003 Device: Kindle Voyage, Kindle PW1, Kobo Glo HD, Nook Glowlight Plus ...	Atlantis also does a nice job of converting directly from doc to epub. I think there is a free trial.

10-18-2011, 02:56 AM	#8
ljstreet Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 50000 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: none	dwathny - yes, I tried that first, same result.

10-18-2011, 02:28 PM	#10
ljstreet Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 50000 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: none	From what I understand, images are not embedded in the file when you save a Word document as html, so when you convert the html to epub, you have to have all the images in one place (?) - not sure how that works. In any case, my image files are all over my computer in multiple different folders, none of which are the same as the one containing the html file. So, when I convert, I get a bunch of little question marks where the images should be. The author of the OO convert extension has said there is a bug that prevents the links from converting, hopefully he can work that out, as otherwise the conversion from odt to epub worked well.... images and all!

10-18-2011, 02:49 PM	#11
DebbyS Zealot Posts: 115 Karma: 1472692 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Albuquerque, NM Device: Jetbook Lite; Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)	LJStreet said s/he was using Word, but not what version. I have Word 2000 at home and have successfully done the word>html>epub thing with Calibre, though I've only had one illustration, at the end of the doc (and I add a page cover just before converting the html to epub). I hope to use the same process in the future when converting some books with lots of small drawings. As later versions of Word get more complex (Microsoft must think this is helpful...), therein may be a problem. However, using OO may be like using a simpler version of Word so... LJ may need to embed the illustrations

10-19-2011, 02:40 AM	#13
ljstreet Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 50000 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: none	Thanks, Starson - things are gradually becoming clearer... the light is starting to glow. I had been so wrapped up in the whole thing that I saved the html file to one of my regular folders and didn't even notice that a new folder had been created with all the images. Now that I see this folder and its files, I can try the conversion with Calibre again.