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Old 12-11-2012, 10:51 PM   #1
Jimbo724
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How to Clean/Strip HTML from epub file?
I want to clean up a book. It is an absolute mess. I know how to convert it to an epub file, open it in Sigil, and extract the text files into a directory. Now, I want to strip essentially all the HTML other than the paragraph code and then fix up the text without changing the paragraph structure. (Afterward, I will add chapter, header, and other codes as needed, then run it through Calibre to recreate the ebook.) What is the easiest way to get rid of everything except the paragraph structure?

Sigil is useless beyond extracting the text files from the epub file.

I had a problem with Word making every line a separate paragraph.

I use a Mac.
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Old 12-11-2012, 11:41 PM   #2
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I'm not at sure if I understand you, but my first reaction is that your question is at about the same level as asking 'How do I remove all the bricks from my house'. ePub ebooks consist of html files, plus a couple of other files. No html, no ePub.

In any event I suggest that you'll get better advice on the ePub forum than on the General Discussion forum.
Last edited by AlexBell; 12-11-2012 at 11:42 PM. Reason: fixed typo
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Old 12-11-2012, 11:47 PM   #3
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you'll need to leave in the bare bones html structure but you can search and replace (with nothing) the html elements you don't need. Removing the attributes might be trickier. If you use a text editor that supports regular expressions, you can remove things pretty quickly and powerfully. If the file is xhtml (which it might be) you could also try an xslt.

It will take time no matter how you do it.
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Old 12-12-2012, 01:18 AM   #4
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Where did you get the book from? My immediate reaction is that you should approach the publisher and get them to fix it.
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Old 12-12-2012, 03:27 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Joykins View Post
search and replace (with nothing) the html elements you don't need.
That appears to be the best approach.

My guess is that someone scanned the paper book, did an OCR, did little to clean it up, and then created an epub file. Somehow a lot of html dross was inserted along the way. I almost have to go back to the OCR output to clean it up. To make matters really complicated, the text has a lot of intentional misspellings to imitate an Eastern European mangling of the English language. I can sympathize with the original processor. Alas, there is no retail ebook available.

I'm ordering the paper book through my local library in order to proofread the text. Maybe I will start over with my own scan and OCR. I haven't decided yet.
Last edited by Jimbo724; 12-12-2012 at 03:41 AM.
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Old 12-12-2012, 03:36 AM   #6
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Convert the Book from Epub to Txt then back to Epub

That way all the HTML stuff is lost
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Old 12-12-2012, 06:02 AM   #7
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Epub is just a zip file with html (and other) files inside it. Just rename it and extract them with whatever you usually use.
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Old 12-12-2012, 08:39 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo724 View Post
Sigil is useless beyond extracting the text files from the epub file.

I use a Mac.
It's telling.

Strip all of the style/classes from the tags, remove the stylesheets/embedded styles.

Regex is your friend, Sigil makes sure you don't mess it up too much.
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Old 12-12-2012, 08:48 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo724 View Post
I had a problem with Word making every line a separate paragraph.

I use a Mac.
I just noticed that last sentence.

Go to http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/ and get TextWrangler, a very good, free, text editor.

I highly recommend its 'big brother' BBEdit if you're involved in a lot of text editing. It's only $49.99. It doesn't suck.®
Last edited by pdurrant; 12-12-2012 at 08:50 AM.
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Old 12-12-2012, 11:22 AM   #10
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Have you tried using Calibre to convert it to a text file?
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