After changes to HTML in Sigil...

[Education]

Hi! After I authored the word doc, I did the following:

a) Saved word doc as web page, filtered
b) Opened the resulting html doc in Sigil
c) Ran FlightCrew on the html

It is showing a lot of errors, most of which require me to make some minor changes to the "html code". Suppose I make those html code changes, the issue I am facing is:

Next time I perform any chance to my word doc, and again save it as web page, filtered (basically if I repeat the above process), then all the html code changes that I had performed earlier would obviously be over-written.

So, how do people circumvent this? Seems to be that this should be a pretty common situation.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Education

Hi! After I authored the word doc, I did the following:

a) Saved word doc as web page, filtered
b) Opened the resulting html doc in Sigil
c) Ran FlightCrew on the html

It is showing a lot of errors, most of which require me to make some minor changes to the "html code". Suppose I make those html code changes, the issue I am facing is:

Next time I perform any chance to my word doc, and again save it as web page, filtered (basically if I repeat the above process), then all the html code changes that I had performed earlier would obviously be over-written.

So, how do people circumvent this? Seems to be that this should be a pretty common situation.

Every time you use Word (or other non-ebook editor) you are starting over validation wise.

Make the (I would be expecting minor) changes in the EPUB (Sigil or Calibre editor).

The validated EPUB is now the master (and most recent) format.

[Toxaris]

I make the export in another way. Even the filtered HTML export of Word is full of ugly code. Clean code will result in a lot better results. That was one of the reasons that I created my add-in. It will create clean code and can even create a basic ePUB for you.

Once the ePUB is created, make any changes there. Mostly style but depending on the number of changes also the textual changes.

[MickiTee]

As an alternative you could use Open Office Writer instead of MS Word. This creates a HTML document with much cleaner code if you select 'File', 'Send' & then 'Create HTML Document' instead of 'File Save as'. Or you could add the Write2Epub extension (has it own forum on MR) to Writer and create your epub directly.

[radius]

Originally Posted by Education

So, how do people circumvent this? Seems to be that this should be a pretty common situation.

My personal solution is to not use Word

I usually do my editing in a text editor, though lately I have been working in Sigil more and more.

I also used to use TacoEdit (for Mac) as an HTML editor, which gave simultaneous views of rendered and code.

Something I've done in the past is open HTML documents in Word and editing there. I can't remember off the top of my head if the resulting HTML is cleaner or not.

[DaleDe]

Another choice is to use Atlantis Word Processor. It can make a clean ePub directly from a DOC file and allow you to edit the source easily since it is simple to update the ePub by saving a new copy.

Dale

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Another choice is to use Atlantis Word Processor. It can make a clean ePub directly from a DOC file and allow you to edit the source easily since it is simple to update the ePub by saving a new copy.

Dale

Yes, you can do that.

Vis-a-vis this, from MickiTee:

As an alternative you could use Open Office Writer instead of MS Word. This creates a HTML document with much cleaner code if you select 'File', 'Send' & then 'Create HTML Document' instead of 'File Save as'. Or you could add the Write2Epub extension (has it own forum on MR) to Writer and create your epub directly.

I've just never found that OO outputs code that's any cleaner than Word. It's simply...sort of a choice, as to which cruft you want to clean up. If someone knows how to use Word and Word's Styles, the output is pretty damned clean. If someone uses it like a typewriter, it isn't. {shrug}. It's "pay now" (learn to use the Styles by investing the time to learn it once), or "pay later," (clean up the cruft afterwards by investing the time to clean up each time). I've tested OO's output, and I truly don't see much difference, in terms of the amount of regex/clean-up, etc., required. Word processing output is word-processing output, not sparkly-clean HTML.

That's the essence of it. Unless someone works in Markdown or code, I wouldn't expect that to change dramatically any time soon.

Hitch

[Education]

It is overwhelming to get responses from people, most of whom have thousands of posts to their credit.

The discouraging news seems to be that there seems to be no way of converting word into a good epub.

Toxaris, you mention: "Once the ePUB is created, make any changes there". The issue is that I am not a html pro (I am just writing a book), but once I start editing directly in Sigil, it seems that it will soon require me to have a good working knowledge of html.

So, I need to think about what to do going forward. As an aside, had a basic question. It looks like epub/sigil does not recognize "formatting styles" of word. For example, I created a style for "normal italic" and applied it to some portions of the word-doc, but when I view it in epub/sigil, those portions just come up as "normal" (and not "italicized). So, does it mean I have to "re-do" all the formatting (bold, italics, underline etc. etc.) that I had done in the word doc, in the epub file?

[eschwartz]

A properly formatted .docx is supposed to convert quite well AND cleanly in calibre. So you should be able to use the .docx as your master format.

Instead of saving filtered html, save as .docx and convert to EPUB with calibre.

Or use Toxaris' addon to make an EPUB and edit the code in Sigil. If you plan on fixing the FlightCrew errors in Sigil, you may have to learn html anyway.

[BetterRed]

@Education - follow Hitch's advice and use Word Styles. Before saving I search for tabs (^t), double paragraph marks (^p^p) etc and eliminate via styling.

I save as DOCX and convert via calibre's conversion facilities (ebook-convert), I see very little cruft from that process. The Word Styles convert pretty much 1:1 with CSS styles. The only thing I might do is cosmetic and move things around a bit.

I guess what I'm saying is that KG's DOCX to HTML converter is better than MS's is

BR

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Education

The discouraging news seems to be that there seems to be no way of converting word into a good epub.

Toxaris's Tools handle export out of Microsoft Word it quite well. From there, it should only require minor cleanup.

Originally Posted by Education

Toxaris, you mention: "Once the ePUB is created, make any changes there". The issue is that I am not a html pro (I am just writing a book), but once I start editing directly in Sigil, it seems that it will soon require me to have a good working knowledge of html.

You want to make the EPUB step your VERY FINAL step. For example, do not make the EPUB, do all of this work tweaking the book to your satisfaction, and THEN find many typos/changes that you must fix in the book.

This will double your workload (fix/changes in EPUB, and fix/changes in the original DOC). Make sure that you have a finalized copy of your book BEFORE the EPUB conversion step.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Toxaris's Tools handle export out of Microsoft Word it quite well. From there, it should only require minor cleanup.

Yes. It does.

You want to make the EPUB step your VERY FINAL step. For example, do not make the EPUB, do all of this work tweaking the book to your satisfaction, and THEN find many typos/changes that you must fix in the book.

This will double your workload (fix/changes in EPUB, and fix/changes in the original DOC). Make sure that you have a finalized copy of your book BEFORE the EPUB conversion step.

Hitch

[Toxaris]

[QUOTE=Education;2774334]The discouraging news seems to be that there seems to be no way of converting word into a good epub.[.QUOTE]

There are, several actually. They were mentioned here. I am not in favor of the Calibre route myself, since I really don't like the code Calibre produces. Utterly chaos and counter-intuitive in my opinion.
After all, they are different formats all together. There is no 'automagic converter that read your mind on how it must look'.

Originally Posted by Education

Toxaris, you mention: "Once the ePUB is created, make any changes there". The issue is that I am not a html pro (I am just writing a book), but once I start editing directly in Sigil, it seems that it will soon require me to have a good working knowledge of html.

Well, yes. If you want to style your ePUB, you need to know HTML. That comes with the territory. An ePUB is formatted in HTML, so for changes at least basic knowledge about HTML/CSS is required to have control.

Originally Posted by Education

So, I need to think about what to do going forward. As an aside, had a basic question. It looks like epub/sigil does not recognize "formatting styles" of word. For example, I created a style for "normal italic" and applied it to some portions of the word-doc, but when I view it in epub/sigil, those portions just come up as "normal" (and not "italicized). So, does it mean I have to "re-do" all the formatting (bold, italics, underline etc. etc.) that I had done in the word doc, in the epub file?

No. It depends on how you use it. Don't create a style just for italic. Just use the italic button. Styles are about identifying the content. For example to identify what a header is, or a letter, or copyright information. That a style can be formatted to look different is actually a bonus (although most people misuse it for that). By saving as filtered HTML, you get an internal stylesheet in the HTML document that is atrocious. You are usually better of by deleting it. That will mean you loose the formatting. No real issue, it can be recreated with a stylesheet.
My add-in at the moment retains the stylesheet names if you want, but not the formatting. That is by design. However, since the names can be retained, the semantics are preserved. So, when you create a stylesheet, you can add classes with that name to control the formatting. In the next version I will add the possibility to retain some formatting, it will be put in the stylesheet automatically. That should help people without HTML/CSS knowledge to get started.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

There are, several actually. They were mentioned here. I am not in favor of the Calibre route myself, since I really don't like the code Calibre produces. Utterly chaos and counter-intuitive in my opinion.
After all, they are different formats all together. There is no 'automagic converter that read your mind on how it must look'.

What rot. The code calibre produces corresponds very closely to whatever formatting you have defined in Word. And unlike your macro its output actually looks like the original Word document (within the constraints of HTML's formatting model). That includes support for tables, lists, images and so on. http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conv...word-documents

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

What rot. The code calibre produces corresponds very closely to whatever formatting you have defined in Word. And unlike your macro its output actually looks like the original Word document (within the constraints of HTML's formatting model). That includes support for tables, lists, images and so on. http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conv...word-documents

Don't get me wrong, my comments were not an attack. Your conversion does do a good job in itself in trying to keep what is there in Word. I understand the decisions you must have made in the process. What I find chaos and counter-intuitive are the 'calibre' styles and the stylesheet it produces. Again, I understand why. It is also my personal opinion.
If this has changed in the past year, I need to check it out again to see if this is still the case.

Tables, lists, images and so on are supported in full, minus the formatting and that has been a deliberate choice. The macro is a crude version and not really supported anymore with me. It is an alternative if the add-in cannot be used. The add-in has much more features.