Quick Reformatting of Terrible E-Books - Page 2

mogui · 08-03-2007, 11:19 PM

monkpalmer, does this tool operate on the entire text in a "setup and then process" mode, or do you use it to go through the entire file manually correcting it? Thanks for the link and info.

RWood · 08-04-2007, 12:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What can Ultra Edit do that Word cannot or what can Ultra Edit do better?

I've been thinking of trying to find a better text editor then Notepad.

While not wanting to sound like a commercial for UltraEdit, here is a link to the main features of the product.

I spent many years programming (mainframes, minis, and micros) and this is the best editor I have ever used. It is an excellent replacement for Notepad.

How it differs from Word is mainly in its philosophy of operations. Everything is displayed, there are no hidden codes. (This is wonderful when you are setting up hyperlinks.) It also has a fully functional hex editor that I wrongly thought I would never need with the Harvard Classics series.

There is a 30 or 45 days free trial of the product.

kovidgoyal · 08-04-2007, 03:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What can Ultra Edit do that Word cannot or what can Ultra Edit do better?

I've been thinking of trying to find a better text editor then Notepad.

There's notepad++ which is free.

andym · 08-04-2007, 04:05 AM

Could I ask if anyone has any tips on the least labour-intensive way of replacing ascii quotation marks (' ") with proper curly quotes either on Mac (TextMate?) or Windows thanks.

monkpalmer · 08-04-2007, 06:30 AM

mogui, all you have to do is
1. open from within "E-Book Tidy" the text doc you want to reformat
2. press a button.
The program does the whole thing for you in a couple of seconds. There's a preview tab as well, so you can check on how your Gutenberg text is shaping up.

nekokami · 08-04-2007, 01:35 PM

If you find you need more flexible search/replace and other text processing functionality and you want to use the same rules on a whole batch of files at once, you might want to look at http://www.datamystic.com/textpipe.html. It's not free, but the "lite" version is under US$50. I'm using the "pro" version for another (non ebook related) task and it's quite powerful, and fairly easy to use. (I have no other connection with this company or product.)

mogui · 08-04-2007, 10:48 PM

We often forget the old tools. AWK is available for windows, as are mawk and gawk. This page links to tutorials and contains some scripts. The textpipe folks say textpipe is better than awk -- quicker to program. Awk is free, has useful variants, and lots of free scripts and tutorials. Your choice.

Awk and sed have been around since the beginning of time. There are forums for getting help and getting scripts. Imagine writing an awk script that formats your Gutenberg text files just the way you like them and then running that script in batch mode on entire directories. Explore the world of awk scripts.

Or you can use E-Book Tidy. Thanks monkpalmer. It is always good to have a choice of tools.

Gutenmark takes Gutenberg text files and converts them to nicely formatted HTML. Oh, how I wish I could use HTML on my Reader!

Replacing ASCII quote marks with the left and right versions ought not be difficult for an awk script writer. If you want a one-click solution, write the script and then upload it here.

nekokami · 08-05-2007, 07:18 PM

Oh sure, awk is very powerful. So is perl. I'm just saying that some categories of repetitive tasks have been needed by so many people that other tools have been created that are easier to use -- for those tasks.

DaleDe · 08-10-2007, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What can Ultra Edit do that Word cannot or what can Ultra Edit do better?

I've been thinking of trying to find a better text editor then Notepad.

I use a Windows version of Emacs. It is a super editor and can do most anything you need.

andym · 08-23-2007, 03:36 PM

There seems to be a problem with the GutenMark download pages. I don't suppose anyone has a copy of either the OSX compiled tarball or the Windows compiled Zip that they could upload?

My simple primitive approach to the curly quotes problem was to do a replace all on the '."' ',"' '?"' and then when I've eliminated all the right-hand double quotes simply do a replace all on the left hand double quotes. Similar approach to single quotes and apostrophes.

DMcCunney · 08-23-2007, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What can Ultra Edit do that Word cannot or what can Ultra Edit do better?

I've been thinking of trying to find a better text editor then Notepad.

There are a boatload of Notepad replacements. Look here for a sampling: http://texteditors.org

Notepad replacements have their own category. Look under TextEditorFamilies.

I'm currently using Notepad++, one of a batch of free, open source text editors based on the Scintilla edit control, but I've used a number of others.

If all you want to do is replace Notepad, Ultra Edit is overkill.
______
Dennis
Collector of Text Editors

HarryT · 08-27-2007, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andym

There seems to be a problem with the GutenMark download pages. I don't suppose anyone has a copy of either the OSX compiled tarball or the Windows compiled Zip that they could upload?

My simple primitive approach to the curly quotes problem was to do a replace all on the '."' ',"' '?"' and then when I've eliminated all the right-hand double quotes simply do a replace all on the left hand double quotes. Similar approach to single quotes and apostrophes.

It is worth remembering that "curly quotes" are not a part of the standard ASCII character set, and hence their display is code page dependent (unless one is dealing with Unicode, of course). They will display correctly on the "Latin 1" code page that most English speaking, and Western European, countries use, but not elsewhere.

It's best to stick with straight ASCII quotes if you want everyone to be able to display your book correctly.

andym · 08-31-2007, 02:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

It is worth remembering that "curly quotes" are not a part of the standard ASCII character set, and hence their display is code page dependent (unless one is dealing with Unicode, of course). They will display correctly on the "Latin 1" code page that most English speaking, and Western European, countries use, but not elsewhere.

It's best to stick with straight ASCII quotes if you want everyone to be able to display your book correctly.

I was talking about converting to html where the entities "“", "”" etc are supported in html as well as by mobipocket reader and in the ipdf standards. I think you can have both universality and retain the benefits of proper typography (except of course proportional spacing).

HarryT · 08-31-2007, 12:17 PM

As long as you do use the HTML entities then you're right - there's no problem. Unfortunately it's very common to find them as straight "characters" in files, which then don't display correctly for everyone.

andym · 08-31-2007, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

As long as you do use the HTML entities then you're right - there's no problem. Unfortunately it's very common to find them as straight "characters" in files, which then don't display correctly for everyone.

D'oh! The html entities in my last post showed as quotation marks (doesn't seem to be a way to disable html).

If anyone is interested, there's a list of the html entities supported by mobipocket here. Unfortunately, the formatting is pretty scrambled. It seems to be the same as the Open eBook list which you can download from the ipdf.org site - the link is here: http://www.idpf.org/oebps/oebps1.2/d.../oeb12-dtd.zip. The list has the suffix .ent but it should be possible to open it in a decent text editor. [Edit - direct link here: http://openebook.org/dtds/oeb-1.2/oeb12.ent opens in a browser]

08-04-2007, 10:48 PM	#22
mogui eNigma Posts: 503 Karma: 1335 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: The Philippines Device: HTC G1 Android FBReader	We often forget the old tools. AWK is available for windows, as are mawk and gawk. This page links to tutorials and contains some scripts. The textpipe folks say textpipe is better than awk -- quicker to program. Awk is free, has useful variants, and lots of free scripts and tutorials. Your choice. Awk and sed have been around since the beginning of time. There are forums for getting help and getting scripts. Imagine writing an awk script that formats your Gutenberg text files just the way you like them and then running that script in batch mode on entire directories. Explore the world of awk scripts. Or you can use E-Book Tidy. Thanks monkpalmer. It is always good to have a choice of tools. Gutenmark takes Gutenberg text files and converts them to nicely formatted HTML. Oh, how I wish I could use HTML on my Reader! Replacing ASCII quote marks with the left and right versions ought not be difficult for an awk script writer. If you want a one-click solution, write the script and then upload it here. Last edited by mogui; 08-04-2007 at 10:53 PM.

08-23-2007, 03:36 PM	#25
andym Groupie Posts: 189 Karma: 793 Join Date: Oct 2006	There seems to be a problem with the GutenMark download pages. I don't suppose anyone has a copy of either the OSX compiled tarball or the Windows compiled Zip that they could upload? My simple primitive approach to the curly quotes problem was to do a replace all on the '."' ',"' '?"' and then when I've eliminated all the right-hand double quotes simply do a replace all on the left hand double quotes. Similar approach to single quotes and apostrophes. Last edited by andym; 08-24-2007 at 02:20 PM.

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08-03-2007, 11:19 PM	#16
mogui eNigma Posts: 503 Karma: 1335 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: The Philippines Device: HTC G1 Android FBReader	monkpalmer, does this tool operate on the entire text in a "setup and then process" mode, or do you use it to go through the entire file manually correcting it? Thanks for the link and info.

08-04-2007, 04:05 AM	#19
andym Groupie Posts: 189 Karma: 793 Join Date: Oct 2006	Could I ask if anyone has any tips on the least labour-intensive way of replacing ascii quotation marks (' ") with proper curly quotes either on Mac (TextMate?) or Windows thanks.

08-04-2007, 06:30 AM	#20
monkpalmer Member Posts: 10 Karma: 3650 Join Date: Dec 2004 Device: Tungsten TC	mogui, all you have to do is 1. open from within "E-Book Tidy" the text doc you want to reformat 2. press a button. The program does the whole thing for you in a couple of seconds. There's a preview tab as well, so you can check on how your Gutenberg text is shaping up.

08-04-2007, 01:35 PM	#21
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	If you find you need more flexible search/replace and other text processing functionality and you want to use the same rules on a whole batch of files at once, you might want to look at http://www.datamystic.com/textpipe.html. It's not free, but the "lite" version is under US$50. I'm using the "pro" version for another (non ebook related) task and it's quite powerful, and fairly easy to use. (I have no other connection with this company or product.)

08-05-2007, 07:18 PM	#23
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	Oh sure, awk is very powerful. So is perl. I'm just saying that some categories of repetitive tasks have been needed by so many people that other tools have been created that are easier to use -- for those tasks.

08-31-2007, 12:17 PM	#29
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	As long as you do use the HTML entities then you're right - there's no problem. Unfortunately it's very common to find them as straight "characters" in files, which then don't display correctly for everyone.

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