can sigil convert html entities to regular punctuation?

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by BobC

Instead of going from a LibreOffice doc to HTML to open in Sigil you could try adding the writer2xhtml extension to LO which allows directly exporting to EPUB. One of the options there is to use or not use html entities.

That way you create a file without any entities in it and you don't have to worry about converting them.

BobC

Thanks Bob. I checked it out. Sounds like the ideal thing except there were all these warnings.

http://extensions.libreoffice.org/ex...r/writer2xhtml

(Or see the screen shot.) I'm using LO 4.0.4.2. So am I worrying about using it or just going ahead and giving it a shot? Thanks.

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

In Sigil you can't do it (except with find & replace) but you can do something BEFORE importing the .html files in Sigil.

What you must do is to use the following inline converter:

http://www.convertstring.com/EncodeDecode/HtmlDecode

Just copy ALL the html source code in the respective window, press the buttom "Html Decode!" and in the "decoded text window" of the site, you'll have the .html code ready to paste it in Sigil (of course, you also can paste that code in your original .html file, save it, and then import it in Sigi).

Hopefully this can be of help.

Regards
Rubén

Thanks Ruben. I checked it out. Worked great. What a super cool tool. But am I going to be able to copy and past a hundred thousand word novel into it? That's the only thing. But if so, that could be the way to go. And whatever happens, what a nice tool to have available. Thanks for passing that along.

Originally Posted by cybmole

i was thinking of this setting, but maybe it is not relevant:

you see this settings in "Word options" under office button on the top left corner of the word, then select "Advanced" and keep scrolling down to the area until you see "Show document content" and turn off the setting named:- "Show field codes instead of their values"

I tried but couldn't find it, cybmole.

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks Ruben

You're welcome Gregg.

... But am I going to be able to copy and past a hundred thousand word novel into it?

No! Why? You only have to make a copy and paste for each .html files that your novel has. So the question is: how many .html files your novel has? Four, five, ten? Then you only have to make four, five or ten copy and paste.

Suppose that your novel has only one .html file; then do the following:
1. Open the .html file with Wordpad, Notepad++ or a similar program.
2. Now select ALL the file (headings include) and copy it (don't close Wordpad).
3. Go to the decoder site and paste what you have copied in the previous step.
4. Decode what you pasted.
5. Copy all what you get in step 4 and paste it again in Wordpad.
6. Save the changes and now you can import that file in Sigil.

It's quite simple

Regards
Rubén

[Jabby]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

I've been looking for an easy way to compose a novel and then seamlessly transfer it to Sigil for the end processing. The best thing I've come up so far is Libre Office (File-->New-->HTML document) and then taking the .html to Sigil. But in Sigil a lot of the punctuation marks show up as html entities. (Which is difficult for me to deal with.) Is there any way that once I'm in Sigil I can convert those html entities (see screenshot) back into regular punctuation marks? Thanks.

Try saving your Libre Office file natively (not html), use Calibre to convert to epub and then edit with Sigil.

It worked for me a couple of years ago with Open Office and assuming Libre Office has the same file structure it may still work. Worth a try.

Over time I have found that converting word processing files makes for messy epubs and have opted to use Notepad++ and drag my files into Sigil one chapter at a time. It is pretty easy and keeps me from getting to cutesy with the formatting (a very good thing).

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks Bob. I checked it out. Sounds like the ideal thing except there were all these warnings.

http://extensions.libreoffice.org/ex...r/writer2xhtml

(Or see the screen shot.) I'm using LO 4.0.4.2. So am I worrying about using it or just going ahead and giving it a shot? Thanks.

There is a patched version - see the following post by roger64 :
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=224

I'm using that with LO 4.0.2.2 and it works fine with that. One thing that is less than obvious is that you set the extensions preferences in the main Tools/Options dialogue with its own settings under writer2xhtml.

Another option might be the writer2epub extension - I sometimes use that as well but it is more restrictive on the use of styles.

BobC

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by BobC

There is a patched version - see the following post by roger64 :
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=224

I'm using that with LO 4.0.2.2 and it works fine with that. One thing that is less than obvious is that you set the extensions preferences in the main Tools/Options dialogue with its own settings under writer2xhtml.

Another option might be the writer2epub extension - I sometimes use that as well but it is more restrictive on the use of styles.

BobC

I did not have any luck with the patched version and LO 4.0.2.2. It had the same symptoms as without the patch, namely after clicking the export button on the property dialog, the program seems to hang.

However, the stand-alone java app, writer2latex.jar, that is included in the distribution does work, and very fast too. It is some trouble to configure, though.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

You're welcome Gregg.
It's quite simple

Regards
Rubén

Thanks for the step-by-step explanation. (Yes, I would only have one html file.) Appreciate it. (And "simple" is good.)

Originally Posted by Jabby

Over time I have found that converting word processing files makes for messy epubs and have opted to use Notepad++ and drag my files into Sigil one chapter at a time. It is pretty easy and keeps me from getting to cutesy with the formatting (a very good thing).

Thanks Jabby. I think I may be getting to cutesy too. I don't really do hardly anything with formatting. Appreciate the feedback.

Originally Posted by BobC

There is a patched version - see the following post by roger64 :
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=224

I'm using that with LO 4.0.2.2 and it works fine with that. One thing that is less than obvious is that you set the extensions preferences in the main Tools/Options dialogue with its own settings under writer2xhtml.

Another option might be the writer2epub extension - I sometimes use that as well but it is more restrictive on the use of styles.

BobC

Thanks Bob. And thanks for the heads-up about setting the extensions preferences.

[phossler]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

You can also run the entire group of Searches by selecting the group name and then "Replace All".

Good tip -- I didn't realize you could run the whole group like that

Much better than one at a time

Paul

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

...Yes, I would only have one html file...

Then it's a piece of cake

[Notjohn]

I had a related experience with entities. In a book with block extracts in Courier font, I was dismayed to see that in book view Sigil rendered bullets and en dashes as generic black blocks. As it happens, this book was only for the Amazon Kindle platform, so I uploaded the epub to the KDP and let it convert. I was pleased to see that, pace book view, the bullets and en dashes rendered correctly, so I published it without "fixing" the errors.

But the question still nags me: if I had uploaded the epub to Barnes & Noble etc., which would have won out, the html entity for bullet or the black blob?

I use named entities. Would numerical entities have made Sigil happier?

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

I had a related experience with entities. In a book with block extracts in Courier font, I was dismayed to see that in book view Sigil rendered bullets and en dashes as generic black blocks. As it happens, this book was only for the Amazon Kindle platform, so I uploaded the epub to the KDP and let it convert. I was pleased to see that, pace book view, the bullets and en dashes rendered correctly, so I published it without "fixing" the errors.

But the question still nags me: if I had uploaded the epub to Barnes & Noble etc., which would have won out, the html entity for bullet or the black blob?

I use named entities. Would numerical entities have made Sigil happier?

In my experience, the Qt-webkit stuff that Sigil uses for the book view display is not a reliable indicator of what it will look like on other platforms. Why not try out the epub in Adobe Digital Editions, or in some other readers, and see what happens?

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by st_albert

In my experience, the Qt-webkit stuff that Sigil uses for the book view display is not a reliable indicator of what it will look like on other platforms. Why not try out the epub in Adobe Digital Editions, or in some other readers, and see what happens?

Okay, I gave it a try, and yes: the bullets and the en dashes display just fine.

But alas, the extracts are in the same serif font as the rest of the text, rather than in Courier/monospace. Sigh....

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Okay, I gave it a try, and yes: the bullets and the en dashes display just fine.

But alas, the extracts are in the same serif font as the rest of the text, rather than in Courier/monospace. Sigh....

"It's always something." -- Gilda Radner

[Sabardeyn]

Lord but I miss that woman's wry mix of practicality and humor.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Okay, I gave it a try, and yes: the bullets and the en dashes display just fine.

But alas, the extracts are in the same serif font as the rest of the text, rather than in Courier/monospace. Sigh....

It is possible to mix serif and sans-serif/monospace in an ePUB, I have done in several times already. Perhaps a small mistake in your stylesheet?

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

It is possible to mix serif and sans-serif/monospace in an ePUB, I have done in several times already. Perhaps a small mistake in your stylesheet?

Because of a quirk in Kindle Paperwhite, it has proved necessary to specify both Courier and monospace, something like this:

p.block {
font-family: courier, monospace;
text-indent: 1em;
text-align:left;
margin:0em 0em 0em 1em;
}

Is that problematical?