[Nate the great]

This first set will be fairly easy to implement (if outputting in HTML).
> 1. get rid of that ugly legalese at the top of the file.
> 3. hotlink the table of contents. make one if necessary.
> 4. make all the headers big, bold, and distinctive, and
> 6. get rid of the empty lines between paragraphs, and
> 7. use book-style indents on each paragraph instead.
> 8. use full justification. or at least half-ragged.
> 10. white-space is free in an e-book, so use it liberally.
> 11. make block-quotes distinctive, for remix purposes.
> 12. links are great, but spare us the ugly blue underlines.
> 15. turn pg-ascii underscored text into _real_ italics.
> 18. footnotes should have links going _both_ ways.
> 22. block-quotes should be indented on the left and right.
> 29. make the typesize big enough to be read easily!
> 30. get rid of that ugly legalese at the bottom of the file.


I am not sure what these mean. Can someone elaborate?
> 27. make the framework of the document _obvious_.
> 9. use a reasonable line-width. full-screen is too wide.
> 14. don't put pagenumbers inside the text/paragraphs.
> 17. navigation aids among chapters are quite useful.
> 21. give your readers the luxury of generous leading!


The following are indeterminate because they are dependent on input or output. For instance, PG ASCII files don't really have tables. Creating a definition sufficiently broad to cover all possibilities but not screw with the surrounding text will be an interesting exercise.
> 5. start chapters on a new page, maybe even a recto.
> 16. pictures (even doodad thingees) enliven the text.
> 19. if it works better that way, turn a table on its side.
> 20. resize tables and images so they fit on one screen.
> 23. create running heads and/or footers on each page.
> 26. show where we are in the book (page 39 of 208).
> 28. what the heck, just for the fun of it, make an index! (This last one might take a lot of computing power. )

@bowerbird
Will the output be in HTML? That's the closest I know to a universal file type. You could create a BD file (in HTML0). I don't know yet if the specs are accessible.

Are you familiar with flex and yacc? They are what I would use to do this.


EDIT: @bowerbird I did not see your post until after I posted mine. Some of my questions have been answered.