[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Questions for anamardoll and DreamWritier...

Have you read the style guide for SW? Do you think it's easier to sort out a Word document to fit the style guide them it is to make a clean HTML/CSS file? Do you think it's easier to learn to use Word with the style guide then it is to learn to make HTML/CSS?

If I was to take a Word document, save it as a text file, convert that to HTML/CSS add in the code needed for the formatting , used Sigil or Calibre to convert that to ePub, would that be easier then using the style guide?

I know the results would be nicer the hand crafted way. But that's not the issue. The issue is, if it's a learning curve to make a Word document meat the style guide's requirements, then would be just as easy/hard to learn HTML/CSS?

I haven't read the style guide, I'll admit upfront, so this may be completely out of my butt.

However. I've spent the last several weeks (a) converting PDF scans into Word documents via FineReader (not my choice of output formats, but that's what you get with FineReader) and converting those Word documents into ePubs for my reader and (b) writing a book of my own. So I do have some experience with moving Word into ePub and creating ePubs directly.

I've not worked with Meatgrinder -- when I have to quick convert a Word document into ePub, I use 2epub.com. They do a great job with what's available, but the output is always incredibly messy because of all the artifacts in Word. One conversion I did the other day resulted in over 100 CSS classes, despite the book having basically two kinds of formatting -- regular text and headings. Yuck.

So my step after the initial Word-to-Epub conversion is always to do a Calibre epub-to-epub conversion to clobber the redundant classes, and that will usually get me down to 15-30 "calibre" classes, when alls I really want in most cases is a freaking <p> tag.

So the THIRD step is to boot Sigil and start doing find-and-replace by hand to chop the <p class="craptastic"> into just plain <p> or <p class="seriouslyIonlyneedoneclasshere"> in special cases. And look for span tags that aren't needed. And fix the italics so they work right. And look for nbsp; scattered where they don't need to be. And clean the CSS up to be the bare minimum of what is needed instead of a bunch of junk.

All this to get from PDF to ePub "properly". That was (a).

For (b), writing my own book directly, I started in Word because that's what I was used to. When I'd finish a chapter, I'd copy the plain text over to Sigil, and then go back through and place the italics in. This is prone to error, but MUCH easier than grinding Word through a converter.

By Chapter 7, I was so comfortable with Sigil that I'm starting to write in Sigil directly. I do copy-paste back to Word for a sanity check at the end of a chapter (for instance, to use the spell-checker), but it's amusing to me that I've gone from "write in Word, paste to Sigil" to "write in Sigil, paste to Word".

One of the things that you see in a conversion is chapter splits where you might not want them. I had two headings in Word -- a title and subtitle -- and the conversion software helpfully broke that into two chapters. That's one of many things you have to tweak post conversion.

Don't even get me started on tables of contents.

MAYBE Meatgrinder is the smartest-bestest-easiest thing since sliced bread, but if the style guide is a whole book, I seriously doubt it. I write user manuals and conversion tools for a living; any conversion tool that requires beating the user with a giant manual is not a good situation for anyone involved. I won't say it's not sometimes necessary, but in this case, I can't see why a one-format-submission-only, no-tweaks business model would be necessary.

Even with the style guide, I would not trust my book with a converter. I realize that makes me sound like a narcissist with a Magic Special Snowflake book, but I just wouldn't because then I'd feel ashamed every time JSWolf pointed out what crappy formatting my Smashword book had.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I know the results would be nicer the hand crafted way. But that's not the issue. The issue is, if it's a learning curve to make a Word document meat the style guide's requirements, then would be just as easy/hard to learn HTML/CSS?

I didn't answer this directly, sorry. If you're using Sigil to write your book, you don't NEED to learn CSS/HTML. You need to know maybe three tags (<h1>, <p>, and <i>) and you can get that (and a good CSS) from a book in your Calibre library. That's how I taught myself -- took me about an hour to get past the HTML/CSS stuff and start writing. I don't speak HTML/CSS.

So, yeah, 1 hour to learn Sigil ONCE versus -- according to the blog Elfwreck linked to -- 2 readings of a book, and 4+ hours to do Smashwords. And 3+ hours for each book after that. No thank you.