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Trouhel · 10-18-2011, 05:16 PM

Hello, MobileRead members,

This is my first post here. I wrote for my own personal use a (Lua) script that:

1. Converts, on a one to one basis, Open Office Writer "saved as HTML" documents to "clean" XHTML files plus a single shared CSS 2.1 style sheet. While new tags and styles are computed in the process, emphasis is on conformity to the original documents' layout. Most Open Office Writer's features such as "simple" tables, figures, footnotes, cross-references, are handled.

2. Builds and ePUB electronic books from the resulting XHTML files. XHTML components in the ePUB file may be compiled on a one to one basis or so as to always begin at the same title level and/or not exceeding a user-defined maximum size, while footnotes may be gathered and later flushed at the end of same level-parts, chapters, etc.-sections or at the end of the whole document.

3. Builds a TeX quality PDF documents from the same XHTML files, using ConTeXt's macro-instructions set and formatting engine. This printable version of the document brings in enhancements such as a table of contents, an index, a bibliography and bibliographical references, headers, footers and a better document structure, while focus is on "what goes into the ePUB goes into the PDF".

4. Has the ability to use XHTML files produced after the initial processing step as further input. They may be slightly modified by hand to benefit from features, such as limited CSS Font Module Level 3 compatibility, which cannot be accessed using Open Office Writer exclusively.
While it already works and has a full French and English user's guide that samples its features, and an installation notice, it is still home quality software, has known bugs, and, even worse documentation bugs.

I now wonder whether, amongst other more commonly used ePUB and PDF creation tools, there would be enough interest from potential users in a such a tool as open-source and free software, to get into the trouble of reworking it into maintainable and expendable code, which implies some work to rewrite parts of it, add comments and proof-read the documentation. Feedback and even design suggestions are thus welcomed.

Thanks for reading.

10-18-2011, 05:16 PM	#1
Trouhel Enthusiast Posts: 25 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: none	ePUB + PDF creation script Hello, MobileRead members, This is my first post here. I wrote for my own personal use a (Lua) script that: 1. Converts, on a one to one basis, Open Office Writer "saved as HTML" documents to "clean" XHTML files plus a single shared CSS 2.1 style sheet. While new tags and styles are computed in the process, emphasis is on conformity to the original documents' layout. Most Open Office Writer's features such as "simple" tables, figures, footnotes, cross-references, are handled. 2. Builds and ePUB electronic books from the resulting XHTML files. XHTML components in the ePUB file may be compiled on a one to one basis or so as to always begin at the same title level and/or not exceeding a user-defined maximum size, while footnotes may be gathered and later flushed at the end of same level-parts, chapters, etc.-sections or at the end of the whole document. 3. Builds a TeX quality PDF documents from the same XHTML files, using ConTeXt's macro-instructions set and formatting engine. This printable version of the document brings in enhancements such as a table of contents, an index, a bibliography and bibliographical references, headers, footers and a better document structure, while focus is on "what goes into the ePUB goes into the PDF". 4. Has the ability to use XHTML files produced after the initial processing step as further input. They may be slightly modified by hand to benefit from features, such as limited CSS Font Module Level 3 compatibility, which cannot be accessed using Open Office Writer exclusively. While it already works and has a full French and English user's guide that samples its features, and an installation notice, it is still home quality software, has known bugs, and, even worse documentation bugs. I now wonder whether, amongst other more commonly used ePUB and PDF creation tools, there would be enough interest from potential users in a such a tool as open-source and free software, to get into the trouble of reworking it into maintainable and expendable code, which implies some work to rewrite parts of it, add comments and proof-read the documentation. Feedback and even design suggestions are thus welcomed. Thanks for reading.