Hitch and Serpentine,
Well Calibre does NOT convert from .doc or .txt, as far as I can tell. I don't know why I'd need to convert from .pub to .mobi, but apparently it'll do that. Unless I'm just missing something, in which case, I'd appreciate any info you have on how to do that.
I'm checking into Scrivener, as I like the writing features, but though I'm technically adept enough, all this take it from this program, pull it into this program, edit it, then export it as something else, and then do it again for each format is ridiculous. I predict that somewhere along the way someone will make a lot of money from us frustrated writers whose time is best spent, you know, *writing*, than doing all this converting. If I wanted to do this all by working line-by-line, then I wouldn't be a writer, I'd be a coder, right? I just find it hard to believe that no one has come up with something a little more streamlined. This reminds me of back in the day when you had to know UNIX commands to work a computer! (Actually, I had less trouble with that, and then doing web sites from scratch by hand. This is worse because each format is different, and if you want to self-publish, you need to output into more than one format!)
::Sigh::
I appreciate your replies, I'm just very frustrated. This is stuff I just don't want to get into in that level of detail. If anyone out there reading is a programmer, something designed for writers would make you some decent money!
Toxaris,
Thanks for your reply, too. What do you do that you don't like to do auto-converting? I'll have to do a search for Atlantis, to see what that is, as I've never heard of it (other than the place the Pegasus 'Gate goes to, that is <G>). If you're a writer, do you really go through all these steps to get your work out there? Jeez, I can't think of a more annoying thing to have to do, aside from filling out forms in doctors' offices!
And granted, I understand that there will be a certain amount of tweaking involved, in any event, no matter how I get my work into ereader formats. But that's the same as if I'm working in Word, right? At some point something doesn't format and I have to go into Reveal Codes (or whatever Word calls it now; I started out using WordPerfect back in the day), but that's a far cry from doing everything by hand, from start, like this is sounding. I don't mind so much the tweaking, because that's inevitable, but the majority of the conversion from Word or Scrivener or Movie Magic (I use that to write prose, since Rough Draft is apparently retiring with WinXP; it also has great index card functions) should be automatically done. After all, is that what computers were invented for? To do annoying, tedious work that humans don't want to do?
Call me silly, but that's what I believe!
SUeMichele