Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
From what I've been reading, it's easier to learn to use Sigil (and learn CSS/XML) to make a good looking ePub then it is to learn to format a Word document to match the Smashwords style guide.
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If I had the power, every single MSWord user would have the Smashwords style guide carved in stone hanging above the monitor. And they wouldn't be allowed to use MSWord for real without demonstrating the ability to use all those features as described in THE guide.
You see, I often have to work with documents that other people create in MSWord and those documents are often hopeless mess when it comes to formatting, use of styles, proper use of page breaks, headings, tabs, tables, graphics ... you name it. There are people that make centered chapter heading by typing spaces at the beginning of the line. And MSWord helpfully, automatically creating formatting "on the fly" is usually making things even worse. When you get several such documents and you have to create one professional looking document using all that material, it is a nightmare.
Having said that, I *still* think that making the use of expensive, proprietary, undocumented and [insert your favorite expletive here] MSWord format, MANDATORY for all authors was not a good idea.
If they insisted on using MSWord, as a tool that most indie writers are most familiar with, they should have made it a three step process.
1. Upload a word (or better yet, rtf) document and have it converted to an intermediate simple text with some formatting tags (perhaps similar to html or rtf tags)
2. Inspect this tagged text (with the possibility to skip step 1 and create it entirely by hand) and correct formatting issues, such as incorrectly recognized chapter breaks, or weird formatting issues
3. have it converted automatically to resulting formats.
I think that this is what actually happens inside the meatgrinder, they just do not let you mess with step 2.
People that can't be bothered with learning to recognize those simple formatting tags in step 2 would be able to skip step 2 by clicking "the intermediate text is OK, proceed to step 3" button and the rest of us could take formatting to our own hands.
I have helped two people here from Mobileread create MSWord document that sailed through Meatgrinder with flying colors.