Quote:
Originally Posted by exaltedwombat
So, if starting from scratch, why Word-and-convert? Word encourages you to lay out pages in ways an eBook can't handle. Atlantis, at first glance, seems a good idea. If I understand it correctly, it only allows constructs that translate well to epub, and produces effecient code.
Or just code directly into Sigil. Once authors stopped being scared by <h1> and <p> tags, they'd probably find them no obstacle to their creative flow! |
I don't agree. Word is just a word processor, just like AWP, LO, OO and many others. Of course you can handle pages and so on, I do not. As Hitch already said, the output needs to be cleaned anyway when you use regular methods. I have created a whole set of tools and procedures in/with Word to guide me from the OCR process to creating HTML (now testing export from Word directly to clean ePUB btw). I cannot reach the same level in the same time with the other tools. It will take me a whole lot of time more and I question whether the results are better.
The tools are geared towards my working process and will for sure not suit everybody. I don't mind, because I make them for me initially. For example, I will not create a stylesheet based on the layout in Word. I will retain formatting like bold/italic and so on. I do use styles with the same names as the classes in my stylesheet, so I don't have to.
Will I release the tools here just like my macro? Probably. Will it help people? Hopefully. Can anyone use it? Yes, to some extend. As with all tools, the more knowledge you have, the better your results.
Anyway, even if I did not have my own toolset, I would still use Word. Cleaning up the HTML is not that difficult, it just takes time and willing to learn.