Quote:
Originally Posted by Johneltin
Thanks again everyone but SURELY there must be a way to make all my (29) chapters and headers h1 and h2 consistent WITHOUT having to figure out the HTML which is beyond me.
I have started a completely blank, totally new file (all 29 pages) and transferred all the 'body' of text but was sure to type in the chapters and headers and assign them the appropriate h1 or h2 - no chance of contamination.
However, there is no consistency when reviewed - Sigil just abuses them all - turning them into any size it wants and there is NO option within the Sigil program - unless I'm missing something. Even my father's old computer back in the last century had a 'change font' option; back in 1980 - or was it 1890?
I have even ignored the original 'word' file to make these changes but, even though my file still passes both Sigil validation checks AND the Smashwords test, it still tells me 'Congratulations my child - your file has passed our ePub check'. but then it has a note in 'dashboard' that says 'Unacceptable for our PREMIUM CATALOGUE' because it needs modification - different font sizes in the headers.'
Any easy way to fix without looking for html differences? Some suggestions received here were beyond me - If I found them I wouldn't know what to do with them anyway and, unfortunately, I am too busy at present spend hours learning to tame that HTML animal. Thanks, J
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Johneltin:
That's because you are confusing two different things, which is an error often made by many people, partly due to how Microsoft phrases things. You are confusing a STYLE or FONT with an "element." There are basic elements in every single document that's word-processed; a character; a word; a paragraph, and then headings, then sections, and finally a document. Each of these is an element, and each of these is built of the previous elements. (i.e., a word is made up of characters; a paragraph is made up of words, which are made up of characters; headings are actually paragraphs of a unique sort, which are made up of words...etc.) An element is
structural. It's not a STYLE. A character does not have a specific "style" assigned to it; you have to tell Word (or Sigil, or Atlantis Word processor, etc.) what style to use to display it.
In HTML, which is actually what underlines all word-processing documents, these elements are structural, and as each makes up the next, in total, they make up the whole. A heading tells HTML what "level" of structure a document has, and what level the text following the header has--think of an outline. That's what headers are. The word "header" is not interchangeable for "all these elements are
supposed to look the same," unless you tell the program that they
should. Using a header tells the program that all these elements are at the same structural level--not that "all cats are grey," so to speak.
When you think about words, paragraphs, headers, etc., you need to think about them--and this is true in word-processing just as it is in HTML--
in terms of what they ARE, not what they LOOK LIKE. You can change what something looks like rather endlessly, and not change what it IS;
but when you change what an element IS, (say, from a header to a paragraph),
you change its function and its level in the hierarchy of the document.
When you use Word or OO or LO or AWP or Wordperfect, all those "styles" that you see available to you are GUI for CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). These CSS Styles are the instruction set that tells the word-processor how to display each of these elements.
Thus, when you tell Sigil, in 29 different documents (which is what an HTML or XHTML chapter is), that each has h1's and h2's, it has no way of knowing, without you having provided an instruction sheet (this is called CSS) that all your headers should be the same size, or the same color, or the same font. When you use something like Word, which makes certain assumptions, and you click "h1" for each header, and you're clicking the same h1 style for each one, the appearance instruction for that h1 element is conveyed in the backend of Word. Unless you've really learned how to use Word's styles, you don't actually "see" what's going on. From your posts, I suspect you haven't spent a lot of time using Word's styles, or much of this would be familiar to you.
The easiest way for you to do this, I believe, would be for you to concatenate all 29 of your chapters into one large Word file. Use a specific h1 and h2 header style to mark each of your headers--use the exact same STYLE of h1 and h2 header each time, as applicable. The export the file to HTML, and import the file to Sigil. This should result in a consistent look across all your chapters. You can then split the book into chapters using the chapter marker, and you will have a viable ePUB file.
In the alternative, use a stylesheet and delete all the styles that you see at the top of each chapter. OR...and this might appeal to you--delete all the styles that you see at the top of each chapter, and then merge all the files together, in Sigil. Apply the h1 and h2 styles to the headers, from start to finish. THEN, check the file in BookView and Preview--all the headers should be the same (as you'll be working in a single file, not 29 different files). Then use the chapter marker to split the book back into the 29 chapters, and the style that's used should be duplicated in all 29.
However, if you plan to do this more than once, really, you would be best served by learning a tiny bit of html and CSS, which would make this all much, much easier on you. Failing all of the above, as suggested by DaleDe and mrmikel, just use a Word Processor like Atlantis or Jutoh that will do this all for you. These are better products for a DIY'er that doesn't want to have to learn HTML and CSS; Sigil is a program for people who are either already familiar with HTML and CSS or are willing to learn it, in order to make their books properly (so that they validate and function correctly).
Hope that helps.
Hitch