Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
When I create an ebook (and I don't do it commercially at all), I do so with the assumption that some future disaster will result in the loss of massive amounts of literature (both physical AND digital) that can only be "reclaimed" from personal archives. So when they eventually discover that box full of thumbdrives in the ruins of my home, they will be amazed by the trove of simple, clean, complete, and easy-to-edit/convert representations of lost treasures that they find there.
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This is the proper way to think! Clean the books as best as you can, with as minimal/clean code as possible, to the best of your ability.
I look back on a few of my earlier EPUBs, and I just think "wow, that is bad" or "what the hell was I thinking?"
Example: Avoid captions in images LIKE THE PLAGUE.
Example: Try to avoid lossy conversions (JPG), and keep things in lossless if you can (PNG). Once you go lossy, you can never go back!
My main goal is digitizing works which are only in scans (or not online at all), a subgoal is "maintenance" of the ebook backlog... continually going back and fixing up the old code to match my newest standards.... a lot like any large programming project!
Or think of it this way, even IF you are creating these books "only for yourself", you will be converting these books to future formats and be your own "customer/reader/user" ten years down the line. I try to stress this to others here too, you will save yourself a lot of future headaches if you try to make it RIGHT the FIRST time.