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hidden.platypus · 05-25-2015, 01:53 PM

First of all I want to say Thank you to @hitch for directing me to here:
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/EPub_Tutorial

I (erroneously believed that) have been serious about editing my ebooks for awhile.

I'm sort of crazy, as I suppose are some of the posters here. I prefer to muck about with the code, as opposed to with an editor. No offense to the guy who created/maintains Sigil, (and not just because I know he's likely to be around here somewhere) but WYSIWYG editors like that drive me crazy. It won't do what I ask it to do. Simple things like change the fonts. Part of it is my fault. I just don't know enough about epub, and I haven't read the Sigil manual.

But from a user perspective (admittedly crazy-person user) Sigil should be intuitive enough to tell me how to change the fonts even if that means it needs to tell me that fonts don't matter in epub unless you embed them, and then show me how to do that if that's what I want to do.

I spent some time using the Google last night, searching for css and epub and this forum did not come up.

Desperation drove me to it this morning. I was going to ask BetterRed for help, and I like to work before asking for help so I trolled around the forums and as luck would have it... here we are.

I'm not an advanced user. I'm the guy everyone else in the office thinks is advanced because I know a tiny bit about coding, but I know enough to know that I know nothing AND I've met BetterRed so I know what a guy who's advanced would know, and I know I don't know an eighth of what that guy knows. I'm the kind of guy who knows what Regex is but not how to use it. Not advanced, but not a beginner either.

I know html, I know Word (about the only thing it seems that I knew before BetterRed is Shift+F7 and I figure that's because people used to steal my mouse when I was first starting to use the computer so I memorized every Word shortcut, and they haven't really changed since DOS). I don't understand why people prefer to tab all over the place rather than indent. And I don't understand how it's easier for other folk to change all the formatting individually, rather than just create a style but I DO know they do that.

But I'm kind of a bull in a china shop. The little I know is dangerous to me, and my ebooks. I don't know where to start since I've been out here off the reservation for so long. I don't know what is good conduct, from what is appropriate, much less best practices.

So how does an intermediate user get to the point where he can produce decent ebooks? I tried indesign, but that wasn't for me. I'm not graphically inclined.

I use Word 2013 and convert the docx into epub via calibre.

That works for some books, but others do strange things. Case in point:

I did a find and replace in a Word doc replacing periods with one space after them, with periods with two spaces after them. From ". " to ". "

Now after conversion Calibre gives me this code at the end of almost every sentence:

Code:

<span class="calibre6">.  </span>

In Aldiko, that turns a sentence that should read:

Spoiler:

into:

Spoiler:

There is whitespace before the period now because of the span tag.

Next problem. Moon+ Reader shows numbered lists as bulleted lists. Does epub not like numbered lists from Word?

Aldiko shows them as numbered lists but all the numbers are 1. So it's like a bulleted list with 1. as the bullet.

Where does a guy like me learn to fix his errors and clean up after himself?

I'm going through Pablo's tutorial.

Thank you again for that suggestion, and the other info in this thread even though much of it went over my head.

Thank you all also for any help in advance.

05-25-2015, 01:53 PM	#42
hidden.platypus Connoisseur Posts: 89 Karma: 190508 Join Date: May 2014 Device: Android	First of all I want to say Thank you to @hitch for directing me to here: https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/EPub_Tutorial I (erroneously believed that) have been serious about editing my ebooks for awhile. I'm sort of crazy, as I suppose are some of the posters here. I prefer to muck about with the code, as opposed to with an editor. No offense to the guy who created/maintains Sigil, (and not just because I know he's likely to be around here somewhere) but WYSIWYG editors like that drive me crazy. It won't do what I ask it to do. Simple things like change the fonts. Part of it is my fault. I just don't know enough about epub, and I haven't read the Sigil manual. But from a user perspective (admittedly crazy-person user) Sigil should be intuitive enough to tell me how to change the fonts even if that means it needs to tell me that fonts don't matter in epub unless you embed them, and then show me how to do that if that's what I want to do. I spent some time using the Google last night, searching for css and epub and this forum did not come up. Desperation drove me to it this morning. I was going to ask BetterRed for help, and I like to work before asking for help so I trolled around the forums and as luck would have it... here we are. I'm not an advanced user. I'm the guy everyone else in the office thinks is advanced because I know a tiny bit about coding, but I know enough to know that I know nothing AND I've met BetterRed so I know what a guy who's advanced would know, and I know I don't know an eighth of what that guy knows. I'm the kind of guy who knows what Regex is but not how to use it. Not advanced, but not a beginner either. I know html, I know Word (about the only thing it seems that I knew before BetterRed is Shift+F7 and I figure that's because people used to steal my mouse when I was first starting to use the computer so I memorized every Word shortcut, and they haven't really changed since DOS). I don't understand why people prefer to tab all over the place rather than indent. And I don't understand how it's easier for other folk to change all the formatting individually, rather than just create a style but I DO know they do that. But I'm kind of a bull in a china shop. The little I know is dangerous to me, and my ebooks. I don't know where to start since I've been out here off the reservation for so long. I don't know what is good conduct, from what is appropriate, much less best practices. So how does an intermediate user get to the point where he can produce decent ebooks? I tried indesign, but that wasn't for me. I'm not graphically inclined. I use Word 2013 and convert the docx into epub via calibre. That works for some books, but others do strange things. Case in point: I did a find and replace in a Word doc replacing periods with one space after them, with periods with two spaces after them. From ". " to ". " Now after conversion Calibre gives me this code at the end of almost every sentence: Code: <span class="calibre6">. </span> In Aldiko, that turns a sentence that should read: Spoiler: Mobileread forums are the best place to learn ebooks, and get help if you need it. into: Spoiler: Mobileread forums are the best place to learn ebooks, and get help if you need it . There is whitespace before the period now because of the span tag. Next problem. Moon+ Reader shows numbered lists as bulleted lists. Does epub not like numbered lists from Word? Aldiko shows them as numbered lists but all the numbers are 1. So it's like a bulleted list with 1. as the bullet. Where does a guy like me learn to fix his errors and clean up after himself? I'm going through Pablo's tutorial. Thank you again for that suggestion, and the other info in this thread even though much of it went over my head. Thank you all also for any help in advance.