Eshwartz: Just so you know, the idea of doing the HTML version is to be able to then convert both to ePub and other formats cleanly and thereby get better and more predictable results in different devices. The process involves stripping out word processing formatting/code, extra spacing, etc. and replacing that formatting with CSS styling, named entities for punctuation, etc. It made total sense to me because I do websites and am used to dealing with idiosyncrasies and limitations of different browsers and viewport sizes. And, over the years, have seen the horrible mess you get if you paste text directly from MS Word and the like into HTML pages.
So the idea is to create the clean HTML, then use Calibri to do conversions. I also have a book that walks you through creating epubs and mobis from scratch, building every file out of HTML documents -- once again, the goal being clean presentation regardless of device. Using Calibri cuts down on some of the steps -- or should! I've only just started using it so I'll see how it all works out.
Thanks you so much for your help!
Thank You Peter too!