[Hitch]

Originally Posted by mattmc

Eh, it's not particularly worse than the InDesign output, really. Perhaps I've become numb to it. But really, since I'm only targeting iBooks, and the output is consistent and high-quality in iBooks, I don't need to mess with it particularly. If I was in there scripting it up, I'm sure I'd be more upset

You're a better man than I, Gunga Din. I don't find the INDD stuff bad at all. Of course...that's for what WE do, in-house. Yes, I'm seeing some DOOZIES from "out in the world," since Adobe made it low-barriers to entry. But our own stuff? I'll take that over iBooks ANY day.

One cool thing is that they run the book through a word-stemming and indexing process when they export, so you have these files which are used by the Search process within iBooks. Makes for wicked-fast searches compared to the normal WebKit iBooks renderer; would be cool if Apple could contribute that functionality and stuff to the broader ecosystem.

OK. I don't know what you're doing, so I cannot weight that. I'm sure you're right, for your stuff.

Yes, you did see such a post

Fortunately or unfortunately, it boils down to features. Doing the whole iBA-authored ePub3 adds some secret-sauce features that I needed, that are difficult to execute with any grace on normal ePub2 files and readers. Makes it worth rebuilding a whole separate file (quite a statement, I know).

Again...can't really comment on that. I'm sure you're right, you're not one to waste time on fripperies.

That's interesting and good to know. I was wondering if the iBooks output could be used as the basis for broader-scoped files; guess not. (No, never tried Pages-->ePub.)

The politest way I can comment is HELLS NO. I find it godawful.

I have a couple of my own I use, but I'm curious what you have in yours. I guess those are trade secrets?

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Interesting. Well I have print INDD files to start with basically, so so no word processor involvement.

Lucky bastard. I get everyone ELSE's files, of all types. Word, OO, Pages, LO, Wordperfect, WORKS (you can't make this s**t up...), PDF, INDD, and this week--sooooooo special---QUARK...and of course, paper, and let's not forget, old-style image-only PDFs, too.

Epsilon...like the Eclipse/Java/XML transformation suite? o.O

This one?: http://www.lugaru.com/ . If that's what you are asking, yes. It's dropped in price; used to be $400-ish, I think, per seat. (I could be misremembering, but...that's what I think it used to be.) Practically does your dishes. HA!

I did scope out Vellum some. There are aspects of it which are really appealing, but it's very non-power-user. Which makes sense given their business model.

Yes, it is DEFINITELY non-power user. From our perspective, it's relatively useless, anyway, even were it wonderful, because it's Mac-only.

If I had the time I'd write it myself Ah, well.

You would not be the first MR passerby to say such.

No, haven't tried Jutoh, but you kinda un-sold me on it in that paragraph

Well...you CAN use your own styles, it's just that you have to put them into Jutoh's "proprietary" format. I still, to this damn day, don't know why he did it as he did. I guess he thought that it was more word-processor-ish, to do it this way. But my attitude is, geeeze, I already map styles from Word to this to that to the next thing, and the same with all the other main formats or stops along the way, I just do NOT want to have to do that one more time. PLUS, the whole "oh, proprietary format" shtick..I dunno. Sticks in my craw, but a lot of ppl like it.

I did see BG as well and was curious about it, but you're right it's unfortunately rather expensive :-/

AND, based on comments from people I know and respect, who have tried it, absolutely NOT worth it. Believe me, I would't bat an eyelash if it were fabulous, but...not even as good as Sigil, so...why?

Thanks for your wisdom, Hitch. I guess for now I'll stick to INDD->ePUB->Scripting. Maybe there's like, some INDD plugin I can get that will make it easier to control that beast.

Spoiler:

(Wisdom? Ha! I have YOU fooled....)

Well, that's what we do. {shrug} Believe me, I'd do something different, IF it were out there, IF it were better. I've seen a LOT of guys go through here, all talking about how their app/program/clip was the Next Big Thing, and none, not ONE of them, has been. Sigil is simply unparalleled for Big Kids.

FWIW.

Hitch