[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Hitch, I was taking one individual html file from one .epub and transferring it to another. So say, I took the "Leave A Review" file from a previous book. So I open a blank html file in the latest .epub, delete what's there. Go to the old .epub. Copy what's there. And paste that into the blank html. I'm figuring the xml stuff is the same and I didn't even know I could 'paste over' what is there. So you're saying open the blank file, leave the xml stuff, copy the old stuff, come back to the new file and just paste?

Yes, that's what I'm saying, IF the new material actually has the doctype declaration, etc. The example you showed us, above/earlier, didn't have that, which is what flipped me out. But there's no reason not to go to the new material, CTRL+A (select all, or, whatever you're copying), then go to the new ePUB, CTRL+A (select all in the new "empty"-ish HTML file) and then CTRL+V, paste. I don't know what the cmds are for your linux box, although I though you were running a VM, so my commands should work, if that's true.

I've done that with files of course but then I get the 'do you want to replace this file?' But that's with files, not with what's inside the file.

Stupid as it sounds, I can't tell you what it says. I do it all the time, and I guess I haven't filed away any "are you sure" last-chance salvation notices.

And as long as the file passes epub check (which they always do) what's wrong with doing it my way?

Well, for one thing...didn't you just have a catastrophic failure, with doing it your way? Why keep doing that, given what occurred? How do you know that deleting everything in that file wasn't what caused it?

My philosophy is always somewhat medical: first do no harm. If you leave the doctype, etc., in the newly-created HTML file, and replace it with identical coding, in theory, there'd be less chance for it to crash, but...hey, it's your time, do what you will.

Totally agree. Upon further reflection I think what happened was what Kevin suggested. I was saving the file and that lost everything. Like the screen froze. I realized I didn't have functionality so not wanting to lose anything I quick went to save it.

Yes, well, that's the only way that I can see for you to have lost the prior-saved file on the disk. Otherwise, this makes NO sense at all. For future reference, in case you didn't already get this from all the other guys, if you get the PSO'D (Pink Screen O'Death), or anything bizarro-world, like that, EXIT. Don't bloody well save.

Hopefully I explained that earlier. And yeah, I go from .odt to .html to Sigil.

The file is fine now. I just went back and re-did the work.

I suppose. You know, you could also simply unzip the ePUBs, and use the "insert existing file" functionality, to add the "leave a review" HTML file from one ePUB to another. Working in ePUB parts is also good experience. Instead of that copy-paste stuff. Since you don't do this stuff all day long, make a COPY of the ePUBs that you're going to unzip, etc. (n.b.: we do this all day long, run RAIDS, plus do all our work on Dropbox [another level of backup], plus version everything, plus run nightly backups, plus run full weekly backups), and we still make copies of any files we'll be working on or using. If we do, you probably really ought.

Good luck.

Hitch