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Originally Posted by MarjaE
Thanks.
I have generally used tab and return, because styles would make everything go haywire. [...]
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Cross reference this with what you first said about "I get erratic spacing when I convert to html." It's basically the same problem.
Fixing the problems after-the-fact (after putting all those manual spaces, tabs and returns into the document) is going to take time - whether you do it inside the source document (which I recommend) or whether you do it in the HTML. If you have been consistent enough you can sometimes fix many things with a replace-all, but even that takes practice to get right.
If you want to get a good epub result the problems have to be fixed, it is up to you to come up with the process you find easiest whether that is to fix in the source or fix in the HTML ... or something else, see below.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarjaE
[...]I'd have an asterisked list, and a developer in would turn it into a numbered or bulleted list in Word, and I'd edit it in LibreOffice-- if LibreOffice didn't crash due to incompatible bullet points-- I'd end up with part numbered or bulleted, part not, and part numbered or bulleted again without continuity.[...]
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And here we're getting into the realm of how consistently the first person created their list styles - leaving the question of whether the software is doing anything wrong or whether it's just a question of inconsistent usage. I suspect that latter. With Word and *Office it is very easy to get things to "look right", to cover over inconsistencies, and you only uncover the hidden mistakes when you go to covert to another format.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarjaE
[...]P.S. If I change one of the styles to add a space after each paragraph, how do I update oher documents using the older versions of these styles?
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You can load styles from other documents. Look in the help under "Loading" or under "styles", there is (in LibreOffice anyway) a section explaining how to do this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarjaE
[...]I created three styles and switched to "proper" tables instead of tabbed text tables, because I know text tables won't convert as well, but I absolutely need tables and need the items to line up, which also requires blank lines between some entries in the same cells. [...]
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Between the use of bullet lists and tables, it seems a safe assumption that you are creating technical documents rather than narrative text. This will always present much greater challenges. Many technical writers, preparing documents for publication, prefer to use other tools. Many like
LaTex because it offers more explicit control over some layout issues. See also
DocBook.
Getting a smooth result with some complicated format requirements in an epub - that works well across most e-readers - can be very difficult. You may find it easier to pass the problem onto a professional in this area.