[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Alcuin7

Footnote/Endnote identification

1. For first-level footnotes, I should use Arabic numbers.
2. For second-level footnotes, perhaps Roman numbers
3. For third-level footnotes, alphabetic is sufficient (there are not many)

Depends on the text.

Level 1 should be numbered footnotes: 1, 2, 3. I personally think this is the easiest to understand/read/reference.

Level 2 could potentially be: 1a, 1b, 1c.

Note: As an alternative to English letters, Greek letters could be used: α, β, γ, [...]. But I've only seen this in Physics/Maths, where people may be more familiar with the order of Greek characters.

Level 3... I HIGHLY recommend against this, this is 99% a sign your work is going to be too confusing. The information would be suited better:

• In the main text itself
• Shifted to another section (Appendix, Bibliography, [...])
• Moved into a normal footnote
• Removed completely

Originally Posted by Alcuin7

Two-thirds of the book is endnotes/footnotes.

... This sounds like a serious issue with organization of the material. Perhaps a lot more of that material can be put into supplemental Appendices, or new chapters.

And I know sidenotes... I'm extremely sidenote-/parentheses-happy. (Have you seen my posts on MobileRead?). But even I know where there's a limit!

When you start reaching notes about notes (Level 2), you really have to start relooking at making those points in your main text (or Level 1 footnote). Or just say: "More on this, see Jean-Baptiste Say, Chapter 3."

Think about it just like a Nested List. Once you start reaching 3+4 levels deep, probably time to think about a different way to present the info (Table, Chart, Graph, [...]).

Originally Posted by Alcuin7

Many of the references come from Microsoft Word. <sup id="id_Ref489614211" class="text_6"> is one of these. I assume that I can dispense with these in EPUB and eliminate them to simplify my code?

Well the Word-generated IDs could be important if anything needs to point BACK.

Personally, I strip EVERYTHING and make human-readable code.

Word-cruft:

<sup id="id_Ref489614211" class="text_6">1</sup>

Strip to Barebones:

<sup>1</sup>

Then use Regex to make Human-Readable:

<a id="ft1" href="#fn1">[1]</a>

If anything goes wrong, you can easily see what points to what. (And rely on fantastic tools like Calibre/Sigil's Links Report.)

With names like id_Ref489614211 + id_Ref489674211, your eyes will go cross-eyed.

Originally Posted by Alcuin7

Calibre converts the document into chapters, appendices, and a great many other divisions that make some sense. Many of the others make no sense.

By default, Calibre splits DOCX->EPUB files at:

• The 260KB mark
  
  • Old devices can't load large files. A single HTML file shouldn't be more than ~300 KBs, because old devices can crash.
• Every page break.
  
  • Your source DOCX may have these buried somewhere. (Manual page breaks after Title Page, page breaks before headings/images, etc., etc.)
• Every footnote.

These 3 settings can be tweaked in Calibre when you convert a book + go under EPUB Output.

Note: Under Structure Detection, Calibre splits files based on Xpath. So it'll look for common words like "Chapter/Book/Prologue" and split there.

Originally Posted by Alcuin7

Am I required to follow Calibre’s divisions, or can I reassemble my own?

You can reassemble them however you want.

Originally Posted by Alcuin7

Won’t that disrupt the order of the final product?

On the far left side of Sigil/Calibre, you see your list of your HTML files. That's the order EPUBs will read.

Originally Posted by Alcuin7

Do I merge/break/insert/rename within Calibre, or can I export them and deal with them outside Calibre? What is your normal procedure?

Best to do it within, Calibre/Sigil try to do a good job at updating/correcting Links.

So let's say you rename your:

Gibberish_split_001.xhtml -> Chapter01.xhtml

any links that pointed to Gibberish_split_001.xhtml will now point to Chapter01.xhtml.

You can also easily drag/drop files around, Right Click to Rename/Merge, etc. etc.

Originally Posted by Alcuin7

BTW, Tex2002ans, if you made the Say page for FEE, I think I used that writing my book, along with a great deal of material from Mises.org.

Nice! Yes, I do a ton of conversion work for them (have since 2013). If you've read an ebook from them, it was probably converted by me.