Quote:
Originally Posted by Gunivortus
[...] that creating a proper ePub is not just a simple case of conversion. I've gone through many conversion tools and they all were disappointing.
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Yeah, EPUB conversion is a bit more complicated than just a single button push.
BUT, if you learn to use Styles consistently in your original document, you can generate relatively clean HTML.
This will make all future conversion/cleanup steps INFINITELY easier.
Most of the problem is:
- People destroying their documents by using Direct Formatting.
- Pushing the disastrous buttons/dropdowns for BOLD + ITALICS + FONT SIZE + ALIGNMENT.
- Introducing hidden junk by copying/pasting from all sorts of places.
- Always "Paste as Unformatted Text".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gunivortus
But first in the next time I'll dive in formatting with LibreOffice, which, admittedly, I always used as a kind of Notepad with some more functions. Thank you for the links to information about learning Styles.
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LibreOffice's Styles are found under:
If you understand the basics of HTML+CSS, you'll definitely understand Styles... because Styles are pretty much "CSS classes".
In LibreOffice/Word, a:
- Paragraph Style = <p class="">
- Character Style = <span class="">
so these Paragraph Styles map to equivalent HTML:
- Title = <p class="title">
- Subtitle = <p class="subtitle">
- caption = <p class="caption">
- [...]
And you also have a few special ones:
- Heading 1 -> <h1>
- Heading 2 -> <h2>
- [...]
- - - - -
Side Note: If you want more info on LibreOffice Styles, I've been writing lots of mini-tutorials on Reddit.
Here's a few:
(I even included a few screenshots in some of them.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gunivortus
So, first I'll try to learn all those new stuff I am pointed to here, and only if I fail I may go again to smashwords.com and let them do al the conversion stuff.
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Nah, Smashwords is ass.
Once you learn how to create clean documents, the clean EPUBs will be a piece of cake.
- - - - -
Side Note: I thought Smashwords's "Meatgrinder" had gotten better over the years, but it's still horrible.
Just last month I came across a topic where someone was complaining about footnotes + TOCs not working:
... Smashwords wants you to manually insert BOOKMARKS back/forth. WTF!!!
Instead of wasting time mangling your documents to conform to their conversion tools... you're better off following the proper standards + creating your own clean EPUB.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Turtle91
I know Amazon - especially the older styles - didn't do well with SVG, but I thought that had been fixed for the most part now.
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Nope. It's lies.
When you use SVG in Kindle formats, a "new page" gets started. (Page break before AND after.)
A lot of the technical details were discussed by Hitch + jhowell + me in:
- - - - -
Side Note: Similar to Kindles "supporting MathML" (or <audio> + <video>).
It says so in their Publishing Guidelines!!!
But the reality is no.
Side Note #2: For even more technical information where we discuss the reality: