Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre Lawrence
Hitch, thanks! Hadn't caught up with that. Explains the at the time puzzling message I got when I tried to view a mobi file on the Kindle previewer (basically that it converted the file to epub).
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And, Pierre:
Are you planning on just creating this EPUB for personal consumption/sharing?
Or are you trying to put this up for sale on the major retailers?
Quote:
Originally Posted by daudvyd
I'm writing a role-playing game book (like Dungeons & Dragons) [...] a print-ready PDF with more complex formatting from a single source.
[...]
I'd like figures & cross-references, TOC, and indexes to be handled through markup rather than manually constructed.
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You may want to check out this comment in:
which points to this project:
That may help with some of your stuff.
But I must admit, I'm not familiar at all with the D&D stuff. (Like what the official guides look like, what functionality they have, coloring of stats/tables, etc.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by daudvyd
[...] and would like -- if possible -- to produce an ebook (EPUB, MOBI, etc) and [...]
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That would be difficult, especially for one with such complex layout/features.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daudvyd
I'd like to automatically number figure captions using a CSS counter and then reference that counter in inline content such as "...see Figure 4..." where the number "4" is automatically produced and updated as I add more figures and shuffle their order. My understanding from these examples is that I can use an id tag to identify which figure caption I want to reference and target-counter to get the counter. |
Like Hitch explained, forget it.
This is bleeding edge code.
Absolutely no actual EPUB readers support this stuff yet, so it would be completely broken on real-life devices.
For the EPUB, you'd have to bake the numbers into the text itself... or have workflow like you mentioned:
- a source file
- (Markdown, Word, LO, etc.)
- -> a middleman
- conversion program which then generates the finalized numbers/references for you.
- -> output file
Quote:
Originally Posted by daudvyd
I may have a person index, technology index, spell index, etc. I'm not sure what the native format should be to allow maximum flexibility.
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And this throws an enormous wrench into the mix.
Indexes are... rough.
Multiple indexes are rougher.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Well...Word and Libre Office ("LO") both do that. Open Office ("OO") may, but LO is better maintained and supported.
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Yeah... the word "OpenOffice" should never be mentioned again.
Here's
a reddit post I wrote 3 months ago explaining the situation.
Only time it should be mentioned is pointing people to LibreOffice.
- - -
Long story short:
OpenOffice has been abandoned for over 10 years.
LibreOffice has:
- consistently gotten major updates every 6 months
- + ~100 bugfixes every few weeks.
It keeps on getting:
- better functionality
- better performance
- better compatibility (with Word/DOCX / all other formats)
... pretty much better everything. And has been for over 10 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
As far as a "single-source." Look--nothing does that. NOTHING. (You're talking the Holy Grail of bookmaking, just FYI.
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Yeah.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Those that claim that they have this are sacrificing a lot to get a single-source file. You can't do it with LaTEX--oh my GOD, you haven't suffered until you try to create an eBook from LaTeX).
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lol. We'll figure it out one of these days!
I still see magic being done on Stack Exchange, but I haven't wrangled my mind around the
LaTeX->HTML workflow yet.
And, as you know, in reality, most people's source files aren't clean... which throws MAJOR wrenches into the mix.
(Grumble, grumble, grumble,
SI units... grumble grumble... thermodynamics...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
You create a master document in Word. (Or LO, whatever.) You then create whichever format you want first--typically print. [...] Then from LO, you export an ePUB; from Word, you export filtered HTML and then you put that filtered HTML into Sigil and build an ePUB.
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Yeah... but in this specific case, I hesitate to recommend Word/LO.
Trying to consistently generate complicated tables (D&D stat blocks) + marking up the formatting/coloring (consistently) would be... disastrously hair-pulling.
(Similar situation when we dealt with
Code Blocks + Syntax Highlighting.)
Is there a way you can create "templates" in Word, where you feed in something like:
Spoiler:
Code:
%\DndMonsterMelee calls \DndMonsterAttack with the melee option
\DndMonsterMelee[
name=Flame Tongue Longsword,
mod=+3,
%reach=5,
%targets=one target,
dmg=\DndDice{1d8+1},
dmg-type=slashing,
plus-dmg=\DndDice{2d6},
plus-dmg-type=fire,
or-dmg=\DndDice{1d10+1},
or-dmg-when=if used with two hands,
%extra=,
]
and the formatted + fully-Styled block pops out?
- - - -
And then Indexing, oh boy, Indexing...
I'll just point to the latest topic where we discussed that + I linked to everything under the sun:
In Word + LibreOffice when you try to convert indexes to HTML... Index links? Poof. Page numbers? Poof.
And trying to handle multiple Indexes + complicated references? My gods... lol. I don't even want to imagine it in Word/LO.
Side Note: Have we figured out a good way to generate proper Index code out of Word/LibreOffice yet? I wonder if DAISY's tool works better. I'll have to test that out one of these days...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
You create your TOC with the print requirements (page numbers, usually with dot leaders for a non-fiction sort of thing), and then, when you export your PDF, you then remove that TOC and recreate it for the eBook--this is basically push-button, you understand!!!--without page numbers, using links instead, which is what drives the NCX, etc. in ePUB. You also remove running headers, folios (page numbers), and any footers.
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Yep. And if you're working in Word/LibreOffice:
#1 most important thing is Styles, Styles, Styles.
See:
specifically my posts #46, #50, and #52.