If the ebook is formatted with a blank line between each paragraph or with a spaced indent (say five blank spaces), OpenOffice.org (OO.o) can easily convert it into a properly flowing document.
If the paragraphs are indented, do the following:
- Open the text file in OO.o
- Replace the indent spaces with an unused character (such as "~").
- Save it as an HTML file.
- Open the HTML file.
- Select the entire document, and change the paragraph style to "body text."
- Click on the HTML Source view. This will bring up the document's HTML code.
- Replace the unused characters with "</p><p>"
- Close the HTML Source view.
- Insert and delete a space in the document (this will cause OO.o to clean up the HTML code).
- Close the document.
The document should be formatted with paragraphs separated. You can now format the document the way that you want.
If the paragraphs are separated by blank lines, then do the following:
- Open the text file in OO.o
- Save it as an HTML file.
- Open the HTML file.
- Select the entire document, and change the paragraph style to "body text."
- Click on the HTML Source view. This will bring up the document's HTML code.
- Replace each "<p>" in the document with a blank space.
- Replace each "</p>" in the document with a blank space.
- Replace each "<br><br>" in the document with "</p><p>"
- Insert a "<p>" at the beginning of the document's text.
- Delete the last "<p>" in the text.
- Close the HTML Source view.
- Insert and delete a space in the document (this will cause OO.o to clean up the HTML code).
- Close the document.
The document should be formatted with paragraphs separated. You can now format the document the way that you want.