Howto import a file created in OpenOffice?

[roger64]

I usually work with OpenOffice. I recently tried to convert an ODT file to EPUB thru calibre.

I wonder if it would not be better to import directly a file coming from OpenOffice in Sigil in order to create an EPUB.

But which one?
- If I open the ODT file (renaming with zip), I find some xml files. Can Sigil make something out of them?

- If I save the ODT file as html, I get text (including footnotes) and images but I have no stylesheet.css file.

Any idea on the best way to proceed?

I also tried a nifty extension called writer2html which can export in strict xhtml. It can also divide the document in the ten chapters but with them Sigil produces ten different epub...Is there a way to batch import ten xhtml files, numbered 1 to 10?

[weedfreak]

Have you looked at odt to epub extension?

[roger64]

I tried it.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...1&postcount=34

Not yet ready for anything except plain text.

[Valloric]

I suggest you export to HTML and then import into Sigil.

[roger64]

OK I'll do it.

Sorry, I badly expressed my question:

When I prepare a big book (say over one megabyte, even in ODT format), if I export it , it will be a huge html file.

Sigil can deal with that but it's has trouble. When I need to change something in the code, Sigil may hang or be pretty slow.

Calibre knows how to divide this huge file in smal several so-called manageable "index_splits" which are very handy and very easily processed with Sigil.

So, up to now, if I have a big file to process with Sigil, It seems it's better to first use calibre if only to split it in several manageable parts.

I know one OpenOffice extension which, like calibre, can split an html file in several parts (chapters with heading 2 for example) in strict html format.

Question

Can Sigil batch import these different parts?
If not, is it planned to give it this possibility at a later stage?

and I got the google answer...

http://code.google.com/p/sigil/issues/detail?id=142

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by roger64

Can Sigil batch import these different parts?

In the 0.2.0 beta, you can right-click on the "Text" folder, select "Add existing files" and then select several XHTML/HTML/HTML/XML files that you want to add to Sigil from the open file dialog.

Sigil will add each one, and all the images and CSS files that the HTML files are referencing.

[roger64]

This is a low-level trial report made by an average Linux user. My point is that we have the tools to get good and easy results for standard EPUB creation and I try to prove it.

I learnt these last days how to use OpenOffice to get later a nice enough EPUB from Sigil. I started from an odt file realized with OpenOffice 3.2,
I exported it to html format using Writer2xhtml extension in OpenOffice and in the end made an EPUB out of it using Sigil 0.2 beta
Please note that I only used standard settings with Writer2xhtml and Sigil Everything has been processed automatically in a push-button way.
You'll find in the attached zip file:
- the original odt file
- my template (in .ott format)
- the html file with its attached image folder created with Writer2xhtml extension
- the EPUB file created with Sigil 0.2
- two screenshots
1- OpenOffice working space
2- Writer2xhtml settings

COMMENTS
There are some precautions to take with OpenOffice.

Styles
This is the most important point. You should be aware that OpenOffice knows two kind of styles:
- the so-called normal styles, written in styles.xml. These are edited with the "stylist" (F11). Among them, "html" styles.
- the so-called automatic styles, written in content.xml. You can edit them directly using the menu "Format/paragraph".
To avoid later unnecessary clutter on your css file, it is advised to use consistently only F11 (stylist) to work with styles. For better even results select "html styles" (see joint screenshot)
Text
I took care to eradicate the so-called "soft-hyphens" which are presently not going well with Sigil.
Line-height
I found that a line-height of 120% gives later better viewing results on the EPUB. You can edit your styles in OpenOffice to give them this property.
Chapterbreaks
My Title 2 style creates a "pagebreak before".
Images
Images can be processed and placed easily within OpenOffice, including with reduced sizes.It's more tricky to get wrapped text around them in your EPUB. As this is yet beyond my beginner's level, I tried only to keep images chained after a text block.
Footnotes, numbering of chapters are easily processed.

[roger64]

mistake. See the message before...(Starts well, he?)