Atlantis Word Processor - ePub creation tool

[awp]

DaleDe,

The latest how-to video was a bit condescending for me.

I understand your point. But it is impossible to satisfy everyone. Getting the balance right between "over-explaining" and "under-explaining" is not easy. Most authors are not power users like you. And not everyone is patient enough to watch entire video without pressing "fast forward". This is why redundancy might not be so bad.

By the way, below is a recent comment on the video from one writer:

Congratulations again on the video series. Very thorough and complete. Often when such videos as produced they leave out key steps - simply because the producer of the video is so familiar with the material he/she thinks everyone else is too. Your videos include all the steps along the way.

[awp]

Originally Posted by frank14612

I envision that the contents of all the videos could be judiciously condensed and published as a "How-to" e-book for the Atlantis word processor.

This would be possible. But I am not sure that there could be a better way to "explain and demonstrate" than through a video.

In any case, most of those videos will have a "text" version.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by frank14612

DaleDe,
I agree that the video was slow, meticulous and repetitious, but for the word-processing uninitiated that may be just fine. However, that said, I envision that the contents of all the videos could be judiciously condensed and published as a "How-to" e-book for the Atlantis word processor.

I wonder if that will be attempted.

Frank

I think it should be just incorporated into the included manual. The manual is pretty good so far as it goes although there are some missing topics in it. I think the videos are for people that can't follow written instructions due to attention deficits. There seems to be quite a few of those.

Dale

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by awp

DaleDe,



I understand your point. But it is impossible to satisfy everyone. Getting the balance right between "over-explaining" and "under-explaining" is not easy. Most authors are not power users like you. And not everyone is patient enough to watch entire video without pressing "fast forward". This is why redundancy might not be so bad.

By the way, below is a recent comment on the video from one writer:

yes, I agree with balance. I think users are less likely to press fast forward on short videos than on long ones that start repeating themselves. Of course there is always rewind

I would agree with the author who liked the fact you did not leave out steps. I totally agree. I hate it when there are a bunch of missing steps that are assumed to be known, however that is not the same as repeating the same steps over and over is it. Anyway, the video introduced an interesting way to achieve a needed function.

Dale

[awp]

I think it should be just incorporated into the included manual.

It will be included.

Anyway, the video introduced an interesting way to achieve a needed function.

Yes, this is most important.

[mrmikel]

One thing I do not understand about AWP is how to create styles. Or will AWP only use styles present in an imported document..

I want to apply styles for heading1, heading2 etc. But the only style available is normal since the original document was a text document.

[awp]

Or will AWP only use styles present in an imported document..

Yes, this is correct.

You can always import styles from another document (from the "Normal" template, for instance). Please choose the "Format | Style..." menu command, click "Import...", choose the "Normal" template on the left of the dialog, then select the styles that you would like to import (you can select multiple styles at once with Ctrl+Click, or by pressing the left mouse button & dragging the mouse pointer).

[awp]

You can also import the required styles to the "Plain" template of Atlantis. Choose the "File | Templates..." menu command, double-click the "Plain" file. Then choose the "Format | Style..." menu command, and click "Import..." to import the "Heading ?" styles from the "Normal" template. OK out of the open dialogs. Press Ctrl+S to save changes to the "Plain" template. Press Ctrl+W to close the "Plain" template document.

From now on, any plain text document that you create or open in Atlantis, will have the "Heading" styles. But of course, styles cannot be saved to a plain text file.

[awp]

By the way, I can recall a discussion on mobileread regarding EPUB validation tests.

When someone creates eBooks for personal use, it might be irrelevant whether his/her EPUBs pass the EPUB validation check if his/her eReader can display them correctly. But having a "valid" EPUB is important to publishers and writers.

Here is a link to a discussion thread on LinkedIn posted by a crime novelist David (Alexander) Grace, a new fan of Atlantis Word Processor, I think.

[awp]

Mrmikel,

If you have many plain text files that you want to convert to "rich text", you could simply choose "Normal" as a template for plain text files. Here is how this can be done:
Choose the "File | New | Formats & Templates..." menu command, click "Plain Text Documents", click "Change Template...", and double-click the "Normal" template.

[mrmikel]

I solved my problem by copying and pasting my text document into an rtf document to which template I had added the styles H1-H5.

Thanks

[mrmikel]

I did as you suggested, since if I want to work on pure text documents I will use another program like notepad anyway.

[mrmikel]

Seems like it might be worthwhile to have a template which can be applied to an existing document, or applied on saving for those destined to be epubs. It would encompass the headings, etc.

[awp]

There is a command named "Apply document template". But it is not installed to the main menu of Atlantis by default. You can install it to the main menu through the "Tools | Menus..." command. Choose "All commands" from the "Available commands" box. Then drag & drop the "Apply document template" command to a desired location in the main menu.

[mrmikel]

I have got it working ok now. Thanks for the help.

It would be nice though for search and replace to be able to copy from the text and paste into the search line. My particular need was getting rid of extra paragraph markers at the end of each line in a text document. In this case it was just ^p^p, but there have been cases with spaces in between the two ^p. Not having to count the spaces and being able to paste special characters would be nice.