Taking Advantage of ALL formats

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Have you seen how bad the code inside the HTML is?

Tell me about it. In the course of business (website design) I've had to sort out the unholy nightmares that Word left into good code. My response to date has been to throw out the whole mess and just rewrite it from scratch (admittedly, it helps that the clients generally want a whole new look for their sites, too). It's hard enough to get good HTML without starting with bad HTML.

As I put it, Word is about as good an HTML editor as Dreamweaver is a word processor.

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Tell me about it. In the course of business (website design) I've had to sort out the unholy nightmares that Word left into good code. My response to date has been to throw out the whole mess and just rewrite it from scratch (admittedly, it helps that the clients generally want a whole new look for their sites, too). It's hard enough to get good HTML without starting with bad HTML.

As I put it, Word is about as good an HTML editor as Dreamweaver is a word processor.

Yep, cleaning up entirely and rebuilding is probably the best idea.

[WT Sharpe]

I wouldn't use Word to build a website, but I have had good results taking word documents, saving them in MS Word as HMTL, and converting them to mobi and epub with calibre. Perhaps my experience is unique, but there it is.

I wouldn't dream of using MS Word to create or edit a website, however. There are far better website editors for that.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I wouldn't dream of using MS Word to create or edit a website, however. There are far better website editors for that.

Frontpage?

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by queentess

Frontpage?

Wash your keyboard out with soap!

[WT Sharpe]

I use the CoffeeCup HTML editor. I don't know how it stacks up against others, because it's the only one I've ever used, but it seems to work just fine. Full disclosure here: my needs are simple.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I use the CoffeeCup HTML editor. I don't know how it stacks up against others, because it's the only one I've ever used, but it seems to work just fine. Full disclosure here: my needs are simple.

I've used CoffeeCup, though it's been years. Dreamweaver (the version I used) was super easy to work with and gave me easy access to the code for tweaking. It also allowed me to do things I couldn't be troubled to learn to do on my own

Edit: I developed and maintain, as a hobby, a website for my parent's motorcycle "gang" (my word). Yes, I am just that awesome. And so are my parents.

[Worldwalker]

I have the CoffeeCup editor around (those folks have an inordinately easy job selling me software, for some reason; probably something to do with them selling good stuff that works) but I don't use it much. Actually, I think I use EditPlus more than anything. At one point or another I've used everything from Notepad to Dreamweaver, but that's where I've ended up.

Graphics-wise, on the other hand, I'm ridiculously fond of Photoshop CS5. Well, I hate the UI (I still miss the UI I loved from Corel PhotoPaint) but the things it can do, and the ease with which it can do them, are glorious. Actually, between Photoshop and my new graphics tablet, my graphics capabilities are far beyond my actual ability. I'm far beyond being hampered by my tools, and more into staring with amazement at my tools. But better to be on that side of the line, in a professional sense, than struggling to use inadequate tools. This may also explain my toolboxes. Plural. In fact, numerous.

But really, what matters is inside your head, not what's on your computer. A good designer can turn out a great site with Paint and Notepad, and someone with no clue what they're doing can produce ... Geocities ... with Dreamweaver and Photoshop. Tools are just amplifiers. Inadequate tools might not amplify as much as you want, but if there's nothing there to begin with ... well, again, amplified crap is still crap.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

All I can say is that I've had very good experiences with it.

Have you ever tried to covert a Word generated HTML to ePub and then to remove all the garbage Word put in?

[jerryflattum]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The website is too busy. People will tend to just leave instead of bothering to read it to see if anything may be of interest.

Now as to eBook formats, you want ePub, Mobipocket, MS Reader, and PDF (not an eBook format).

Now, since you've foolishly used Word, you will have a lot of work ahead of you. Save your document as HTML and use Calibre to convert it to ePub. Now take the ePub and clean it up. get rid of all the crap/garbage that Word added in. make it very clean and neat code. Once you have that fixed so it is nice and neat code and it looks good, small margins, no line spaces between paragraphs except for sections breaks, justified, and the main text is the default font size, run it through FlightCrew t find any code errors and fix them. Then once that's done and you've looked at every page in ADE, then use Calibre to convert it to Mobipocket and MS Reader.

JS Wolf: The information you provided is incredibly useful. You provided it in a way that it's like a roadmap.

I bookmarked FlightCrew and ADE having never heard of either before. And Calibre was one of the first solutions offered after I entered the MobileRead forums.

Just to make sure, ADE is Adobe Digital Editions, right?

There's a high learning curve to following your roadmap, but that does not deter me. Knowing the process and what solutions are available is getting 1/2 way there.

The eBook world has exposed MSWord as a clumsy and not-Internet-friendly program. It simply is the only program I knew in terms of creating a legible and formatted document.

I would suspect instead of trying to clean up a Word doc, to save it as a text file and start from there. What do you think?

Otherwise, thank you so much. You are truly helping me get where I want to go. -- Jerry

PS: If you think I'm struggling with how to create eBooks, you should see the website design proposal I'm working on for my website. No one knows better than me the mess I've created.

In fact, I'm hoping, in part, that the software and web applications solutions I seek for my website will integrate what I'm trying to do in terms of book presentation. I realize certain formats have proprietary requirements. But I'm also looking for innovative ways to present text in conjunction with my other ventures and adventures. It's highly experimental and exploratory. I'm prepared to stumble and fall many times before I'm finally up and running.

Innovative mindsets will understand much more what I'm trying to do than black and white mindsets that have a tendency to criticize before asking questions.

The Internet is an innovation and promotes innovation and that is the leadership I follow in terms of exploring my own quest for creative solutions.

Thanx again.

[jerryflattum]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Amazon sells subscriptions to blogs, including Konrath's, I assume that you would get automatic content sent to your Kindle in mobi format when they are updated. They don't cost much, so I suppose for something that is updated daily it would be worth paying so that you don't have to convert them yourself. A bit like paying someone to clean your windows for you.

Ploppy: Thank you for revealing something I didn't know and find amazing that Amazon offers subscriptions to blogs. I belong to a handful of writer groups on LinkedIn, and many writers, including veterans, are frustrated by the current market changes and how freelance writing clients are not paying what they used to pay.

It's a daunting task, to be sure, that is, having a blog worthy of subscription. Although it is certainly a challenge, it is also a solution.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Have you ever tried to covert a Word generated HTML to ePub and then to remove all the garbage Word put in?

Judge for yourself:

Epub:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...16#post1259516

Mobi:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...10#post1259510

Both versions look pretty much identical on both my Kindles and my PRS-600. The Kindle version is easier to navigate simply because it's easier to follow links on a Kindle than it is on a Sony Touch.

[jerryflattum]

The conversation shifted towards applications and editors for web design and that's fine. But what I'm wondering is if Word is so clumsy in terms of the formatting it creates and then needs to be cleaned, what program do you use to write your book? Is it better to write a book in notepad (or text editor)? Or simply convert a Word doc to text?

However, that question applies to text. What application is best when the book is graphics -intensive, as mine are? Does Calibre handle graphics manipulation.

There needs to be a way to create the layout of a book before it's converted into the various formats recommended and/or all the formats that Calibre will convert to.

As Worldwalker says, Word is not the tool for web design and Dreamweaver is not a word processor. So, once again, what program is best for writing AND creating the layout of the book, especially when graphics/photos are involved?

[Anke Wehner]

Calibre doesn't include a "What you see is what you got" editor. In Sigil you can add images, but...

You do realise that ebooks will be read on devices ranging from smartphone to PC screens, and that the dedicated ebook readers like Kindle generally have a greyscale display (which can be used either in landscape or portrait orientation), and that one of the really popular features is the ability to change font sizes? So as a result there isn't really a set layout for a page, the way any illustrated paper book has.

[Worldwalker]

I think that's one of the hardest things for print designers to get used to. Website-wise, I'm one of the oddballs: I came from programming, not design, so I didn't have to have to unlearn those bad habits (I had a whole different set of bad habits). Print designers are used to putting something on a page and having it stay there and behave itself. It's a fixed medium. Magazine pages or manual covers don't suddenly get up and rearrange themselves when you're not looking. For a website -- or an ebook -- however, you don't have much control over how that page is going to be viewed, or even what it's going to be viewed on. It might be on a tiny display on a smartphone, or on a wall-sized Jumbotron. It might be in squint-o-vision type, or big enough to be read by a person with cataracts. And, of course, it might be anything in between.

The trick isn't to try to force flexible design to act like print; that's as ridiculous as trying to make a magazine page resize itself (though it is more possible, of course). Some people put up giant image-mapped graphics as "web pages" and expect other people to use them; that gets their competitors a lot of business, naturally. The trick is to understand what it is that the user wants to do with it, and make that as easy as possible for said user. That way they think you're a clueful designer instead of an arrogant snob.

Imagine, say, a coffee-table book of photos of great cities of the world. It's beautifully laid out, with each picture nicely framed on its page, perhaps with a discreet caption telling where it was taken and when. "The Arc de Triomphe, Paris, in the late spring" for instance. The whole design works beautifully together, and the book is visually striking. But what does the user want? Well, show someone two books. One is our original here, except with the pictures replaced by shaky travel snapshots of the scenes. The other has the right pictures, but the layout is plebeian and you really want to hurt the designer of the font used for the captions. Almost without exception, people would choose the latter as the better of the two books. They're after the content, and making it pretty isn't even icing on the cake; it's decorations on the icing.

So when it comes to designing something to be read on an e-reader, good functional design is far more important than decorative design. You don't know what someone will be reading that book on. Perhaps equally important, you don't know what someone will be reading that book on next year. One of the reasons that pbooks have held up so well for centuries is that they're still functional and still usable. Or, more correctly, some of them are. Reading a book in a heavy blackletter font is very difficult for the average person; you can laugh at TNR, but it's clear and readable. People don't generally not read the Gutenberg Bible because it isn't inadequately beautiful (they're gorgeous) but because it's inadequately readable.

I am not kidding, not even in the slightest, about my recommended reading. Read The Design of Everyday Things and Don't Make Me Think! if you read nothing else from my list. They won't teach you to use your software; they'll teach you what to do with it. Frankly, I think anyone who wants to design anything, whether it's an ebook or a skyscraper or a door handle, should read The Design of Everyday Things. It's one of those "oh, now I understand" books. I can't hype it enough for anyone dealing with any type of user interface (and an ebook or a website is a user interface, something else that people don't seem to get).