Can you get older versions of Word for free?

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Or use the character map, or learn how to type them (probably alt+151 in your computer), or just write two hyphens and do a replace-all when you're finished. Or better yet, get a keyboard layout that lets you input them with a single key

But it kind of slows things down to do the alt+151 thing. And are you talking about a character map in Word or Sigil? (I couldn't find it in sigil.) And replace all is kind of dangerous, esp. if you consider there will probably be a lot of straight apostrophes and straight quotes to get rid of too and you can't really do replace all with those or you'd screw up the markup code stuff.
And shouldn't one of you smart guys just figure out how to make a single em-dash key? (You can do everything else! )

And you know, if you're doing a novel and editing it after breaking up into chapters all this replace stuff just gets really repetitive and time-consuming. (end of rant--lol)

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

I don't think the following has been mentioned and it may make your decision to move away from Word 2003 easier.

Microsoft is scheduled to end all support for Word 2003 in April next year (Windows XP and other Office 2003 products too, for those with them). Mainstream support ended over 3 years ago but security updates end too next year.

This may not be a concern if one operates a closed environment where only ones own documents are ever used, but will be a concern if documents created by others are ever opened.

Yes, I'm trying to move away from MS Office 2003. I just want something that's going to be as universally acceptable as MS Office stuff. I've gotten a lot of good suggestions here though. Thanks.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by theducks

Have a default, basic stylesheet that you use for your books.
Sigil starts with None

Note Sigil only assigns Tags with many buttons.
Font-face, alignment buttons create SGC (inline) codes.

One of these days, we might get the option to configure (? pull down of current CSS selectors or a type in box) the H and P buttons

Thanks Ducks. You mean a CSS internal style sheet in Sigil, right? Yeah, I can see how that would really make Sigil function more like a word processor. (with the indents set from the CSS etc.)

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by bobcdy

Greg,
Docx is the 2010- equivalent of the old Doc file. I don't think it is readable/writable in 2003 version unless it is upgraded as described in the post (exaltedwombat) I referred to.

As for manually adding the xhtml code to a .docx or .doc one can add all the code using standard symbols <p class="indent">paragraph</p> etc, etc. easily in Word. One doesn't need to create a .txt file for Sigil to correctly accept material from a native Word format. To learn I think the best way is to download a few epub files from MR into Sigil and study how the coding is done and see if you can apply similar coding a short Word test file and copy/pasting it to a Sigil document in order to find if it works ok in ADE. I especially like using the Word editing options to auto-code all paragraphs correctly, and then slightly modifying the resulting markup where paragraphs need special formatting such as centering. I strongly recommend giving it a try because it isn't difficult to learn.

On the internet there are many resources you can find to explain various xhtml markup tags.

Bob

I did not know that about the doc vs docx distinction. Your method for the html code sounds good. Is it like working with Word styles at all? I'll have to experiment with that. I appreciate you sharing it.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

I tried writing in Sigil. The type is just a little too faint. Just didn't work for me. I even have a hard time editing there (in book view).

Did you try going into Edit/Preferences/Appearance and changing the font style/weight/size ???

It seems like you gave up too easily on one of the better suggestions out here...if you are creating an epub and you don't care about all the other Author specific bells and whistles then you can't beat just writing it in sigil to begin with.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

are you talking about a character map in Word or Sigil? (I couldn't find it in sigil.) And replace all is kind of dangerous, esp

And you know, if you're doing a novel and editing it after breaking up into chapters all this replace stuff just gets really repetitive and time-consuming. (end of rant--lol)

- Click the little button that looks like an Omega symbol on the Sigil toolbar....now you have access to all the special characters.

- Search and replace is perfectly acceptable and easy if you set it up right.

search: --
replace: —

don't use "--" anywhere you don't want a "—"

You can also make groups of replacements in the "Saved Searches" tool...so that you don't have to do each one individually. If you select "apply to all HTML files" you only have to click one button and then ALL S/Rs are applied to all files automatically in just a few seconds....easy

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Did you try going into Edit/Preferences/Appearance and changing the font style/weight/size ???

It seems like you gave up too easily on one of the better suggestions out here...if you are creating an epub and you don't care about all the other Author specific bells and whistles then you can't beat just writing it in sigil to begin with.

mrmikel suggested pumping up the screen to 130% and changing to a font I liked and I did both and it's been awesome (even for editing). But with the composing, meme said Sigil's not that great for it. We were talking about how unreliable Book View was in terms of putting code in there that shouldn't be there when you jockey paragraphs around. I don't know. I just want to compose in something, maybe clean things up in a text editor and then go to Sigil to finish it off. Sigil sounded ideal for composing but now I'm not so sure. Some people in this thread have suggested some really cool stuff (like Atlantis and xhtmlEPUB (OO I guess) and others) but I can't really settle on one. And somebody basically told me my Microsoft Office 2003 will soon be obsolete (no longer supported). I don't know, my needs don't seem that hard to fill. I'm sure things will fall into place soon, though. Thanks for the input.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

- Click the little button that looks like an Omega symbol on the Sigil toolbar....now you have access to all the special characters.

- Search and replace is perfectly acceptable and easy if you set it up right.

search: --
replace: —

don't use "--" anywhere you don't want a "—"

You can also make groups of replacements in the "Saved Searches" tool...so that you don't have to do each one individually. If you select "apply to all HTML files" you only have to click one button and then ALL S/Rs are applied to all files automatically in just a few seconds....easy

That is really helpful info. I found the omega (I only have 0.6.2 on this laptop; my other computer where I really work has 0.7.1) button. And yeah, you're right the mdashes shouldn't be too much of a problem. Straight quotes and straight apostrophes will be more difficult. Any ideas on how to handle those?

And I couldn't find how to do saved searches. Can you clue me in where I might find that?

Thanks. You're saving me a lot of time with all this info. I appreciate it.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

And you know, if you're doing a novel and editing it after breaking up into chapters all this replace stuff just gets really repetitive and time-consuming. (end of rant--lol)

You set Scrivener aside earlier because it had a lot of stuff that you didn't think you'd need, but this is a good example of some of that stuff. Scrivener will automatically insert em-dashes when you type -- (two normal dashes) and will enter curly quotes and apostrophes correctly. What's more you can press a hotkey to update a document automatically to switch between curly and straight quotes.

You can also set your compile preferences to switch between straight and curly quotes and em- and normal dashes, so that for some purposes you can export with them and for others without.

Graham

[crich70]

You might also try over at: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com
They change what is offered on a daily basis so there is always a new program being offered. One time they offered Liquid Story Binder for example. They work with the publisher of the software to offer the given program for free for one day.

[Toxaris]

There is no need to enter HTML tags directly in Word. I understand that you already work with styles, that is great. If you use my macro to create clean HTML in Word, you can retain those styles (names though, not the stylesheet). Clean HTML is produced and saved as UTF-8. It can be imported directly into Sigil if you want.
I am not quite sure if it works with Word 2003, but it definitely works with Word 2007/2010/2013. The ribbons look strange in the beginning, but they work quite well after some getting used to.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

The ribbons look strange in the beginning, but they work quite well after some getting used to.

I was actually going to mention the Office "ribbon" as a reason to consider staying with your 2003 version until you really have to switch.

It's hard to say - maybe for people new to Office the ribbons are wonderful. But if you already know exactly where everything you use is on the menu and toolbar, I think you'll go crazy trying to figure out where it was moved to on the screen-space-stealing ribbons.

If I didn't have to use the new Office products at work, I would still be using 2003.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I was actually going to mention the Office "ribbon" as a reason to consider staying with your 2003 version until you really have to switch.

It's hard to say - maybe for people new to Office the ribbons are wonderful. But if you already know exactly where everything you use is on the menu and toolbar, I think you'll go crazy trying to figure out where it was moved to on the screen-space-stealing ribbons.

If I didn't have to use the new Office products at work, I would still be using 2003.

+1

(I started with the 'originals' for M$. Transfer Load menus. Then we had the Lotus Menu legal battles )

[MickiTee]

Gregg

Read this discussion with interest.

I have one more option for you if you don't mind spending a little money. There's an product called Jutoh - http://www.jutoh.com which may solve all your problems. The user interface is a word processor similar to Word XP or OO/LO. You just format your text as you would in MS Word including the use of styles. Its great advantage is that you can create output in many formats including one specifically for SmashWords and MOBI which requires an add-on.

There's a free trial so why not give it a go? There's even a free ebook, written by the developer, which guides you through the process of creating ebooks in the various formats.

Micki

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

But it kind of slows things down to do the alt+151 thing. And are you talking about a character map in Word or Sigil? (I couldn't find it in sigil.)

I'm talking about the character map in Windows itself, which you can use for any application (but you probably have to copy-paste)

And shouldn't one of you smart guys just figure out how to make a single em-dash key? (You can do everything else! )

Sure, that's what I meant. I can do it for linux (I designed the layout I'm using now, including many "weird" symbols like ŋ, ×, ǐ, ⅝, Ŧ, «... which I can type directly with some AltGr combinations). For Windows I guess it can be done, but maybe you need some special software, and it can break at any time with some update.

Another idea: you could use a real text editor (not a word processor), which allows you to define custom keys, macros, etc. Something like vim, emacs, ultraedit or notepad++ (I guess, I only really know one of them).