anybody using LibreOffice to compose?

[gmw]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Just make sure you run your result through the epub validator

http://validator.idpf.org/

and make sure you have no warnings or errors when done.


Also, I am pretty sure using <i> </i> is not valid in EPUB, that you need to us CSS for that.

<i></i> is valid, as is <b></b>, in EPUB 2 at least. There is an ongoing argument that people should prefer to use <em></em> (emphasis) rather than italics, and <strong></strong> rather than bold, but either should be acceptable to epub compliant software.

And it had better be. Sigil uses it, and I've seen Smashwords/Calibre generate this element, and it even (redundantly as far as I know) assigns a CSS style as well - eg: <i class="calibre2">some text</i> where the calibre2 style says the text should be italic. (Note that I am NOT holding this up as a good example, just an example of what has - in the past at least - come out of the meatgrinder.)

Elements that are not valid are things like <center></center>. Restrictions that have software like Sigil implement as : <p style="text-align: center;">Some text.</p> (I image Scrivener probably generates something similar if you explicitly centre any paragraphs, but have not checked.) Which just goes to show you that without style-aware editors your epubs may still not end up being as neat and tidy as intended by the standard.

[VydorScope]

I thought that <i></i> flagged an error in the official validater the last time I used it. I could be remembering wrong though.

[gmw]

EPUB 3 is a more difficult to standard to read, but as far as I can tell it supports most of HTML5 (with some limitations on MathML). As such <i> should work there too (see this). Note that HTML5 subtly changes the definition of elements like <i> and <b>. Also note that <i class="somestyle"> is valid (in case I gave the wrong impression above), but does mean that the text may not be rendered in italics - if the style says differently). I just think it is a strange thing to do, to say here's some italic text that may not be italic.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by gmw

(the plug-in can be set to automatically split the text by heading level, so each chapter ends up in its own xhtml file with extra no work on my part)

Can you tell me where to set that? I can't see it in the options dialogue.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Can you tell me where to set that? I can't see it in the options dialogue.

When you go to File / Export, if you have that plug-in installed correctly you should have an option (under "Save as type:") to choose EPUB. Choose that and hit save and the options appear. On the right-hand side you should see "Document division (page break)" options, one of those is "At heading level" which automatically splits the document at H1, H2 etc (or if you created your own ChapterTitle style - as I did - then it is the Outline Level defined in that style).

As a side note: I have no association with the developer, but found him to be very approachable - a few minor adjustments were made in recent versions as a result of requests I made. For example the "Display hidden text" option. In part of my first book, I had conversation going on in which only half was supposed to be visible to the reader. To keep it all straight in my head, I had the other half written in hidden text - but the earlier version was exporting this too, which obviously I didn't want, hence this extra option.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by gmw

When you go to File / Export, if you have that plug-in installed correctly you should have an option (under "Save as type:") to choose EPUB. Choose that and hit save and the options appear.

It's installed, I've got a whole load of extra export file types (including ePub). When I hit save, though, it just saves. There's no extra dialogue. All the options are in the main Tools->Options dialogue, but I can't see any option to control how the ePub is split.

It sounds like I've got a different version, but I'm pretty sure I've installed the latest one. Initially I got it from extensions.libreoffice.org, but then, thinking that I'd not got the latest, I got it from writer2latex.sourceforge.net. When I installed that one, it told me it was the same version as the one I already had installed.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by avantman42

It's installed, I've got a whole load of extra export file types (including ePub). When I hit save, though, it just saves. There's no extra dialogue. All the options are in the main Tools->Options dialogue, but I can't see any option to control how the ePub is split.

It sounds like I've got a different version, but I'm pretty sure I've installed the latest one. Initially I got it from extensions.libreoffice.org, but then, thinking that I'd not got the latest, I got it from writer2latex.sourceforge.net. When I installed that one, it told me it was the same version as the one I already had installed.

I found this link which appears to be suggest the problem may be an incompatibility between LO v4 and Writer2Latex (I'm still using LO v3.6). That link also offers a patch, or you may like to look at this link which offers a note about stability and a different patch.

There doesn't appear to have been much word from the main developer on the forums for a year or more. I'll try the email address that I had for him and see if he's responding on that.

[avantman42]

Thanks. The option to split at headers would be nice, but it's not a deal-breaker.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Thanks. The option to split at headers would be nice, but it's not a deal-breaker.

There is a supposed to be a command-line ability (that can read an explicit config file, or read config from the command line, rather than needing the options dialog), see the documentation link on the website. I seem to remember using that on one of the early versions, but it's a few years ago now and can't remember the details.

[avantman42]

I can't find a config file to tweak for the extension. I might look into using the command line version later, but right now I've got a holiday to prepare for

[gmw]

I keep meaning to mention that there is another plug-in for OpenOffice and LibreOffice called Writer2EPub - and you can talk about it right here on MR. I've never used it, so I can't speak for its results, but a quick glance at the website shows that it does offer optional breaking by heading levels 1, 2 and 3, and is supposed to be compatible with LO v4.

It looks to me like writer2xhtml offers more control, but that's only useful if you can get it to work. I will drop a note here if I hear anything from the developer of writer2xhtml.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by gmw

Yes, the styles used in my LibreOffice source are all exported to the CSS by the plug-in. The plug-in I use (Writer2xhtml*) produces a complete and reasonably clean epub file. The contents of that epub file (which is really just a zip file) includes the various .xhtml files for each chapter (the plug-in can be set to automatically split the text by heading level, so each chapter ends up in its own xhtml file with extra no work on my part), and it automatically creates the stylesheet.css file that is referenced by the various xhtml files. (Obviously it also includes all the other stuff needed by epub as well.)

So I don't have to write or maintain anything separately, I can just export directly to epub and then play in Sigil to adjust those things I want to adjust. I do a bunch of mostly unnecessary things likes rename the xhtml files to reflect the actual content: titlepage, dedication, chapter1, etc. (the export just named every separate xhtml as chapter1 .. etc.), and I play with the CSS that was automatically created to do whatever it is that I want to do. One necessary thing to check for (for best results on all ereaders) is that the CSS uses all em and % measurements rather than pixel or inches/cm.

* Note that the site heading says Writer2Latex but it offers a few conversions, one of which is Writer2xhtml - which provides an epub export option in LibreOffice and OpenOffice.

Thanks G.M. It's all so efficient. Just wonderful. Really appreciate you taking the time to explain all this stuff.

[Edward M. Grant]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks G.M. It's all so efficient. Just wonderful. Really appreciate you taking the time to explain all this stuff.

Yeah, thanks: that seems to do a much better job of retaining formatting than LibreOffice does itself.

Back on the original question, I've been using Scrivener for a couple of years, but since I started producing PoD versions of my books I've found I always have to go through and tweak the text to avoid bad hyphenation, which means I then have to go back and change the e-books to match. So lately I've just been writing in Createspace format in LibreOffice and converting from there.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by gmw

Note that checking how well you have used styles, before upload, can be achieved also by converting to epub (I use writer2xhtml) and looking through the raw html (if you're into that sort of thing ). This is a useful way to see how consistent your document formating has been, and maximising consistency will maximise the chances that your document will convert well.

Hey G.M., Downloaded writer2latex and then writer2xhtml but got a "could not create java implementation loader." Googled around but all the info. seemed really dated. Any ideas?

Plus LO really makes a wicked-good PDF.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Hey G.M., Downloaded writer2latex and then writer2xhtml but got a "could not create java implementation loader." Googled around but all the info. seemed really dated. Any ideas?

Plus LO really makes a wicked-good PDF.

Both OpenOffice and LibreOffice require Java to be installed on your system to support some functions - and this plug-in requires that. (If you think it should already be installed, check under LO menu: Tools / Options, and look for Java under the LibreOffice branch of options. This should show you what versions of Java LO has recognised and which one it is using.)

Also, did you note the conversation above with avantman42? It seems that writer2xhtml has problems with the LO v4 (I'm still using LO v3.6). There may be ways around that (a command line version of the convert process), but if you are using LO v4 you may find it simpler to try the Writer2Epub plug-in (that link goes to the forum right here on MR where you can find out more). I've not used that one (yet), but it is supposed to be LO v4 compatible.

And yes, LO does PDF very well.