Meatgrinder (Smashwords) Venting

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by teh603

Ah. I'll be honest, I've never messed with the code of an ebook, and my HTML dates back to before the days when CSS was an encoding process used on DVDs. <BR> was easier to use then <P> and </P>, and you still had to keep a hex chart on hand for determining text colors.

Either way, you'll find I'm a bit of a pragmatist compared to most Linux and a fair few Windows users; if the code works, it works and that's all that matters. If it doesn't, then we have a problem. I'm not as concerned about how elegant or ideologically pure (which is a huge issue in Linux land) it is, compared to whether or not it works.

It might not actually work. You don't have an embedded font. So readers that allow you to change the font should work. They may not since Word puts in font codes that don't belong. I'll have to try this on a T1 from some of the free Smashwords ePub. If it doesn't work, then your code is broken.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It might not actually work. You don't have an embedded font. So readers that allow you to change the font should work. They may not since Word puts in font codes that don't belong. I'll have to try this on a T1 from some of the free Smashwords ePub. If it doesn't work, then your code is broken.

Microsoft's core fonts package is only one step shy of FOSS. The only reason its not included with Kubuntu is ideological. There's no obvious excuse for not including it in a reader. And if you can't for legal reasons, then the Liberation font family (Liberation Sans, Serif, and Mono) has identical metrics to Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier New; so you can set up in-device font substitution.

It works fine on an iRiver Story HD, though. I've only ever had one anomaly, and that was a mysterious blank page that somehow appeared in the middle of a chapter.

[Freeshadow]

A bad code epub usually means a bloated file, which is always BAD. (Still) having spare space is no reason to waste it.

[altworld]

?

Did all my own formatting for Meatgrinder using a Word Doc, after a learning curve with my first book I had zero issues afterwards. Beyond the normal narrative books, I've submitted a Graphic novel mix of narrative and sequential (comic book pages) it went through fine first time, and a fully illustrated children tale... Again zero problems on the pass.

It isn't that hard to learn, it isn't that hard to get what you want from the service and the books I've submitted are 100% more complicated to get to work within the SW confines, than most here.

Maybe you should of gone ahead and done it yourself?
Arigato,
Nick

[kacir]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

From what I've been reading, it's easier to learn to use Sigil (and learn CSS/XML) to make a good looking ePub then it is to learn to format a Word document to match the Smashwords style guide.

If I had the power, every single MSWord user would have the Smashwords style guide carved in stone hanging above the monitor. And they wouldn't be allowed to use MSWord for real without demonstrating the ability to use all those features as described in THE guide.

You see, I often have to work with documents that other people create in MSWord and those documents are often hopeless mess when it comes to formatting, use of styles, proper use of page breaks, headings, tabs, tables, graphics ... you name it. There are people that make centered chapter heading by typing spaces at the beginning of the line. And MSWord helpfully, automatically creating formatting "on the fly" is usually making things even worse. When you get several such documents and you have to create one professional looking document using all that material, it is a nightmare.


Having said that, I *still* think that making the use of expensive, proprietary, undocumented and [insert your favorite expletive here] MSWord format, MANDATORY for all authors was not a good idea.
If they insisted on using MSWord, as a tool that most indie writers are most familiar with, they should have made it a three step process.
1. Upload a word (or better yet, rtf) document and have it converted to an intermediate simple text with some formatting tags (perhaps similar to html or rtf tags)
2. Inspect this tagged text (with the possibility to skip step 1 and create it entirely by hand) and correct formatting issues, such as incorrectly recognized chapter breaks, or weird formatting issues
3. have it converted automatically to resulting formats.
I think that this is what actually happens inside the meatgrinder, they just do not let you mess with step 2.

People that can't be bothered with learning to recognize those simple formatting tags in step 2 would be able to skip step 2 by clicking "the intermediate text is OK, proceed to step 3" button and the rest of us could take formatting to our own hands.


I have helped two people here from Mobileread create MSWord document that sailed through Meatgrinder with flying colors.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by altworld

Did all my own formatting for Meatgrinder using a Word Doc, after a learning curve with my first book I had zero issues afterwards. Beyond the normal narrative books, I've submitted a Graphic novel mix of narrative and sequential (comic book pages) it went through fine first time, and a fully illustrated children tale... Again zero problems on the pass.

I downloaded a sample of The Princess and the Serpent of Iron Mountain, and it suffers from the same problem that every other Smashwords book I've tried has, the text colour is hardcoded to black in the HTML code, which prevents me choosing the reading colours I want.
I steer clear of Smashwords and pretty much only buy from Amazon now.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by kacir

If I had the power, every single MSWord user would have the Smashwords style guide carved in stone hanging above the monitor. And they wouldn't be allowed to use MSWord for real without demonstrating the ability to use all those features as described in THE guide.

LOL! And if *I* had the power, I'd send every copy of that chatty, poorly outlined, badly worded, boasts-of-"recent"-upgrades-in-August-2010, references-a-version-of-Word-no-longer-sold-commercially-in-all-the-screenshots, DRAWS ON THE PICTURES IN MS PAINT TO WRITE WORDS "Style Guide" (a term I use grudgingly in the same way I would call a hamburger "haute cuisine") straight into the burning embrace of our fiery sun.

But that's just me.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

references-a-version-of-Word-no-longer-sold-commercially-in-all-the-screenshots,

LOL.

Do NOT get me started on modern versions of MSWord featuring that [self censored expletive] ribbon interface.
An old copy of MSWord 2000 running on Windows 2000 inside VirtualBox is much faster (and that includes startup of that Windows ;-) ) than all those newfangled "ribbonized" versions that try to "help" you to be more productive.

But the main principles remains the same regardless of what version of MSW (or any other word processor or book authoring software) you are using.
- Keep. It. Simple.
- Use the very basic features of program (such as styles) as they are supposed to be used.
- Keep formatting outside a small number of well-defined styles to absolute minimum.

[anamardoll]

I hate the ribbon so much.

Funny story: Husband went to a Microsoft conference a year or so ago for work. They actually had a speaker get up and say something to the effect of, "We are aware that the majority of our users do not like the ribbon. But we think they can learn to adjust."

Oh, Microsoft. I'll get out my tiny violin for you when you start wondering why you're becoming less relevant in the future.

[anamardoll]

Having said all that "keep it simple" is not good advice, imho. If my ePUB can and should do X, then Smashwords should not expect me to stop doing X just because Word doesn't support it.

I'm already angry that ePUB supports two different sets of footnotes and Word does not, so all my footnotes were re-worked in the Smashwords version.

And the "break things up by chapter and screw up Ana's chapter heading pictures" is NOT a Word thing, it's a Crappy-Conversion thing.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I hate the ribbon so much.

Funny story: Husband went to a Microsoft conference a year or so ago for work. They actually had a speaker get up and say something to the effect of, "We are aware that the majority of our users do not like the ribbon. But we think they can learn to adjust."

Oh, Microsoft. I'll get out my tiny violin for you when you start wondering why you're becoming less relevant in the future.

That sounds just like Smashwords.

"We are aware that the majority of our users do not like the meatgrinder. But we think they can learn to adjust."

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That sounds just like Smashwords.

"We are aware that the majority of our users do not like the meatgrinder. But we think they can learn to adjust."

They've been promising to implement direct-ePUB upload for..............awhile now.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Having said all that "keep it simple" is not good advice, imho.

I was referring to KISS principle in the context of ordinary word users benefiting from the style guide carved in stone and hung above the monitor ;-)
You can do pretty complicated things and documents with word, but you should always use the most elegant and most simple means to achieve this or that effect. Like well defined styles.

Originally Posted by anamardoll

If my ePUB can and should do X, then Smashwords should not expect me to stop doing X just because Word doesn't support it.

I'm already angry that ePUB supports two different sets of footnotes and Word does not, so all my footnotes were re-worked in the Smashwords version.

And the "break things up by chapter and screw up Ana's chapter heading pictures" is NOT a Word thing, it's a Crappy-Conversion thing.

As I said in one of my previous posts I do not think that making the use of MSWord mandatory was a good idea. And I said so before, just search for my posts mentioning Smashwords.
You should definitely be allowed option to submit your hand-tweaked format.

I think that from the beginning they knew that this wasn't the optimal solution, but it was solution that worked "well enough" for the majority of authors. This might be why they called their "THE Meatgrinder" in the first place.

Think about how stuff looks after it went through the real meat grinder


People must have used the same principle when naming Word processor. Just think about what a food processor does to food ;-)




Can't you simply include a link in that poorly formatted book(*) for download of better version from another server?

(*)formatted poorly due to the MSWord limitations, Meatgrinder limitations and due to the "lowest common denominator" simplification of supported features.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I hate the ribbon so much.

Funny story: Husband went to a Microsoft conference a year or so ago for work. They actually had a speaker get up and say something to the effect of, "We are aware that the majority of our users do not like the ribbon. But we think they can learn to adjust."

Oh, Microsoft. I'll get out my tiny violin for you when you start wondering why you're becoming less relevant in the future.

Simple, they'll adjust by using various hardware controls to make sure your computer can't boot any OS but theirs, and to keep you from running any software they don't approve of. Its also why they're funding so many high school business courses; once kids have learned how to word process using the ribbon, they can't easily move to someone else's software.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That sounds just like Smashwords.

"We are aware that the majority of our users do not like the meatgrinder. But we think they can learn to adjust."

I'll be honest, its easier than having to re-learn HTML because some idiot had to keep adding useless features that broke forwards compatibility.

[altworld]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

I downloaded a sample of The Princess and the Serpent of Iron Mountain, and it suffers from the same problem that every other Smashwords book I've tried has, the text colour is hardcoded to black in the HTML code, which prevents me choosing the reading colours I want.
I steer clear of Smashwords and pretty much only buy from Amazon now.

To me Smashwords is a distribution hub and I expect zero sales direct from their website. I do want to thank you for singling out my book there, I do hope you enjoyed the tale and pick up the next in the fairy tale series.

I do believe I said I've had zero problems getting my work through Meatgrinder. What comes out the other end is down to the conversion software, not me. Every ePub I've got back has got the green check mark from the preflight check, and comes out the way I put it it, so I must be doing something right.

Lucky for you all my work is available on the Kindle too

Anyhow, what color do you read your books in? Plus there is no such thing as hard coding given the open nature of an ePub you can go in and easily change the colors.
Arigato,
Nick Davis