empty hyperlinks redux

[Notjohn]

I didn't know where to put this, so tried the Kindle Formats forum, where it sat lonely as a cloud for two days. Trying again here:

I generally compose in DOS WordStar, then open the WS file in Word in order to prettify it with curly quotes and em dashes. Then I paste the *.doc or *.docx file into Word2CleanHtml dot com online to get rid of most of the Word-specific markup. Invariably, when I run Epubcheck on my finished book, I get one or several warnings of an empty hyperlink. The hyperlinks always have this form:

<a name="_wsKB_"></a>

The two capital letters will vary, but the ws and the underscores are always there.

I recently acquired a copy of Word 2007, so I took it out for a spin this morning, including Save As Html Filtered, to see how much that option had improved since my venerable copy of Word 2000. (Quite a lot, as it happens, but still disagreeably lumpy.) But what fascinated me was to see three of those same empty hyperlinks.

What could possibly be causing them? Does the "ws" suggest that it's WordStar's work?

I will try it next in Calibre Editor.

Thanks - NJ

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

I will try it next in Calibre Editor.

I suggest you also try saving it as DOCX from Word 2007, and import that into the calibre editor.

For me DOCX into the calibre editor produces the best results. The EPUB is the most faithful to what I see in Word and if there is any crap, it invariably means I stuffed up something in Word, in which case I fix it in Word. The only thing I normally have/want to do is to split the book into front-matter, chapters, and back-matter (end-notes, references, etc) files.

BR

[DiapDealer]

<a name="_wsKB_">

I can guarantee it's not something that Sigil creates (and I'd be willing to bet a whole bunch of money that it doesn't come from calibre either). It may allow deprecated attribute names to exist, but it certainly doesn't create any.

Search the markup produced by Word2CleanHtml, and I'd be awfully surprised if it wasn't there already. If so, that implies that it either comes from Word or Wordstar--and since I've never encountered it (or heard of others doing so) in Word's Filtered HTML output ....

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

I didn't know where to put this, so tried the Kindle Formats forum, where it sat lonely as a cloud for two days. Trying again here:

I generally compose in DOS WordStar, then open the WS file in Word in order to prettify it with curly quotes and em dashes. Then I paste the *.doc or *.docx file into Word2CleanHtml dot com online to get rid of most of the Word-specific markup. Invariably, when I run Epubcheck on my finished book, I get one or several warnings of an empty hyperlink. The hyperlinks always have this form:

<a name="_wsKB_"></a>

The two capital letters will vary, but the ws and the underscores are always there.

I recently acquired a copy of Word 2007, so I took it out for a spin this morning, including Save As Html Filtered, to see how much that option had improved since my venerable copy of Word 2000. (Quite a lot, as it happens, but still disagreeably lumpy.) But what fascinated me was to see three of those same empty hyperlinks.

What could possibly be causing them? Does the "ws" suggest that it's WordStar's work?

I will try it next in Calibre Editor.

Thanks - NJ

nj:

I'm fairly certain that's from Wordstar. You know how many Word-->HTML files I see, and that particular combo, I can't recall seeing. Do you bookmark anything--for any reason--in Wordstar? Cross reference? Links?

Hitch

[HarryT]

The "_ws" prefix strongly suggests Wordstar as the culprit!

[Notjohn]

Thank you, thank you! To be sure, the question has nothing to do with Sigil, and that's why I posted it elsewhere to begin.

1) The most recent file was *.docx, though the earlier ones were all from *.doc.

2) The most recent one was Word-generated html and did not go through Word2CleanHtml dot com.

3) No bookmarks, links, or cross-references in WordStar. It really doesn't have that capability.

4) I agree, since this is evidently unique to my workflow, that it must be an artifact of WordStar. Happily Epubcheck picks them up and posts a Warning though not an Error, and it's the matter of a moment to fix them (or it).

Thanks again - NJ