File size Sigil vs Kindle Create

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Those who have used for it decades and have no need or desire to retool technologically or habitually?

Writers often have habits developed over years. Expecting them to make wholesale changes to their process is neither practical nor necessary most times. Word can be used to produce quite lovely ebooks with a little bit of care.

Not only habits and practices, also macro's and addons - I use macros that I first created ~30 years ago, as well as those I filched last week, and I installed one of my 3rd party addons ~15 years ago.

I'm also one of those weirdo's who fell in love with ribbons at first sight.

BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Or the person who sends you a pdf generated from a Word file to make it easier for you since it is already in an ebook format.

I've talked with writers who have thought: PDF is what my paperbook maker (printer) wants, so it must be what an ebook maker would want. And, at an emotional level they feel they should hang on to the manuscript because that's where their 'creativity' is vested.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Turtle:

Brother, you know that I'm 100% on your side, but do you think that regular people--not us--really notice that? Or do you mean that it was unmissable, even for a pedestrian civilian?

Hitch

Yeah, it was unmissable. I would swipe to go to the next chapter and what would normally only take a fraction of a second to generate - even for complex chapters - it would take upwards of 10 seconds! I really thought my iphone was going to crash!

When I opened up the code it was sooo gross...like 9-10 lines (in sigil) of crap code for 1 word of text. Multiple sets of inline styles setting, then re-setting, then re-re-setting how it would be displayed....for each letter of the one word!!!

...not to even mention the tables, with all the colors....gah!!

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by Kiruhdu

May I ask when you have tried this the last time?

Whenever I get a book with *.rtl, *.doc or *.docx I use AWP to produce an epub and for my understanding the code it produce is easy but fine...
Sometimes it needs a minimal overwork in Sigil; and on my reding-devices it get handled with no problems.
Could you please a bit more specific on 'Atlantis' coding is one of the worst not very good either...'?

Sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean to imply I used Atlantis for word processing. I just clean up ePubs that are created from it - and other automated output software programs.

I'm sure AWP does a fine job creating documents...just like Word or any other software. The issue comes when you save as an ePub. The algorithm used to convert its internal markup into the html/xml and css is very .... robotic??? .... literal .... non-intuitive....

For example:
If the author highlighted most of a word, but missed a letter, then selected a Bold font....then realized they missed a letter, highlighted the missed letter, then selected the same Bold font, you could have code that looked like this:

<p style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; text-indent:1.7777786in;
margin-top:0em; margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; font-family:serif">
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">"</span>
<span style="font-weight:bold; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:sanserif">Hell</span>
<span style="font-weight:bold; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:sanserif">o</span>
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">!"</span></p>

<p style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; text-indent:1.7777786in;
margin-top:0em; margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; font-family:serif">
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">"</span>
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">Hi</span>
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">!"</span></p>

<p style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; text-indent:1.7777786in;
margin-top:0em; margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; font-family:serif">
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">"</span>
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">How are you</span>
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">?"</span></p>

<p style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; text-indent:1.7777786in;
margin-top:0em; margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; font-family:serif">
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">"</span>
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">Good</span>
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">!</span>
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif"> </span>
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">You</span>
<span style="font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:1em; line-height:1.5; font-family:serif">?"</span></p>

When it should look something like this:

<p><strong>"Hello!"</strong></p>

<p>"Hi!"</p>

<p>"How are you?"</p>

<p>"Good! You?"</p>


with CSS:
p {font-family:serif}
strong {font-weight:bold; font-family:sanserif}

And I WISH I was exaggerating!!

Of course, as with any software, if you use it properly you can minimize some of this mess, and with the use of plugins or macros, etc. you can fix some of the crud. But that would imply a certain basic understanding of the desired outcome that most people don't want to take the time to learn....sooooo, they just hit the "save-as-epub" button and think they have a good ePub...

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean to imply I used Atlantis for word processing. I just clean up ePubs that are created from it - and other automated output software programs.

I'm sure AWP does a fine job creating documents...just like Word or any other software. The issue comes when you save as an ePub. The algorithm used to convert its internal markup into the html/xml and css is very .... robotic??? .... literal .... non-intuitive....

For example:
If the author highlighted most of a word, but missed a letter, then selected a Bold font....then realized they missed a letter, highlighted the missed letter, then selected the same Bold font, you could have code that looked like this:

(snipped to save your eyeballs)

When it should look something like this:

<p><strong>"Hello!"</strong></p>

<p>"Hi!"</p>

<p>"How are you?"</p>

<p>"Good! You?"</p>


with CSS:
p {font-family:serif}
strong {font-weight:bold; font-family:sanserif}

And I WISH I was exaggerating!!

Of course, as with any software, if you use it properly you can minimize some of this mess, and with the use of plugins or macros, etc. you can fix some of the crud. But that would imply a certain basic understanding of the desired outcome that most people don't want to take the time to learn....sooooo, they just hit the "save-as-epub" button and think they have a good ePub...

I've seen it and cleaned it, and if God loves me, she'll never send me another like that one. ;-) We get a doozy like that at least once a month. (When a given bookmaker on my Crew is on my personal s**tlist, I give it to that bookmaker, ha!)

Hitch

[Kiruhdu]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean to imply I used Atlantis for word processing. I just clean up ePubs that are created from it - and other automated output software programs.

I'm sure AWP does a fine job creating documents...just like Word or any other software. The issue comes when you save as an ePub. The algorithm used to convert its internal markup into the html/xml and css is very .... robotic??? .... literal .... non-intuitive....

I think either 1) its along while ago or a very old Version you write about
2) you've never just tried AWP
3) the people who produce the books you write about are all dumb-asses...
Maybe all of them.

I don't know any other word-processor where you can use regex - not to speak about the many other useful features.

For example:
If the author highlighted most of a word, but missed a letter, then selected a Bold font....then realized they missed a letter, highlighted the missed letter, then selected the same Bold font, you could have code that looked like this:

Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain...
snipped

When it should look something like this:

<p><strong>"Hello!"</strong></p>

<p>"Hi!"</p>

<p>"How are you?"</p>

<p>"Good! You?"</p>


with CSS:
p {font-family:serif}
strong {font-weight:bold; font-family:sanserif}

And I WISH I was exaggerating!!

Of course, as with any software, if you use it properly you can minimize some of this mess, and with the use of plugins or macros, etc. you can fix some of the crud. But that would imply a certain basic understanding of the desired outcome that most people don't want to take the time to learn....sooooo, they just hit the "save-as-epub" button and think they have a good ePub...

Yes, that's the mentality of most people nowadays - but this has nothing to do with the code-quality AWP produce.
More sense it makes to hit the 'Preview in epub-reader'-button (which is Sigil on my system). Than one can decide to work further in AWP (hit the Cancel-button) or to do some cosmetic changes in Sigil later (cause thatone showed by Sigil in that stage is just a temporary one) and hit the Save-button...

[DiapDealer]

We 'bout done, here folks? It's been a pretty decent chew-the-fat session, but I think it's run its useful course, no? We're so far from On Topic, we can't even see On Topic from here.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

We 'bout done, here folks? It's been a pretty decent chew-the-fat session, but I think it's run it's useful course, no? We're so far from On Topic, we can't even see On Topic from here.

I've enjoyed the discussion but, yeah, we have drifted further than usual into Off Topic.

[ShellShock]

But it is interesting for us spectators on the sidelines, reading all these war stories from the ePub frontlines.

[handycrowd]

I'll end it then with my results! WORD vs Sigil, the showdown...

Original WORD .docx simply formatted with H1, H2 and P styles. 50k words and 150 images (1400px wide) after uploading straight to KDP turned into 13.96MB Download size file.

Same book in Sigil, again pretty simple probably a dozen tweaks in the style sheet to center the headings and add a splash of colour. After uploading the Epub it turned into a 10.07MB downloadable file.

'bout 25% savings, or nearly 4mb which translates to 58 cents a download extra in my pocket.

Thanks for the insights into your world guys... :-)

[Notjohn]

> 13.96MB Download size file
> 10.07MB downloadable file.

And those are figures from the pricing page, third tab of the publishing process, not from the Amazon store page?

[handycrowd]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

> figures from the pricing page, third tab of the publishing process

Yes NJ, exactly. It's just under the royalty plan choice buttons. A tiny little "i" for info about the file size.

quote:
"Your book file size after conversion is 10.07 MB"

Pretty interesting.

p.s. Plus the half a dozen drop caps look beautiful, I never could get them quite right via WORD, even using the word ribbon to insert them, I always got the whole paragraph indented instead of just the lines around the cap. after conversion...

[Notjohn]

Thanks. That's reassuring, though I would have expected a somewhat greater drop. Either your Word doc is cleaner than mine (Word 2007, which itself was a huge advance over 2000) or your epub isn't as clean.

But to revert to the original notion, do you have a comparable figure for the final size of the Kindle Create creation? Does it match your Sigil epub? Or (I have rather lost the thread of this thread) do you mean a Word doc run through KC rather than uploaded by its lonesome self?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Thanks. That's reassuring, though I would have expected a somewhat greater drop. Either your Word doc is cleaner than mine (Word 2007, which itself was a huge advance over 2000) or your epub isn't as clean.

But to revert to the original notion, do you have a comparable figure for the final size of the Kindle Create creation? Does it match your Sigil epub? Or (I have rather lost the thread of this thread) do you mean a Word doc run through KC rather than uploaded by its lonesome self?

NJ, don't be lazy! Just test it yourself--you have plenty of clean files that you could test in a few minutes, don't you? I'm not being argumentative, I mean it--you know how to clean a file, so you could probably just grab one of your existing, cleaned files from an existing book and test it in minutes, couldn't you?

Hitch

[Notjohn]

I haven't ignored you, Hitch -- I would never do that! But however many times I peruse your reply, I can't figure out why you think I would upload a clean Word doc, when my object is to see whether Kindle Select will tidy up a dirty one.