Trying to simplify my work flow (confused about the heading/language again)

Gregg Bell · 10-03-2019, 07:25 PM

I'm tired of having to tweak all this minutia, so when Turtle91 suggested an epub template, I was like, Yeah, I'm in.

So I set it up and when I need to (like adding the "AboutTheAuthor" html, which is always the same) add something I'll just copy and paste what I have between <body> and </body> into the template, which is Sigil's defaults. Is that good enough?

Because a while back I went through the heading and changed all the language stuff. Adding this:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-US">

instead of this:

<body lang="en-US" dir="ltr">

Putting an ebook together seems like a quagmire now when it used to be so simple.

Can I just use the template (Sigil's defaults) and be okay? Thanks.

JSWolf · 10-03-2019, 08:02 PM

Setup in CSS a <body> and a style. Make what you use mostly.

This is what I use...

Code:

body {
  widows: 1;
  orphans: 1;
  margin-top: 0;
  margin-right: 0;
  margin-bottom: 0;
  margin-left: 0;
  text-align: justify;
}
p {
  margin-top: 0;
  margin-bottom: 0;
  text-indent: 1.2em;
}

It sets up no margins so apps/Readers that have margin setting can work properly. It has no line-height so apps/Readers what allow adjusting the line-height can do so. It also sets widows and orphans both to 1 otherwise, it doesn't look so good on screen. As for , it sets up to have an indent of 1.2em and no top/bottom margins as paragraphs spaces are not nice.

So you wrap each paragraph in text of the paragraph and just use when you need to such as a paragraph with no indents.

Here are some other classes that work...

Code:

.center {
  text-align: center;
  margin-top: 1em;
  margin-bottom: 1em;
  text-indent: 0;
}
.noindnt {
  text-indent: 0;
}
.spacebreak {
  padding-top: 2em;
  text-indent: 0;
}
h2 {
  margin-top: 1em;
  margin-bottom: 1em;
  text-align: center;
}

The center class is for when you want to offset text and center it. The noindent class is obvious and the spacebreak class is for when you just want blank space for a spacebreak. H2 works for the chapter title.

One note. When you use a text-align: center, you also need to use a text-indent of 0 when the class is to be used with .

The rest of the classes can be made as you need them. Oh and for the copyright page, a font size of small is usually used. for paragraph spaces in the copyright page, a space of 0.8em works well with a font size of small. If you are using smallcaps, a font size of 0.8em works.

Code:

.smallcaps {
  font-size: 0.8em;
}

The idea is to make the code as simple as possible. It makes it easier for you to deal with it. also, by naming the classes in a logical manner, you will know what they mean when you look at the class names.

It's not hard. Once you make your CSS and you are happy with it, save it so you can use it again. But don't leave any unused classes in the CSS.

Now as to the graphics, you can do a lossless compression to remove anything that doesn't need to be there to make them smaller without changing the quality.

For the cover, a line height of 1600 is optimal. Amazon agrees with this in their guidelines. If your titlepage is a graphic image, again 1600 lines. The width is whatever it is based on 1600 lines.

And if you don't need ePub 3, make your eBook ePub 2.

Tex2002ans · 10-03-2019, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Can I just use the template (Sigil's defaults) and be okay? Thanks.

The defaults are perfectly fine/adequate... but with the extra lang + xml:lang in the <html>, they're "more right".

Sigil's default:

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

you just add the little:

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">

and you're good to go.

Sigil's default code is saying: "This is HTML... but I don't know which language this is."

All lang + xml:lang are doing is saying: "This is HTML AND it's in US English".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

instead of this:

Code:

<body lang="en-US" dir="ltr">

you don't need dir="ltr". That's already the defaults. The only time you would ever need to specify a dir is when you're working in right-to-left languages (like Hebrew, Arabic, [...]).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

I'm tired of having to tweak all this minutia, so when Turtle91 suggested an epub template, I was like, Yeah, I'm in.

You already have the same EPUB template you used for years and years... we've just updated it with a few chunks of slightly better (and admittedly slightly more confusing) code.

But once you understand what each little piece is doing, it becomes easier to "read through the Matrix". Kind of like when you learned the basics of Regex!

And once we get this new lang stuff drilled into your head, all you have to do is just remember to copy/paste it into your future books.

Doitsu · 10-04-2019, 02:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

So I set it up and when I need to (like adding the "AboutTheAuthor" html, which is always the same) add something I'll just copy and paste what I have between <body> and </body> into the template, which is Sigil's defaults. Is that good enough?

Shameless plug: you might find my EpubTemplate throwaway plugin helpful. It allows you to automatically add AboutTheAuthor pages, stylesheets and other boilerplate items to your epubs.
BTW, you can automatically add missing lang/xml:lang attributes with KevinH's Access-Aide plugin.

Hitch · 10-04-2019, 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Shameless plug: you might find my EpubTemplate throwaway plugin helpful. It allows you to automatically add AboutTheAuthor pages, stylesheets and other boilerplate items to your epubs.
BTW, you can automatically add missing lang/xml:lang attributes with KevinH's Access-Aide plugin.

OR, Gregg could just do what 99.999999% of writers do, and do the cursed thing in a word-processor, using styles and headings and then export it to HTML and then put it into Sigil, instead of trying to create it in Sigil in the first place, which seems like an unnecessary complication.

I mean...why is it better to copy-paste or whatever each chapter, each section, into some ePUB "template" than to format it correctly in the word processor in the first place and then just export-->Open in Sigil and separate the chapters? Isn't the former more laborious than the latter?

Hitch

Gregg Bell · 10-04-2019, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Setup in CSS a <body> and a style. Make what you use mostly.

This is what I use...

Code:

body {
  widows: 1;
  orphans: 1;
  margin-top: 0;
  margin-right: 0;
  margin-bottom: 0;
  margin-left: 0;
  text-align: justify;
}
p {
  margin-top: 0;
  margin-bottom: 0;
  text-indent: 1.2em;
}

It sets up no margins so apps/Readers that have margin setting can work properly. It has no line-height so apps/Readers what allow adjusting the line-height can do so. It also sets widows and orphans both to 1 otherwise, it doesn't look so good on screen. As for , it sets up to have an indent of 1.2em and no top/bottom margins as paragraphs spaces are not nice.

So you wrap each paragraph in text of the paragraph and just use when you need to such as a paragraph with no indents.

Here are some other classes that work...

Code:

.center {
  text-align: center;
  margin-top: 1em;
  margin-bottom: 1em;
  text-indent: 0;
}
.noindnt {
  text-indent: 0;
}
.spacebreak {
  padding-top: 2em;
  text-indent: 0;
}
h2 {
  margin-top: 1em;
  margin-bottom: 1em;
  text-align: center;
}

The center class is for when you want to offset text and center it. The noindent class is obvious and the spacebreak class is for when you just want blank space for a spacebreak. H2 works for the chapter title.

One note. When you use a text-align: center, you also need to use a text-indent of 0 when the class is to be used with .

The rest of the classes can be made as you need them. Oh and for the copyright page, a font size of small is usually used. for paragraph spaces in the copyright page, a space of 0.8em works well with a font size of small. If you are using smallcaps, a font size of 0.8em works.

Code:

.smallcaps {
  font-size: 0.8em;
}

The idea is to make the code as simple as possible. It makes it easier for you to deal with it. also, by naming the classes in a logical manner, you will know what they mean when you look at the class names.

It's not hard. Once you make your CSS and you are happy with it, save it so you can use it again. But don't leave any unused classes in the CSS.

Now as to the graphics, you can do a lossless compression to remove anything that doesn't need to be there to make them smaller without changing the quality.

For the cover, a line height of 1600 is optimal. Amazon agrees with this in their guidelines. If your titlepage is a graphic image, again 1600 lines. The width is whatever it is based on 1600 lines.

And if you don't need ePub 3, make your eBook ePub 2.

Hi Jon. Wow, thanks for sharing all that. And yes, I'm making ePub2. I already have a CSS that I use on every book and my cover is 1800X2700, but I will experiment with your CSS and other suggestions. Appreciate it.

Gregg Bell · 10-04-2019, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

The defaults are perfectly fine/adequate... but with the extra lang + xml:lang in the <html>, they're "more right".

Sigil's default:

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

you just add the little:

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">

and you're good to go.

Sigil's default code is saying: "This is HTML... but I don't know which language this is."

All lang + xml:lang are doing is saying: "This is HTML AND it's in US English".

you don't need dir="ltr". That's already the defaults. The only time you would ever need to specify a dir is when you're working in right-to-left languages (like Hebrew, Arabic, [...]).

You already have the same EPUB template you used for years and years... we've just updated it with a few chunks of slightly better (and admittedly slightly more confusing) code.

But once you understand what each little piece is doing, it becomes easier to "read through the Matrix". Kind of like when you learned the basics of Regex!

And once we get this new lang stuff drilled into your head, all you have to do is just remember to copy/paste it into your future books.

Thanks Tex. All right, this is the stuff that was confusing me. Here's the flow you're suggesting, right?

1) Open the html in Sigil
2) Set it up with all the html files (including AboutTheAuthor etc)
3) Do a Find (and Replace) with

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

and Replace with

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-US">

4)Do a Find (and Replace) with

Code:

<body lang="en-US" dir="ltr">

and Replace with

Code:

<body>

And that's, it, right?

Gregg Bell · 10-04-2019, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Shameless plug: you might find my EpubTemplate throwaway plugin helpful. It allows you to automatically add AboutTheAuthor pages, stylesheets and other boilerplate items to your epubs.
BTW, you can automatically add missing lang/xml:lang attributes with KevinH's Access-Aide plugin.

Shameless plug for a plug-in. LOL Kind of lyrical. Thanks Doitsu. But will those plug-ins work on a Linux computer?

Gregg Bell · 10-04-2019, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hitch

OR, Gregg could just do what 99.999999% of writers do, and do the cursed thing in a word-processor, using styles and headings and then export it to HTML and then put it into Sigil, instead of trying to create it in Sigil in the first place, which seems like an unnecessary complication.

Hi Hitch. Thanks. Actually ^ is what I do. I just heard about doing this epub.template and it sounded uber simple, but then when I realized I'd have to add all the html files I realized it wasn't so simple. I'll stay with the above method.

And the language thing (Tex is clarifying) threw me. I haven't done an epub in a while and I forgot what the suggestions were for doing the language stuff.

Hitch[/QUOTE]

Tex2002ans · 10-04-2019, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks Tex. All right, this is the stuff that was confusing me. Here's the flow you're suggesting, right?

Yep, that sounds correct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hitch

OR, Gregg could just do what 99.999999% of writers do, and do the cursed thing in a word-processor, using styles and headings and then export it to HTML and then put it into Sigil,

He's one of the unicorns now... properly using Styles in LibreOffice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hitch

instead of trying to create it in Sigil in the first place, which seems like an unnecessary complication.

I assume Gregg is using Sigil to append all the front/backmatter, then going in to do the minor tweaks to the HTML.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

And the language thing (Tex is clarifying) threw me. I haven't done an epub in a while and I forgot what the suggestions were for doing the language stuff.

You can always bookmark your old thread:

"Two Questions"

and look through it again whenever you make your next book.

PS. It looks like your old Post #12, you had the same exact dir="ltr" code.

I would recommend fixing all the code in this latest book... and use THIS EPUB as your "future template".

Doitsu · 10-04-2019, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Shameless plug for a plug-in. LOL Kind of lyrical. Thanks Doitsu. But will those plug-ins work on a Linux computer?

The plugin will also work with the Linux version. To access the EpubTemplate plugin resource folder, select Edit > Preferences > Open Preferences Location. Then click Plugins > EpubTemplate > resources.

Gregg Bell · 10-04-2019, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Yep, that sounds correct.

He's one of the unicorns now... properly using Styles in LibreOffice.

I assume Gregg is using Sigil to append all the front/backmatter, then going in to do the minor tweaks to the HTML.

You can always bookmark your old thread:

"Two Questions"

and look through it again whenever you make your next book.

PS. It looks like your old Post #12, you had the same exact dir="ltr" code.

I would recommend fixing all the code in this latest book... and use THIS EPUB as your "future template".

Thanks Tex. I searched like crazy for that "Two Questions" post. I must've passed it over though because I went all the way back to 2017. But yeah, great suggestion to bookmark stuff.

And thanks for the set-up stuff. I'm confident now (and I bookmarked and took a screenshot of the key stuff).

Gregg Bell · 10-04-2019, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doitsu

The plugin will also work with the Linux version. To access the EpubTemplate plugin resource folder, select Edit > Preferences > Open Preferences Location. Then click Plugins > EpubTemplate > resources.

Thanks Doitsu.

Turtle91 · 10-04-2019, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Hi Hitch. Thanks. Actually ^ is what I do. I just heard about doing this epub.template and it sounded uber simple, but then when I realized I'd have to add all the html files I realized it wasn't so simple.

I think there is a little confusion. My "template" (or the template plugin does the same thing) is just for the standard files that don't change - or have very little change - in the html code. You would still add your normal html file with all your chapters/text for each book.

for example - I usually start with a title page that looks something like this:

Spoiler:

...so when I start a new book, I just add or copy/paste the proper info, then add the html files (chapters) as needed.

Gregg Bell · 10-05-2019, 02:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turtle91

I think there is a little confusion. My "template" (or the template plugin does the same thing) is just for the standard files that don't change - or have very little change - in the html code. You would still add your normal html file with all your chapters/text for each book.

for example - I usually start with a title page that looks something like this:

Spoiler:

...so when I start a new book, I just add or copy/paste the proper info, then add the html files (chapters) as needed.

Hi Dion, Sorry that I described your template wrong. I see what you're saying with your example in the spoiler. But how do you add the html files (with the chapters) to the template?

10-03-2019, 08:02 PM	#2
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 73,970 Karma: 128903378 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	Setup in CSS a <body> and a <p> style. Make <p> what you use mostly. This is what I use... Code: body { widows: 1; orphans: 1; margin-top: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 0; text-align: justify; } p { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent: 1.2em; } It sets up no margins so apps/Readers that have margin setting can work properly. It has no line-height so apps/Readers what allow adjusting the line-height can do so. It also sets widows and orphans both to 1 otherwise, it doesn't look so good on screen. As for <p>, it sets up <p> to have an indent of 1.2em and no top/bottom margins as paragraphs spaces are not nice. So you wrap each paragraph in <p>text of the paragraph</p> and just use <p class="someclass"> when you need to such as a paragraph with no indents. Here are some other classes that work... Code: .center { text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; text-indent: 0; } .noindnt { text-indent: 0; } .spacebreak { padding-top: 2em; text-indent: 0; } h2 { margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: center; } The center class is for when you want to offset text and center it. The noindent class is obvious and the spacebreak class is for when you just want blank space for a spacebreak. H2 works for the chapter title. One note. When you use a text-align: center, you also need to use a text-indent of 0 when the class is to be used with <p>. The rest of the classes can be made as you need them. Oh and for the copyright page, a font size of small is usually used. for paragraph spaces in the copyright page, a space of 0.8em works well with a font size of small. If you are using smallcaps, a font size of 0.8em works. Code: .smallcaps { font-size: 0.8em; } The idea is to make the code as simple as possible. It makes it easier for you to deal with it. also, by naming the classes in a logical manner, you will know what they mean when you look at the class names. It's not hard. Once you make your CSS and you are happy with it, save it so you can use it again. But don't leave any unused classes in the CSS. Now as to the graphics, you can do a lossless compression to remove anything that doesn't need to be there to make them smaller without changing the quality. For the cover, a line height of 1600 is optimal. Amazon agrees with this in their guidelines. If your titlepage is a graphic image, again 1600 lines. The width is whatever it is based on 1600 lines. And if you don't need ePub 3, make your eBook ePub 2.

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10-03-2019, 07:25 PM	#1
Gregg Bell Gregg Bell Posts: 2,264 Karma: 3917588 Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Itasca, Illinois Device: Kindle Touch 7, Sony PRS300, Fire HD8 Tablet	Trying to simplify my work flow (confused about the heading/language again) I'm tired of having to tweak all this minutia, so when Turtle91 suggested an epub template, I was like, Yeah, I'm in. So I set it up and when I need to (like adding the "AboutTheAuthor" html, which is always the same) add something I'll just copy and paste what I have between <body> and </body> into the template, which is Sigil's defaults. Is that good enough? Because a while back I went through the heading and changed all the language stuff. Adding this: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-US"> instead of this: <body lang="en-US" dir="ltr"> Putting an ebook together seems like a quagmire now when it used to be so simple. Can I just use the template (Sigil's defaults) and be okay? Thanks.

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