Writing straight into Sigil

[benkuttner]

Has anyone written a novel length ebook straight into Sigil? (not through Scrivener, for instance, then moved it to Sigil for ebook creation)

I was thinking of giving it a go, but what's holding me back is if you have split your chapters into individual .xhtml files I cannot see a way to view all the text in every .xhtml file as one continuous document for editing purposes. Like you can in Scrivener.

Thanks (- new to this forum and Sigil)

[KevinH]

I would not recommend it. I would use Word or OpenOffice/LibreOffice and be careful to use proper styles while taking advantage of all of the features Word has to offer to authors. You can then convert your book to filtered html and import it into Sigil, or use Calibre to convert the .docx, or use any of the input plugins that Sigil has to do the conversion, and there are other conversion programs as well.

[theducks]

I second the 'not recommended'
And a definite NO for anything other than fixing a typo using the Book view.
I use it to LOCATE (set the cursor point), the switch to CV and avoid any artifacts (code mess) that editing in BV seems to hit me with.
I mostly leave the Preview pane (F10) up on the second monitor .
I only use BV to find code e(pink box) errors, which I manually fix.

[benkuttner]

Thank you both. I agree. I'll use Sigil solely as an ebook creator. It's a pity that there's not an all in one solution.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by benkuttner

Thank you both. I agree. I'll use Sigil solely as an ebook creator. It's a pity that there's not an all in one solution.

There are more than a few "all in one solutions." Most of them are paid, and, quite frankly, aren't that great at one aspect or the other. There's Jutoh, which makes perfectly decent ebooks, but I think most people find it a bit problematic as a word-processor. There's Atlantis Word Processor. There's Scrivener.

All three of those allow you to type away and then push a button, and VOILA!!!, out pops an eBook. IIRC, they each sell for the princely sum of ~$40.00.

I, for one, infinitely prefer that each application sticks to what it's good at doing.

Hitch

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Hitch

[. . .]
I, for one, infinitely prefer that each application sticks to what it's good at doing.

to that

And Ditto as a clipboard extender and lightweight global snippets manager ain't half bad, and its buckshee.

If one has MS Word, there's also Tox's ePub-Tools. Includes a raft of other useful features like Dialogue Quote Checking, Word/phrase marking, etc. Even if you don't use it's ePUB creation feature it is worth having... assuming one has MS Word.

BR

[exaltedwombat]

If you're going to work exclusively in Sigil, use Code View. You'll then be in the same position as a user of the first word processors, where control codes, similar to HTML markup, had to be explicitly entered inline with the text. This would not be a ridiculous way to work, particularly for a book where layout was an integral part of the message. You have the advantage of the Preview Pane showing the result.

Clicking on the next xhtml file to view the next chapter isn't really such a big deal, is it?

For proof-reading (however the epub was constructed) I often make a copy of the epub file and open it in ADE on my second screen. It's good to see what another program makes of the epub code, and good to see line-wrap errors that may have been not apparent in Sigil. Errors can be immediately corrected in Sigil. (You have to display a copy file in ADE, otherwise saving an edit in Sigil will confuse and crash the same file open in ADE.)

Don't even consider this method unless you're comfortable in Code View. Really, don't use Sigil at all unless you're comfortable in Code View. Just write your book in your favourite WP program, whether it be WordPad, Word or anything inbetween; resist the temptation to use strings of space characters to control indents, centering etc. and throw it into Calibre for automatic conversion to epub. It'll come out just fine.

[KevinH]

Or use any of the import plugins that exist for Sigil just for this purpose.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

If you're going to work exclusively in Sigil, use Code View. You'll then be in the same position as a user of the first word processors, where control codes, similar to HTML markup, had to be explicitly entered inline with the text. This would not be a ridiculous way to work, particularly for a book where layout was an integral part of the message. You have the advantage of the Preview Pane showing the result.

EW: what a brill comment. I'd totally spaced that, for example, the original IBM OS/6's used to be like this, and of course, Wordstar and WordPerfect (still my personal fave, to this day), etc. Really great observation.

Clicking on the next xhtml file to view the next chapter isn't really such a big deal, is it?

OR, just put in the break commands, and work in it in a single file, until you're ready to break it out into the separate chapters. That's not that hard, either.

For proof-reading (however the epub was constructed) I often make a copy of the epub file and open it in ADE on my second screen. It's good to see what another program makes of the epub code, and good to see line-wrap errors that may have been not apparent in Sigil. Errors can be immediately corrected in Sigil. (You have to display a copy file in ADE, otherwise saving an edit in Sigil will confuse and crash the same file open in ADE.)

Also very clever. I confess, although I've done this for this or that, I don't do it on a regular basis, and I ought. (Of course, that would imply that I'm still making books regularly, and implying that would be a fib, at best. In fact, the last time I said I was going to make the obscenely high number of edits a recent book here had, my crew mutinied and told me that if I touched the file, they were leaving. In my defense, they didn't say it was because I'd wreck it. They said, and I quote "you will be cranky." It perturbs me a bit to think that my crank is worth a mutiny....that makes it sound like I'm not a wonderful boss. That can't be right, right?)

Don't even consider this method unless you're comfortable in Code View. Really, don't use Sigil at all unless you're comfortable in Code View. Just write your book in your favourite WP program, whether it be WordPad, Word or anything inbetween; resist the temptation to use strings of space characters to control indents, centering etc. and throw it into Calibre for automatic conversion to epub. It'll come out just fine.

OK, I confess, I was tempted to break this paragraph into parts, and type "Just don't use Sigil." But that would be wrong...

Don't forget, don't use TABS, either, or columns. Neither exists in eBooks, not for a beginner. (A beginner to coding, I mean. You could be James Michener, as a writer, for all we know.)

Originally Posted by KevinH

Or use any of the import plugins that exist for Sigil just for this purpose.

Another EXCELLENT comment. Toxaris' plugin for Word is damn near as close to a magic push-button solution as exists, at this time, for Word-->eBook.

Hitch

[Notjohn]

To this day, I still create all my web pages in WordStar "non-document mode," which is just about the same thing as writing a book in Sigil Code View. But for a book, and sometimes for a first draft for a complicated web page, I start out in WordStar "document mode" because it's ever so much faster for editing. The file has the extension *.ws7, which (with a Microsoft add-in) enables it to be opened in Word. I also have a WS add-in for Word, so most (but not all, and not as brilliantly executed) WordStar editing commands are still available to me. Then I use an online service to get clean html (Word's html is pretty awful IMHO) which I open in or paste into Sigil. Seems complex, but faster and easier for me.

I agree that the search for an all-in-one solution is a honey trap. Much better to find the combination that works for you, then perfect that combination.

Oh, and for the print edition I open that same Word doc in OpenOffice Writer, which I find (again) faster & easier for me. And makes a splendid PDF of the perfected book.

If you happen to be a Mac user, Mac-happy author-publishers are insanely in love with Vellum for making ebooks. But then they're insane about almost anything Mac-worthy.

[WS64]

Originally Posted by benkuttner

I was thinking of giving it a go, but what's holding me back is if you have split your chapters into individual .xhtml files I cannot see a way to view all the text in every .xhtml file as one continuous document for editing purposes.

So why split your chapters into individual files? Simply don't. Just leave Sigil markers at the chapter beginings.
When you're done writing and the book is nearly finished use "split at markers".