Google Docs to EPUB? - Page 2

slowsmile · 04-10-2018, 11:15 PM

@wlashack...Your best bet would be to open your html doc in Sigil and work on it there. Before you do this you must ensure that you set Edit > Preferences > General Settings > Mend XHTML Source Code On: to Open and save. Then just load your Google HTML doc into Sigil. If you get any load errors then just allow Sigil to fix these errors. I would then run the CustomCleanerPlus plugin on it which should at least help to clean up your html and make it more easily readable. After that in Sigil you should be able to manually split the html into separate xhtml files, add metadata, add simple lists and reformat your epub how you like in html.

I would also agree with what Tex2002ans says -- Google html is almost garbage. Almost. The html styles section is just one big blob(no line-breaks and the html isn't much better). Their use of meaningless c2, c45, c103 style names(probably using Tidy) is also unimpressive. There are way too many kix list declarations in html styles(in fact more kix declarations than all the rest of the html style declarations combined). I delete all these unnecessary kix declarations in my plugins because I didn't want an over-bloated stylesheet after conversion. I've written two plugins that can convert Google html to epub(GoogleZipImport and HTML2Epub) and I think its fair enough to sum up and say that Google's html conversion is just a lazy mess. Another notable feature of their html conversion is that they don't even put a proper google identifier in the html meta tags. I can perhaps completely understand why they do this -- after all, who would want their name or monicker attached to such a poor, crappy conversion to html? And their conversion to epub is also an equally weak and lazy effort.

wlashack · 04-11-2018, 12:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

... mostly because the code generated from that Google Doc is horrifying. There is a giant block of hundreds of CSS classes all smushed together into a single line, and who knows what is in there:
Side Note: The CSS alone is about 6 times larger than your actual text... talk about a bloated mess!

Fortunately if you open Google Docs .epug file in calibre and push "Convert Books" button, you get the standard structure - HTML document + stylesheet.css where all styles are written one-by-one in an "intelligent" way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

I'm assuming what's causing the odd page breaks is the page-break-after:avoid floating around in there.

Thanks, I will try to remove these definitions.

slowsmile · 04-11-2018, 12:35 AM

@wlashack...I think that I've found a quicker way to resolve your problem.

Try this:

You will need Kindle Previewer 3, Diap's KindleImport plugin and Sigil.

* Open Kindle Previewer 3(KP3).

* Open KP3 and drag and drop your Google html doc into KP3 and allow it to convert to mobi.

* Save the mobi onto your desktop from KP3 by choosing File > Export

* After conversion and saving to mobi open Sigil and and choose Plugins > Input > KindleImport which will automatically convert the mobi file to a viable epub in Sigil.

From my own testing using the above method with your html doc, this gives a pretty good conversion to epub format.

I was also very surprised when I tried using the html doc in KP3 and it worked(it never worked before). This discovery was a fluke by the way.

wlashack · 04-11-2018, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowsmile

@wlashack...I think that I've found a quicker way to resolve your problem.

Hi, thanks, I give it a try. But I already found another easy way:

Download Google Document as .epub
Open in calibre and click "Convert book" button + Save
Open in Sigil and Find/Replace remove "page-break: avoid" tags from css.

It is quick, simple and works (finally!).

It needs some additional polish with margin tags settings but it is one-click action because of Sigil's "Saved Serches" function.

patrik · 04-11-2018, 03:13 AM

When I played around trying to get a google doc to an epub some time ago, I ended up saving it as a docx, and importing it into Sigil with the excellent plugin DOCXimport.

That was the easiest and cleanest way I found.

wlashack · 04-11-2018, 03:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patrik

When I played around trying to get a google doc to an epub some time ago, I ended up saving it as a docx, and importing it into Sigil with the excellent plugin DOCXimport.

That was the easiest and cleanest way I found.

I gave it a try now and yes - it is easy and clean code. BUT in the matter of bullets and numebered lists it does not keep the structure unfortunately.

BetterRed · 04-11-2018, 04:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wlashack

I gave it a try now and yes - it is easy and clean code. BUT in the matter of bullets and numebered lists it does not keep the structure unfortunately.

Try converting the DOCX with Calibre. Or importing into calibre's editor (File->Import...)

BR

wlashack · 04-11-2018, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Try converting the DOCX with Calibre. Or importing into calibre's editor (File->Import...)
BR

No, it does not give good results.

wlashack · 04-11-2018, 11:49 AM

I think it is time to sum up the topic:
First - thanks all for the tips/hints/advice. It helped a lot and led to a solution.

The best method to convert Google Doc to EPUB I found is:

Download Google Document as .epub
Open it in calibre and click "Convert book" button + Save
Open in Sigil and Find/Change remove "page-break: avoid" tags from css.
Make some other Find/Change operations if needed ("Saved Searches" function may be very useful here).

This method is quick, easy and produces fine results with relatively nice code.

THANKS TO ALL FOR HELP AND COOPERATION.

Tex2002ans · 04-11-2018, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wlashack

I think it is time to sum up the topic:
First - thanks all for the tips/hints/advice. It helped a lot and led to a solution.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wlashack

The best method to convert Google Doc to EPUB I found is:

Download Google Document as .epub
Open it in calibre and click "Convert book" button + Save
Open in Sigil and Find/Change remove "page-break: avoid" tags from css.
Make some other Find/Change operations if needed ("Saved Searches" function may be very useful here).

Just to note, this is just a better method for your specific document.* NOT as a general Google Docs -> EPUB.

I also noticed there was some page-break-inside + page-break-after which you may also want to remove. Those were what was probably causing Moon+ issues, because it looked like each list item had that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wlashack

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Try converting the DOCX with Calibre. Or importing into calibre's editor (File->Import...)

No, it does not give good results.

I just tested it, the Google Docs DOCX -> Calibre -> EPUB was ~ the same as the Google Docs EPUB -> Calibre -> EPUB.

... Still miles ahead of the code straight from the Google Docs EPUB.

04-10-2018, 11:15 PM	#16
slowsmile Witchman Posts: 628 Karma: 788808 Join Date: May 2013 Location: Philippines Device: Android S5	@wlashack...Your best bet would be to open your html doc in Sigil and work on it there. Before you do this you must ensure that you set Edit > Preferences > General Settings > Mend XHTML Source Code On: to Open and save. Then just load your Google HTML doc into Sigil. If you get any load errors then just allow Sigil to fix these errors. I would then run the CustomCleanerPlus plugin on it which should at least help to clean up your html and make it more easily readable. After that in Sigil you should be able to manually split the html into separate xhtml files, add metadata, add simple lists and reformat your epub how you like in html. I would also agree with what Tex2002ans says -- Google html is almost garbage. Almost. The html styles section is just one big blob(no line-breaks and the html isn't much better). Their use of meaningless c2, c45, c103 style names(probably using Tidy) is also unimpressive. There are way too many kix list declarations in html styles(in fact more kix declarations than all the rest of the html style declarations combined). I delete all these unnecessary kix declarations in my plugins because I didn't want an over-bloated stylesheet after conversion. I've written two plugins that can convert Google html to epub(GoogleZipImport and HTML2Epub) and I think its fair enough to sum up and say that Google's html conversion is just a lazy mess. Another notable feature of their html conversion is that they don't even put a proper google identifier in the html meta tags. I can perhaps completely understand why they do this -- after all, who would want their name or monicker attached to such a poor, crappy conversion to html? And their conversion to epub is also an equally weak and lazy effort. Last edited by slowsmile; 04-11-2018 at 12:01 AM.

04-11-2018, 12:35 AM	#18
slowsmile Witchman Posts: 628 Karma: 788808 Join Date: May 2013 Location: Philippines Device: Android S5	@wlashack...I think that I've found a quicker way to resolve your problem. Try this: You will need Kindle Previewer 3, Diap's KindleImport plugin and Sigil. * Open Kindle Previewer 3(KP3). * Open KP3 and drag and drop your Google html doc into KP3 and allow it to convert to mobi. * Save the mobi onto your desktop from KP3 by choosing File > Export * After conversion and saving to mobi open Sigil and and choose Plugins > Input > KindleImport which will automatically convert the mobi file to a viable epub in Sigil. From my own testing using the above method with your html doc, this gives a pretty good conversion to epub format. I was also very surprised when I tried using the html doc in KP3 and it worked(it never worked before). This discovery was a fluke by the way. Last edited by slowsmile; 04-11-2018 at 01:25 AM.

04-11-2018, 11:49 AM	#24
wlashack Member Posts: 20 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2018 Device: none	I think it is time to sum up the topic: First - thanks all for the tips/hints/advice. It helped a lot and led to a solution. The best method to convert Google Doc to EPUB I found is: Download Google Document as .epub Open it in calibre and click "Convert book" button + Save Open in Sigil and Find/Change remove "page-break: avoid" tags from css. Make some other Find/Change operations if needed ("Saved Searches" function may be very useful here). This method is quick, easy and produces fine results with relatively nice code. THANKS TO ALL FOR HELP AND COOPERATION.

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04-11-2018, 03:13 AM	#20
patrik Guru Posts: 653 Karma: 4568205 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Sweden Device: Kobo Forma	When I played around trying to get a google doc to an epub some time ago, I ended up saving it as a docx, and importing it into Sigil with the excellent plugin DOCXimport. That was the easiest and cleanest way I found.