Word macro for clean HTML code

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by mmat1

Give it a try

Sorry, still haven't tried. Will do so tonight. Promise.

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Originally Posted by Toxaris

I could, but I won't. I import the whole book into Sigil and I find it easier to work with as a whole. Splitting in chapters is one of my last steps actually.

no problem... It's the same.

And what about your last improvements?

[Toxaris]

They are mainly small ones. I actually have to see which version is here to be certain. I made some changes so it should also work on a Mac (not tested!) and with other regional settings. I know the last one sounds strange, but believe me in the fact that it matters.

[Toxaris]

New version on in the first post. Some minor changes and fixes. Centered text will be converted correctly.

@mmat1, your issue has been resolved. Thank you!

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Thank you very much! Just downloaded your last version.

Only one question. Are you interested in cleaning more your text before becoming a good HTML file? I'm thinking of "a double space" problem and similar one. What do you think about? May I write here some suggestions, if you are interested?

[Toxaris]

Suggestions are always welcome. You can also mention certain HTML entities you want to be transformed to their entity name. Sometimes that works better.
I am not aware of a double space problem. Double spaces are ignored by HTML and will be cleaned automatically upon importing into Sigil. Unless you mean something else of course.

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Thank you, I have sundry difficulties in english so I can use "strange" words. If so, please forgive me. My "two spaces problem" is surely a known case but as I'm describing it, maybe, seems an unknown one.

I'll try to tell you more.

When I'm preparing a book of mine, well, I'd like to save it in two formats. One in pdf, and the other in epub. 2 files from our docx file.

So I'd like to have a good cleaning text even in my Word file. In the mean time, if I transform in HTML a good text, it's possible to do lesser work than before...

The 2 spaces is only a no-required space before or after a "punctuation". The first example is when you have to close a sentence and you have a space before a point and a second space after that point. The first space is to be deleted.

I write here some examples about the space to be deleted:

Space before a point .
Space before a comma ,
Space before a semicolon ;
Space before the colon :
Space before the ellipsis (not always superfluous, mind you) ...
Space before the parenthesis (also applies to the square or curly) )
Space after the opening parenthesis (also applies to the square or curly) (
Space before a question mark ?
Space before an exclamation mark !
Space before the percent sign %
Space before guillemet closed '
Space after the quotes low open «

But I've seen another problem that it is present in a docx file. An example is when you write something in italics and your italics isn't finished at the end of a word but after a space or other puntuactions. So you can see in html, as follows:

<i>dfsfsf </i>dsdsad
<i>dfsfsf;</i> dsdsad
(<i>dfsfsf)</i> dsdsad

and so on. Not good, I think. There are all mistakes. The first with a space in italics, the second with puncuation in italics not required. An so on.

I'd like to know your opinion. I'd have other ideas but I'd like to know before your thoughts about what already said. I hope interesting.

[Toxaris]

Ok, I can see that you have issues with your punctuation. Resolving that is not always easy btw, since for some cases it is not a case of one s&r string fits all. I actually don't have these issues, since the HTML Export macro is actually my last step in Word. Before this I run several other macros. One prefix macro to solve a lot of standard issues with ABBYY exports. It fixes linebreaks and so on. Then I run a large S&R macro to fix a lot of formatting and OCR issues which can be changed rather dynamically. Then a macro to fix broken dialogues and at last one to check all accented words (typical OCR errors).
So, for me most of the errors you describe are solved. I haven't shared these macro's, since I am only co-author of these or just plain advisor.

Now, your issue with italics are a little different. Your first issue is solved by importing the HTML into Sigil. The second and third one are quite complex, there can be cases when this is correct. Also I feel that this actually should not be in this macro. This macro is to create clean HTML, not to solve formatting issues.

That being said, a macro could be written to solve these kind of issues. Whether I would have the time, that is another.

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Another problem that I have is about the book mistakes: mistakes by the editors of the book. One is when they forget to close the « or " and so I have to check Always a book for correcting this problem, if exists because I can do this work and I can find out that all is right... :-O Also this can happen.

And yes there are different problems explained in my posts, it isn't only about the resulting html file. Thank you for you reply, very appreciated!

[Toxaris]

That is a classic example of a missing dialogue quote. I have a macro for that, but I haven't made it available. It catches al instances, but in some books it doesn't work because of the style. For example for an extended dialogue on a new line starts with an opening quote without closing it on the line above. The macro does help, but cannot auto correct that.

This particular macro made me see just how much physical books mess up the quotes.

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The real problem is that a Macro needs a Visual Basic knowledge...

[Toxaris]

That is not a problem, if you have that knowledge... Basically a macro automates a lot of steps, but some are much more sophisticated than others. The dialogue macro needs an overhaul in my mind and perhaps I will publish it when finished.

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When ready I'll be here

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Help! I don't know why but using your Macro I've find out a problem: all « or » become simple "



I can't have got a conversion like this one as in my old books the «» are for the direct saying and all "" are when you're thinking.

How can you avoid this automatic conversion in your macro? Is it possible to choose what you'd like to see or not?

If you need I can attach here (if I have this permission in this forum a single page doc for example).

[Toxaris]

Can you sent me an example file? It should not touch those characters at all.