PING Dan Lewis: ePub creation

Dan,

Recently you published an ePub version of Getting Started with Base.
You mentioned using Calibre and Sigil to create it. I was very
impressed with the result (much better than any other ePub conversion
of a user guide chapter that I've seen). I would be very grateful to
have some instruction in what to do and how to do it... or even just a
few pointers... if and when you have a chance to provide that info.
Thanks!

--Jean

Easy part:
     (1) Add the book to Calibre's library. [You might want to create a
genre for the ODF books.]
     (2) Convert each masterbook to ePUB format using Calibre.
Hard part using Sigil:
     This part involves editing the XML of the masterbook since Calibre
leaves something to be desired when it comes to converting .odt
to .ePUB. The XML reminds me of the HTML produced by OOo Writer/Web:
extra things are added. These extras need to be removed. The stylesheet
will need some of its entries modified and some new entries need to be
made.
     The main thing to remember is that this takes time, lots of time.
What you saw was the result of perhaps 6-10 hours of editing. Sigil
divides the book into multiple XML files. The editing of the XML has to
be done one file at a time. Find and replace are very useful, and I use
this as much as possible.
     What I really need to do is to write what I have done using our
chapter template complete with screenshots. Especially in this case,
pictures describe things better than words. I'll see what I can do.

--Dan

I have begun this project. The Alfresco now has the beginning draft
of it in the Resources folder. So far, I have covered how to change the
title page to what it should be, the Copyright page, and the Contents
page (TOC). Tomorrow I will begin working on how to make the text look
more like it should.
     I had to add a heading style to the style sheet to make the title
page correct. There will be more styles that will have to be added in a
similar way to the stylesheet.css file.
     The <ol>, <li>, and <ul> tags are not always where they should be
so this has to be changed. With the additional styles, some of the
classes are also changed.
     I find that styles in xhtml is very similar to what we have been
doing with styles for our documentation. Perhaps you will see this when
I have gone further in this project.

--Dan

Dan,
Thank you so very much for doing this! I'm generally familiar with css
and xhtml coding, but have not taken the time to get into the details
of making it all work for our books. You're going to save me hours (or
days) of work.

--Jean

I did not notice that you had revised what I wrote. Just now I
uploaded a thorough rewrite. It is better organized and contains much
more materials. I think the directions in this revision may save you
even more time. Meanwhile, I will study your revisions to see how to
combine them with mine.
     This has been very thought provoking. One of the things that I'm
wondering about is the style sheet used in ePUB. How many of the styles
especially the graphics frame styles (for example, .G-fr) are really
needed. It should be possible to create a style sheet with all the OOo
styles without all the others. Sigil permits replacing the present
stylesheet.ccs file with one of our own choosing. Of course if that is
done, then this requires using find and replace to change the styles in
the code. Ah, one can dream! That would take some time, but it might
also save time in the long run perhaps.

--Dan

Further update. I just remembered that I may have left out
something important in the file I uploaded that was included in the
original: the coding for a graphic in a frame. If so, I will correct
that mistake in the morning. (My bed time) I have not yet fully
addressed the <ol> or <ul> tags especially when there are multiple list
tags such as:
    <ol class="OOoNum123>
      <li>
        <ol class="OOoNumabc>
          <li>
            <p class="P-OOoNum"> something. </p>
          </li>
        </ol>
      <li>
    </ol>

This produces:
     1 a something. (This is not what we want.)
           a something. This is what we would get if the first <ol>
and <li> tags had not been added by Calibre.

--Dan

I made no revisions to your article. Perhaps someone else did?

I'll d/l your latest iteration. Thanks again.

--Jean