Manuals in ePub format?

It's true that Sigil is very useful for refining the structure of epub
files converted from other file formats. I use Sigil to "clean up" the
many epub files I originally create with Writer. Like others here, I
have experimented with various ways of converting the User Guides to
epub, with much the same results. The issue is that the template used to
create the guides includes many styles and formatting arrangements which
do not readily translate into the limited number of xhtml tags used in
epub documents. While it is definitely possible to work on converted
guides using Sigil, the amount of editing work involved would be more
than that required to recreate the guides in Writer using an epub
"friendly" template of styles. Even then I doubt that the resulting epub
edition would have the same aesthetics and quality of the originals.

If I can find some time (a commodity in short supply) over the next
week, I will try experimenting with some alternative conversion methods
and report back if I find anything that might be worth considering.

Dave

Hello

I agree with you Dave.

The Ooo styles names in the LO templates need to be changed into the “standard”names already used in several software packages, such as Heading 1, Heading 2 and so on. When I created my sample in iBooks Author it was reasonably easy to convert style names to ones generally used. This meant copying and pasting each individual paragraph, then create a the style from the paragraph attributes. You only have to do this once for each style as you can then copy all the text in and allocate the new styles to the paragraphs. However, each graphic had to be copied and pasted individually.

My sample is not perfect, but I think with a little thought we can create a good looking ePub format document that closely resembles the PDF and ODT versions of the user guides.

I am now going to create a sample using Sigil that was suggested by Martin Saffron. Watch this space and you will see my attempt.

Peter Schofield
psauthor@libreoffice.org

Hello

Another sample of an LO chapter in ePub format at the following link to my
Dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xick4zzbzc4peny/test%20chapter.epub

This sample was created as a blank document in LO Writer and using standard
style names where possible, for example Heading 1, Heading 2,Text Body, and
so on. I did create a couple of styles to use for the note and tip that are
in the sample. I then used to eLAIX toolbar in LO Writer when formatting the
text and exporting to ePub format.

There is a couple of points to note if we are going to use ePub format for
our guides:

1. The font will change to Times when exporting, but relevant font size and
colour are kept.
2. Any figures cannot be placed in LO frames, but have to be inserted
without a frame to show after ePub conversion.
3. You cannot use tables for Notes, Tips, or Cautions because you cannot
control the width of the table when you export. This is why they appear a
little different in the sample.
4. What you see will depend on your display resolution and size. Also the
size of the window when you open the sample in an ePub reader will affect
how it looks. The ePub format is a flexible format that changes to suit when
a reader opens a file.
5. Any template for creating an ePub guide is going to have to be very
simple so that it does run foul of the restricted formatting used when
creating this type of document.

Does anybody know of an ePub creator that is free and easy to use, that is
not having to enter HTML code to get the right format to display when you
create an ePub document. I have tried Sigil, which is not bad, but still
trying to work out how to use it correctly.

Please let me know what you think.

Regards

PeterS

Forgot to add one thing.

You cannot simply open an LO document that has been created using the LO
chapter template. There is too much junk HTML code that causes problems when
you convert to ePub format. I started with using New to create a blank
document and copied a plain text version of the chapter into the new
document to help get rid of some of the junk HTML code.

Regards

PeterS

When you use free software, you often get what you paid for. Myself, I would prefer owning a motor vehicle that was not free, if reliability and ease of operation were desired--at a moderate cost.

The following URL links to a recent review of proprietary eBook-publishing software:
http://ebooks-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

Gary

Hello Gary

I have checked that review list you sent. The software looks interesting, but I am a Mac user and the software mentioned in the review are for Windows. I should have said that I am looking for an ePub creator program that is compatible with Mac OS.

Peter Schofield

At a cost outlay of $20, I'll likely test that #1-rated app (whose four ratings parameters were all 10s) myself, once I get time after finishing up my own numerous leisure-time projects.

There seem to be several Mac eBook converters out there, of which some are freeware. Don't Macs still have decent Wintel emulators?

As far as style names for LO/OO templates go, for many reasons some three years ago I switched over to employing those factory-default style names that MS Word employs wherever possible--primarily because more authors/editors would use them than LO/OO. Only rarely is there a need to employ custom style names--just redefine the parameters of the defaults instead. In a similar fashion, the developers of various converters and other apps would likely also use the Word default style names with their own apps.

Gary

Another sample of an LO chapter in ePub format...
This sample was created as a blank document in LO Writer and using standard
style names where possible, for example Heading 1, Heading 2,Text Body, and
so on. I did create a couple of styles to use for the note and tip that are
in the sample. I then used to eLAIX toolbar in LO Writer when formatting the
text and exporting to ePub format.

Neat!

I see that the hyperlinks in the ToC on the last page are clickable,
but those on page #2 are not. I had the same experience with the eLAIX
extension. Calibre's converter was able to turn those into proper
hyperlinks.

There is a couple of points to note if we are going to use ePub format for
our guides:

1. The font will change to Times when exporting, but relevant font size and
colour are kept.

Any particular reason for this one? I believe that one can embed
fonts, etc.. into EPUB docs.

2. Any figures cannot be placed in LO frames, but have to be inserted
without a frame to show after ePub conversion.
3. You cannot use tables for Notes, Tips, or Cautions because you cannot
control the width of the table when you export. This is why they appear a
little different in the sample.
4. What you see will depend on your display resolution and size. Also the
size of the window when you open the sample in an ePub reader will affect
how it looks. The ePub format is a flexible format that changes to suit when
a reader opens a file.
5. Any template for creating an ePub guide is going to have to be very
simple so that it does run foul of the restricted formatting used when
creating this type of document.

Some of these sound like direct limitations, but some might just be a
reflection on the current conversion process. When using Calibre to
transform ODT -> EPUB, one can specify a separate CSS file. Perhaps we
can bridge some of these problems using similar, automated means.

Best,
--R

When MS Word and other documents are converted to (X)HTML files without style sheets, every element in the document is individually directly formatted, which is very inefficient--as you likely already know. So, yes indeed, something like CSS files are almost a practical necessity.

Gary

If possible, we should choose a solution that is free/libre open source
software and runs on all three major platforms, so that any and all
volunteers who wish to do this can use the same tool, without expense.

Of course, if that ideal is not a choice, then other solutions must be
considered.

The other consideration is that the tool should be easy to use and require
minimal (preferably no) manual intervention to prepare for the
conversion* or clean up the results. This is for purely practical reasons:
if much work is involved, it won't get done regularly for updated
books, after the first flush of enthusiasm wears off.

* Other than moving the source files (ODT) out of our current template
and into a suitable template and using those new source files for
generating PDF, ePub, whatever. That's a big job but should only need to be
done once.

--Jean

That highly rated Wintel app comes in three versions, ranging from its PRO @ $20, a STANDARD @ $13, and a free version. The two nonfreeware versions have trial downloads.
http://www.ebookmaestro.com/
http://www.ebookmaestro.com/versions.html

Gary

If possible, we should choose a solution that is free/libre open source
software and runs on all three major platforms, so that any and all
volunteers who wish to do this can use the same tool, without expense.

+1

Of course, if that ideal is not a choice, then other solutions must be
considered.

We do indeed have some non-free software in our tooling (e.g. Visual
Studio for Windows builds), but I agree that we should seek to avoid
or minimize it as much as we can, especially when the output files are
intended for all platforms.

The other consideration is that the tool should be easy to use and require
minimal (preferably no) manual intervention to prepare for the
conversion* or clean up the results. This is for purely practical reasons:
if much work is involved, it won't get done regularly for updated
books, after the first flush of enthusiasm wears off.

I wholly agree here -- ideally we'd have a one-click script that would
take as an argument one or more ODT files and produce PDFs and EPUBs
out the other side.

* Other than moving the source files (ODT) out of our current template
and into a suitable template and using those new source files for
generating PDF, ePub, whatever. That's a big job but should only need to be
done once.

True. To be efficient, we should figure out our workflow before we
spend a lot of time modifying each source file.

Given that we author the manuals in LibreOffice and use the same to
generate PDFs, it would be easiest for initial set-up and maintenance
to use the same tool to generate EPUBs. I'll chat with both the author
of eLAIX and the Document Liberation team and see if either of them is
interested in helping build/improve EPUB export specifically for our
manuals.

Best,
--R

Hello

Just done another little test using Calibre to convert an ODT file straight
into ePub format. The results look promising using a simplified template as
as the figures in frames are retained and the format looks reasonable. See
the following sample at the following link to my Dropbox. The sample is not
perfect, but gives the idea.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/adwaebcgmvymp8o/calibre%20test%20chapter%20-%20Peter%20Schofield.epub

I did try this Calibre conversion using an ODT file that uses the LO chapter
template. The result was not good as the format goes haywire and would
definitely not be acceptable as a published book.

My conclusion is that the LO templates have to be simplified and follow the
convention in general use for paragraph and character style names.

One thing I found in creating my simplified template is not to use the
list/numbering styles that are available. I used the Bullets On/Off and
Numbering On/Off tools that are available on the LO Formatting toolbar.

However, after reading the comments in this discussion about the time
involved to do conversions, do we really have to convert our guides into
ePub format. We already have the guides in PDF format which can be easily
used as an epub book format and all the formatting is retained. You need to
use readers for any epub book and most people have a PDF reader installed on
their computer. Just playing devil's advocate with this thought.

Regards

PeterS

Hi :slight_smile:
I thought work was already under-way to simplify the templates and give
them a fresh start on a more recent version of LIbreOffice?

Sounds like this initiative will help that process. 2 birds, one stone.
Good work!! :smiley:
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi all,
As promised, I pinged both the DLP folks and eLAIX developer Harry
Boldt. The DLP has started on EPUB import, but no export work as of
yet:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/DLP/Libraries#epub

Boldt has been very helpful, providing me with a couple development
builds, making some improvements to eLAIX to better convert our
particular use cases, and sharing some hints about the best way for us
to format our ODTs to improve the resulting EPUB output.

I'll be posting some more examples of EPUB output on the wiki soon.
Your help in identifying output problems will be greatly appreciated.
My hope is that we can iterate on the extension and the
IntroducingLibreOffice.odt file at the same time until we reach a
result that we like, then update the rest of our ODT source files
using the same modifications.

Question: Where does the development version of the 'Introducing
LibreOffice' file live on ODF Authors? (i.e. the "master" branch)
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:GS4201-IntroducingLibreOffice.odt

Thanks,
--R

Hello R

I have the original LO4.2 ODT file for this chapter being the lucky
volunteer who created it. The published version of the file can be found at
the following link:

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications

Hope that helps.

The more I delve into EPUB format, the more I think that it is not a very
good format to use. I have looked at several books now and have found the
format a little wanting and very amateurish when compared to a PDF version
or a printed book. My opinion does take into account that any e-book format
has to cope with different operating systems and display size and
resolution. You have no control over the format of text,tables, etc and no
control over the page layout.

However, if the eLAIX people can develop something that improves format and
layout control, then I am willing to test it to see if it improves my
opinion. It could be worthwhile going into EPUB books so long as the
conversion is easy and does not take a great deal of time to prepare an EPUB
book for publishing.

Regards

PeterS

Given that we author the manuals in LibreOffice and use the same to
generate PDFs, it would be easiest for initial set-up and maintenance
to use the same tool to generate EPUBs. I'll chat with both the author
of eLAIX and the Document Liberation team and see if either of them is
interested in helping build/improve EPUB export specifically for our
manuals.

Hi all,
As promised, I pinged both the DLP folks and eLAIX developer Harry
Boldt. The DLP has started on EPUB import, but no export work as of
yet:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/DLP/Libraries#epub

Boldt has been very helpful, providing me with a couple development
builds, making some improvements to eLAIX to better convert our
particular use cases, and sharing some hints about the best way for us
to format our ODTs to improve the resulting EPUB output.

I'll be posting some more examples of EPUB output on the wiki soon.
Your help in identifying output problems will be greatly appreciated.
My hope is that we can iterate on the extension and the
IntroducingLibreOffice.odt file at the same time until we reach a
result that we like, then update the rest of our ODT source files
using the same modifications.

Thanks for all your work on this. I'm glad you've kickstarted this
topic again, and are following through so vigorously. I hope we can
carry it through to some positive resolution this time, instead of
having it fall by the wayside as has happened several times before.

Question: Where does the development version of the 'Introducing
LibreOffice' file live on ODF Authors? (i.e. the "master" branch)
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:GS4201-IntroducingLibreOffice.odt

This folder has several subfolders with chapters at various stages of
development.
http://www.odfauthors.org/libreoffice/english/getting-started

That particular file has been published for LOv4.2, so it is also on the wiki.

--Jean

Hello R

I have the original LO4.2 ODT file for this chapter being the lucky volunteer who created it. The published version of the file can be found at the following link:

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications

Hope that helps.

The more I delve into EPUB format, the more I think that it is not a very good format to use. I have looked at several books now and have found the format a little wanting and very amateurish when compared to a PDF version or a printed book. My opinion does take into account that any e-book format has to cope with different operating systems and display size and resolution. You have no control over the format of text,tables, etc and no control over the page layout.

However, if the eLAIX people can develop something that improves format and layout control, then I am willing to test it to see if it improves my opinion. It could be worthwhile going into EPUB books so long as the conversion is easy and does not take a great deal of time to prepare an EPUB book for publishing.

Regards

PeterS
Peter Schofield
psauthor@libreoffice.org

Thanks for all your work on this. I'm glad you've kickstarted this
topic again, and are following through so vigorously. I hope we can
carry it through to some positive resolution this time, instead of
having it fall by the wayside as has happened several times before.

Update time!

I've made a few more tests and changed some Tab-based layout to
table-based layout (which is much more HTML/EPUB-friendly). See the
tests referencing 'Boldt' (Harry Boldt is the developer of eLAIX)
here:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/EPUB/Converting_ODF_to_EPUB#Tools

However, if the eLAIX people can develop something that improves format and layout control, then I am willing to test it to see if it improves my opinion. It could be worthwhile going into EPUB books so long as the conversion is easy and does not take a great deal of time to prepare an EPUB book for publishing.

Boldt is working on a new version of eLAIX that will hopefully address
even more of the little problems we've identified in the EPUB output.
I'll give another ping when that version is released, and perhaps
PeterS can take the lead here in evaluating what we might need to do
to our templates to make "1-click" PDF and EPUB output possible.

Cheers,
--R

Hello R

What I would like to see is good format control during conversion to an ebook format, which is where using PDF scores the best. The ePub format and other ebook formats have no real control over format and seem not to understand things like “Keep with next paragraph” for headings and they definitely lose their way when it comes to tabs or tables.

Using PDF we retain good format control and the guides have a good professional look to them. This is something that is important because it does give good impressions to the end user of LibreOffice.

I am working on a simplified book template taking away all the OOo styles and using standard names wherever possible. Need to add another chapter before I can send out a sample for comment and review.

Regards

Peter Schofield
psauthor@libreoffice.org