On Monday, September 12, 2011 01:10:07 PM Rob Oakes wrote: > > Rob Oakes has also done some work along these lines, but starting > > with LyX's internal XHTML export. > > Yes, and still working on it. For plain vanilla books, LyX does a > fantastic job for exporting to XHTML (and from there to ePub).
Because my book was planned and built from the ground up to be a flow- text eBook on small reading devices, my book is incredibly plain- vanilla. To the point where I use all caps instead of emphasis. The most complicated thing I use is enumerate and itemize. > But > there are a couple of sticking points that aren't quite as > polished yet (mostly due to limitations in the current ePub). > > Specifically: > > EndNotes and Footnotes are a mess. I'm a little curious as to how > eLyXer handles them. I can't say, because I had no endnotes or footnotes. My thought pattern is even if I could make an eBook work with these, they might screw up on the target devices. > I've written some preliminary support into > the branch of LyX I hack on (https://launchpad.net/lyx-outline). > When specified, it converts FootNotes to EndNotes and places them > at the end of the file with a link. I'd be interested in other > strategies for dealing with the content. My strategy has been to phrase my content so that footnotes aren't necessary. It's not always easy. Footnotes sure are handy when you make an important point in a short sentence, but want to make available to the reader "the theory behind", for those readers who want more. Instead, I found other ways of writing the material. > > The other thing that I need to add is a method for resampling and > downsizing images, so that you can use LyX to target both Web and > Print from the same copy. My book has no images, in order to make things easy. But I anticipate future books requiring images, and when that time comes it will be nice if my conversion process does them right. Thank you! > Right now, I've been doing that via > branches. (With slightly different layouts for both.) But this > results in some duplicated text, which I consider to be a bad > thing. > > Eventually, I would like to build in native support for ePub right > into LyX. We've got most of the machinery all ready, but just > need to add a UI to it. Native ePub output would be incredibly studly, always assuming it's constructed in such a way to be non-garbage input for Kindle, iPad and Nook books. When LyX has ePub output suitable for input to Kindle, iPad and Nook, I can probably get a whole bunch of new LyX users, because LyX is probably the best for authoring flowable text eBooks. You know, the main disadvantage of LyX is how difficult it is to make new styles (environment and character styles), but with flowable text eBooks the need for additional styles is negligable, so in my opinion LyX is actually a better tool for flowable text eBooks than it is for print/pdf books, and I've been using LyX for print/pdf books for 9.8 years. > > Unfortunately, real world work has forced me away from side > projects, but it's something that I'm definitely working on. The real world! Can't live with it, can't live without it. Thank you, and every other LyX developer, for making this fantastic authoring tool! SteveT Steve Litt Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt
