Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Guenter Milde]

On 2011-09-11, Richard Heck wrote:
 On 09/11/2011 03:14 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

 The man page shows the --export option but fails to list all the
 possible values for fmt. I'd like to see that list added to the man
 page.

 Impossible, since what formats are available depends upon what
 converters you have installed. 

However, we could list the internal export options (pdflatex, latex,
xetex, HTML) as core export options.


 Maybe there should, though, be a command
 line option that would give you a list of these. Easy to implement.

Yes

Günter

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Rob Oakes]

 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). 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'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.

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. 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.

Unfortunately, real world work has forced me away from side projects, but it's 
something that I'm definitely working on.

Cheers,

Rob

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

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

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Richard Heck]

On 09/12/2011 01:10 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). 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'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.
Last time I looked, elyxer did pretty much the same sort of thing, but 
had footnotes styled with things like float: right;, rather than with 
the appearing and disappearing act they do in LyX. But the real issue, 
as we discussed before, is somehow to defer them to the end.



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. 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.

Unfortunately, real world work has forced me away from side projects, but it's 
something that I'm definitely working on.
I'll see if I can't sort out the footnote issue at some point. Last I 
thought about it, it didn't seem as hard as I'd thought, since we do 
have a list of all the footnotes in the TOC


Richard

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Alex Fernandez]

Hi,

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 11:11 PM, Richard Heck rgh...@comcast.net wrote:
 Last time I looked, elyxer did pretty much the same sort of thing, but had
 footnotes styled with things like float: right;, rather than with the
 appearing and disappearing act they do in LyX. But the real issue, as we
 discussed before, is somehow to defer them to the end.

Actually, with eLyXer you can choose several styles for your footnotes:
  - hover, where the footnote appears when you place the pointer over them;
  - margin, where they appear on the right;
  - and end, where they are deferred to the end.
They can be combined so footnotes appear at several places.

Allow me to refer you to the relevant section of the user guide:
  http://elyxer.nongnu.org/userguide.html#sub:Footnotes

Alex.

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Guenter Milde]

On 2011-09-11, Richard Heck wrote:
 On 09/11/2011 03:14 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

 The man page shows the --export option but fails to list all the
 possible values for fmt. I'd like to see that list added to the man
 page.

 Impossible, since what formats are available depends upon what
 converters you have installed. 

However, we could list the internal export options (pdflatex, latex,
xetex, HTML) as core export options.


 Maybe there should, though, be a command
 line option that would give you a list of these. Easy to implement.

Yes

Günter

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Rob Oakes]

 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). 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'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.

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. 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.

Unfortunately, real world work has forced me away from side projects, but it's 
something that I'm definitely working on.

Cheers,

Rob

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

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

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Richard Heck]

On 09/12/2011 01:10 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). 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'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.
Last time I looked, elyxer did pretty much the same sort of thing, but 
had footnotes styled with things like float: right;, rather than with 
the appearing and disappearing act they do in LyX. But the real issue, 
as we discussed before, is somehow to defer them to the end.



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. 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.

Unfortunately, real world work has forced me away from side projects, but it's 
something that I'm definitely working on.
I'll see if I can't sort out the footnote issue at some point. Last I 
thought about it, it didn't seem as hard as I'd thought, since we do 
have a list of all the footnotes in the TOC


Richard

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Alex Fernandez]

Hi,

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 11:11 PM, Richard Heck rgh...@comcast.net wrote:
 Last time I looked, elyxer did pretty much the same sort of thing, but had
 footnotes styled with things like float: right;, rather than with the
 appearing and disappearing act they do in LyX. But the real issue, as we
 discussed before, is somehow to defer them to the end.

Actually, with eLyXer you can choose several styles for your footnotes:
  - hover, where the footnote appears when you place the pointer over them;
  - margin, where they appear on the right;
  - and end, where they are deferred to the end.
They can be combined so footnotes appear at several places.

Allow me to refer you to the relevant section of the user guide:
  http://elyxer.nongnu.org/userguide.html#sub:Footnotes

Alex.

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Guenter Milde]

On 2011-09-11, Richard Heck wrote:
> On 09/11/2011 03:14 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

>> The man page shows the --export option but fails to list all the
>> possible values for fmt. I'd like to see that list added to the man
>> page.

> Impossible, since what formats are available depends upon what
> converters you have installed. 

However, we could list the "internal" export options (pdflatex, latex,
xetex, HTML) as "core export options".


> Maybe there should, though, be a command
> line option that would give you a list of these. Easy to implement.

Yes

Günter

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Rob Oakes]

> 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). 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'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.

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. 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.

Unfortunately, real world work has forced me away from side projects, but it's 
something that I'm definitely working on.

Cheers,

Rob

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

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

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Richard Heck]

On 09/12/2011 01:10 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). 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'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.
Last time I looked, elyxer did pretty much the same sort of thing, but 
had footnotes styled with things like "float: right;", rather than with 
the appearing and disappearing act they do in LyX. But the real issue, 
as we discussed before, is somehow to defer them to the end.



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. 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.

Unfortunately, real world work has forced me away from side projects, but it's 
something that I'm definitely working on.
I'll see if I can't sort out the footnote issue at some point. Last I 
thought about it, it didn't seem as hard as I'd thought, since we do 
have a list of all the footnotes in the TOC


Richard

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Alex Fernandez]

Hi,

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 11:11 PM, Richard Heck  wrote:
> Last time I looked, elyxer did pretty much the same sort of thing, but had
> footnotes styled with things like "float: right;", rather than with the
> appearing and disappearing act they do in LyX. But the real issue, as we
> discussed before, is somehow to defer them to the end.

Actually, with eLyXer you can choose several styles for your footnotes:
  - hover, where the footnote appears when you place the pointer over them;
  - margin, where they appear on the right;
  - and end, where they are deferred to the end.
They can be combined so footnotes appear at several places.

Allow me to refer you to the relevant section of the user guide:
  http://elyxer.nongnu.org/userguide.html#sub:Footnotes

Alex.

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 09:53:08 AM Richard Heck wrote:
 On 09/10/2011 07:54 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
  Just speaking for myself, I think LyX is the best ePub authoring
  environment imaginable because you want your ePub formatting
  absolutely uniform, entirely styles-based, with no one-off
  manipulations or fingerpainting. And it just so happens that
  consistency and styles-based authoring are what LyX does the
  best.
 
 Rob Oakes has also done some work along these lines, but starting
 with LyX's internal XHTML export.
 
 Richard

Yes. Rob taught me a lot about eBook generation, although at the time 
I didn't really fully understand (I still don't understand the 
translation from ePub to Kindle, iPad or Nook). For me, it became 
clearer once I actually did it.

What advantage would LyX's internal XHTML export have over eLyXer? 
Does LyX's internal XHTML export work with version 2.x? The man page 
shows the --export option but fails to list all the possible values 
for fmt. I'd like to see that list added to the man page.

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt
Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Richard Heck]

On 09/11/2011 03:14 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

 What advantage would LyX's internal XHTML export have over eLyXer? 

One is that LyX's XHTML and CSS output can be customized through layout
files, the way you'd customize anything else. Indeed, if you define a
new paragraph style, LyX will, by default, produce CSS that matches the
on-screen representation of the content. I think that also works for
charstyles, but I can't remember off hand. If not, I need to fix that.

There are other differences, too. E.g., LyX properly handles other
layout stuff, e.g., custom counters and cross-references to them. And,
though it wouldn't matter to you, I don't think, LyX's XHTML output is
as internationalized as its on-screen display. Of course, that's all
because LyX's output routines know everything LyX does.

 Does LyX's internal XHTML export work with version 2.x? 

Yes. It was new in 2.0.0.

 The man page shows the --export option but fails to list all the possible 
 values 
 for fmt. I'd like to see that list added to the man page.

Impossible, since what formats are available depends upon what
converters you have installed. Maybe there should, though, be a command
line option that would give you a list of these. Easy to implement.

Richard

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 09:53:08 AM Richard Heck wrote:
 On 09/10/2011 07:54 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
  Just speaking for myself, I think LyX is the best ePub authoring
  environment imaginable because you want your ePub formatting
  absolutely uniform, entirely styles-based, with no one-off
  manipulations or fingerpainting. And it just so happens that
  consistency and styles-based authoring are what LyX does the
  best.
 
 Rob Oakes has also done some work along these lines, but starting
 with LyX's internal XHTML export.
 
 Richard

Yes. Rob taught me a lot about eBook generation, although at the time 
I didn't really fully understand (I still don't understand the 
translation from ePub to Kindle, iPad or Nook). For me, it became 
clearer once I actually did it.

What advantage would LyX's internal XHTML export have over eLyXer? 
Does LyX's internal XHTML export work with version 2.x? The man page 
shows the --export option but fails to list all the possible values 
for fmt. I'd like to see that list added to the man page.

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt
Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Richard Heck]

On 09/11/2011 03:14 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

 What advantage would LyX's internal XHTML export have over eLyXer? 

One is that LyX's XHTML and CSS output can be customized through layout
files, the way you'd customize anything else. Indeed, if you define a
new paragraph style, LyX will, by default, produce CSS that matches the
on-screen representation of the content. I think that also works for
charstyles, but I can't remember off hand. If not, I need to fix that.

There are other differences, too. E.g., LyX properly handles other
layout stuff, e.g., custom counters and cross-references to them. And,
though it wouldn't matter to you, I don't think, LyX's XHTML output is
as internationalized as its on-screen display. Of course, that's all
because LyX's output routines know everything LyX does.

 Does LyX's internal XHTML export work with version 2.x? 

Yes. It was new in 2.0.0.

 The man page shows the --export option but fails to list all the possible 
 values 
 for fmt. I'd like to see that list added to the man page.

Impossible, since what formats are available depends upon what
converters you have installed. Maybe there should, though, be a command
line option that would give you a list of these. Easy to implement.

Richard

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 09:53:08 AM Richard Heck wrote:
> On 09/10/2011 07:54 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
> > Just speaking for myself, I think LyX is the best ePub authoring
> > environment imaginable because you want your ePub formatting
> > absolutely uniform, entirely styles-based, with no one-off
> > manipulations or fingerpainting. And it just so happens that
> > consistency and styles-based authoring are what LyX does the
> > best.
> 
> Rob Oakes has also done some work along these lines, but starting
> with LyX's internal XHTML export.
> 
> Richard

Yes. Rob taught me a lot about eBook generation, although at the time 
I didn't really fully understand (I still don't understand the 
translation from ePub to Kindle, iPad or Nook). For me, it became 
clearer once I actually did it.

What advantage would LyX's internal XHTML export have over eLyXer? 
Does LyX's internal XHTML export work with version 2.x? The man page 
shows the --export option but fails to list all the possible values 
for fmt. I'd like to see that list added to the man page.

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt
Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Richard Heck]

On 09/11/2011 03:14 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
>
> What advantage would LyX's internal XHTML export have over eLyXer? 
>
One is that LyX's XHTML and CSS output can be customized through layout
files, the way you'd customize anything else. Indeed, if you define a
new paragraph style, LyX will, by default, produce CSS that matches the
on-screen representation of the content. I think that also works for
charstyles, but I can't remember off hand. If not, I need to fix that.

There are other differences, too. E.g., LyX properly handles other
layout stuff, e.g., custom counters and cross-references to them. And,
though it wouldn't matter to you, I don't think, LyX's XHTML output is
as internationalized as its on-screen display. Of course, that's all
because LyX's output routines know everything LyX does.

> Does LyX's internal XHTML export work with version 2.x? 
>
Yes. It was new in 2.0.0.

> The man page shows the --export option but fails to list all the possible 
> values 
> for fmt. I'd like to see that list added to the man page.
>
Impossible, since what formats are available depends upon what
converters you have installed. Maybe there should, though, be a command
line option that would give you a list of these. Easy to implement.

Richard

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Alex Fernandez]

On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 7:21 AM, Steve Litt sl...@troubleshooters.com wrote:
 Progress on the LyX-eBook front!
 I open it in Okular and it's justified correctly, but there are obvious
 mistakes, including bullet lists that have lots of blank bullets
 tacked on the end. I installed Mozilla's epubreader plugin, and the
 .epub then looks great in Mozilla Firefox, except the table of
 contents starts with an extraneous copy of chapter 2, which is true of
 several of the readers.

 Anyway, the bottom line is, this was a proof of concept, and I took a
 LyX authored book and within a few minutes made it into an ePub.

Good to know! If you want we can work through the issues one by one.

While I am not ready to devote time to an --epub switch in eLyXer
(which produces EPUB-clean HTML), as present in the feature wish-list,
I would not mind adding features to eLyXer which allow it to better
process all HTML files.

For example, the author is probably taken from a META tag which eLyXer
is not producing right now. It would be easy to add.

Alex.

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 01:21:02 AM Steve Litt wrote:
 Hi all,
 
 Progress on the LyX-eBook front!
 
 My book is written in LyX (lastchance.lyx), and I converted it to
 ePub. Here's how.

[clip]

 Now I use the elyxer program (I believe it's available on Windows
 also) to convert my LyX book to HTML. If I had wanted, I could have
 specified a CSS file for elyxer to use and customize appearance,
 but this is a proof of concept and I didn't want to complicate
 matters. So I just did the simplest possible elyxer command to
 convert lastchance.lyx to test.html:

[clip]

 calibre ./test.html
[clip]

 So now it's converted. But not saved. Before saving I'm going to
 make sure it's OK, so in Calibre I make sure my book is still
 highlighted on the list, go over to the right, and click the EPUB
 link. A nice ePub viewer pops up with my book in it. The
 formatting is plain vanilla, with no space between paragraphs nor
 indentation at the beginning of paragraphs, and there are a couple
 other minor problems, but it basically looks good.

Sha-Zam

I got spaces between the paragraphs.

First, it should have been obvious that in the LyX document properties 
I should have separated paragraphs by space instead of by first line 
indentation. Just doing that provides space between the paragraph (and 
gets rid of the indented first line, which I think in an ePub is ugly.

Only trouble is, elyxer's conversion ignores whether the LyX defined 
inter paragraph space is Smallskip, Medskip, Largeskip, or even Custom 
10em!

Kludge time. I downloaded elyxer's default CSS file, 
http://www.nongnu.org/elyxer/lyx.css, and added this one line to the 
definition of div.Standard:

margin-top:2em;

Then I ran elyxer with the --css option to use the modified CSS file on 
my hard disk. This gives JUST the right interparagraph space in the 
ePub. 1em is too little, 5em is too much, 2em is perfect in my 
opinion. Festive!

By the way, if you open the resulting book in Sigil and look at its 
CSS, you see that margin-top=2em right in the definition of .Standard.

Just speaking for myself, I think LyX is the best ePub authoring 
environment imaginable because you want your ePub formatting 
absolutely uniform, entirely styles-based, with no one-off 
manipulations or fingerpainting. And it just so happens that 
consistency and styles-based authoring are what LyX does the best.

SteveT

 
Steve Litt
Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Richard Heck]

On 09/10/2011 07:54 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

 Just speaking for myself, I think LyX is the best ePub authoring 
 environment imaginable because you want your ePub formatting 
 absolutely uniform, entirely styles-based, with no one-off 
 manipulations or fingerpainting. And it just so happens that 
 consistency and styles-based authoring are what LyX does the best.

Rob Oakes has also done some work along these lines, but starting with
LyX's internal XHTML export.

Richard

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Alex Fernandez]

On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 7:21 AM, Steve Litt sl...@troubleshooters.com wrote:
 Progress on the LyX-eBook front!
 I open it in Okular and it's justified correctly, but there are obvious
 mistakes, including bullet lists that have lots of blank bullets
 tacked on the end. I installed Mozilla's epubreader plugin, and the
 .epub then looks great in Mozilla Firefox, except the table of
 contents starts with an extraneous copy of chapter 2, which is true of
 several of the readers.

 Anyway, the bottom line is, this was a proof of concept, and I took a
 LyX authored book and within a few minutes made it into an ePub.

Good to know! If you want we can work through the issues one by one.

While I am not ready to devote time to an --epub switch in eLyXer
(which produces EPUB-clean HTML), as present in the feature wish-list,
I would not mind adding features to eLyXer which allow it to better
process all HTML files.

For example, the author is probably taken from a META tag which eLyXer
is not producing right now. It would be easy to add.

Alex.

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 01:21:02 AM Steve Litt wrote:
 Hi all,
 
 Progress on the LyX-eBook front!
 
 My book is written in LyX (lastchance.lyx), and I converted it to
 ePub. Here's how.

[clip]

 Now I use the elyxer program (I believe it's available on Windows
 also) to convert my LyX book to HTML. If I had wanted, I could have
 specified a CSS file for elyxer to use and customize appearance,
 but this is a proof of concept and I didn't want to complicate
 matters. So I just did the simplest possible elyxer command to
 convert lastchance.lyx to test.html:

[clip]

 calibre ./test.html
[clip]

 So now it's converted. But not saved. Before saving I'm going to
 make sure it's OK, so in Calibre I make sure my book is still
 highlighted on the list, go over to the right, and click the EPUB
 link. A nice ePub viewer pops up with my book in it. The
 formatting is plain vanilla, with no space between paragraphs nor
 indentation at the beginning of paragraphs, and there are a couple
 other minor problems, but it basically looks good.

Sha-Zam

I got spaces between the paragraphs.

First, it should have been obvious that in the LyX document properties 
I should have separated paragraphs by space instead of by first line 
indentation. Just doing that provides space between the paragraph (and 
gets rid of the indented first line, which I think in an ePub is ugly.

Only trouble is, elyxer's conversion ignores whether the LyX defined 
inter paragraph space is Smallskip, Medskip, Largeskip, or even Custom 
10em!

Kludge time. I downloaded elyxer's default CSS file, 
http://www.nongnu.org/elyxer/lyx.css, and added this one line to the 
definition of div.Standard:

margin-top:2em;

Then I ran elyxer with the --css option to use the modified CSS file on 
my hard disk. This gives JUST the right interparagraph space in the 
ePub. 1em is too little, 5em is too much, 2em is perfect in my 
opinion. Festive!

By the way, if you open the resulting book in Sigil and look at its 
CSS, you see that margin-top=2em right in the definition of .Standard.

Just speaking for myself, I think LyX is the best ePub authoring 
environment imaginable because you want your ePub formatting 
absolutely uniform, entirely styles-based, with no one-off 
manipulations or fingerpainting. And it just so happens that 
consistency and styles-based authoring are what LyX does the best.

SteveT

 
Steve Litt
Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Richard Heck]

On 09/10/2011 07:54 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

 Just speaking for myself, I think LyX is the best ePub authoring 
 environment imaginable because you want your ePub formatting 
 absolutely uniform, entirely styles-based, with no one-off 
 manipulations or fingerpainting. And it just so happens that 
 consistency and styles-based authoring are what LyX does the best.

Rob Oakes has also done some work along these lines, but starting with
LyX's internal XHTML export.

Richard

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Alex Fernandez]

On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 7:21 AM, Steve Litt  wrote:
> Progress on the LyX->eBook front!
> I open it in Okular and it's justified correctly, but there are obvious
> mistakes, including bullet lists that have lots of blank bullets
> tacked on the end. I installed Mozilla's epubreader plugin, and the
> .epub then looks great in Mozilla Firefox, except the table of
> contents starts with an extraneous copy of chapter 2, which is true of
> several of the readers.
>
> Anyway, the bottom line is, this was a proof of concept, and I took a
> LyX authored book and within a few minutes made it into an ePub.

Good to know! If you want we can work through the issues one by one.

While I am not ready to devote time to an --epub switch in eLyXer
(which produces EPUB-clean HTML), as present in the feature wish-list,
I would not mind adding features to eLyXer which allow it to better
process all HTML files.

For example, the author is probably taken from a META tag which eLyXer
is not producing right now. It would be easy to add.

Alex.

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 01:21:02 AM Steve Litt wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Progress on the LyX->eBook front!
> 
> My book is written in LyX (lastchance.lyx), and I converted it to
> ePub. Here's how.

[clip]

> Now I use the elyxer program (I believe it's available on Windows
> also) to convert my LyX book to HTML. If I had wanted, I could have
> specified a CSS file for elyxer to use and customize appearance,
> but this is a proof of concept and I didn't want to complicate
> matters. So I just did the simplest possible elyxer command to
> convert lastchance.lyx to test.html:

[clip]

> calibre ./test.html
[clip]

> So now it's converted. But not saved. Before saving I'm going to
> make sure it's OK, so in Calibre I make sure my book is still
> highlighted on the list, go over to the right, and click the EPUB
> link. A nice ePub viewer pops up with my book in it. The
> formatting is plain vanilla, with no space between paragraphs nor
> indentation at the beginning of paragraphs, and there are a couple
> other minor problems, but it basically looks good.

Sha-Zam

I got spaces between the paragraphs.

First, it should have been obvious that in the LyX document properties 
I should have separated paragraphs by space instead of by first line 
indentation. Just doing that provides space between the paragraph (and 
gets rid of the indented first line, which I think in an ePub is ugly.

Only trouble is, elyxer's conversion ignores whether the LyX defined 
inter paragraph space is Smallskip, Medskip, Largeskip, or even Custom 
10em!

Kludge time. I downloaded elyxer's default CSS file, 
http://www.nongnu.org/elyxer/lyx.css, and added this one line to the 
definition of div.Standard:

margin-top:2em;

Then I ran elyxer with the --css option to use the modified CSS file on 
my hard disk. This gives JUST the right interparagraph space in the 
ePub. 1em is too little, 5em is too much, 2em is perfect in my 
opinion. Festive!

By the way, if you open the resulting book in Sigil and look at its 
CSS, you see that margin-top=2em right in the definition of .Standard.

Just speaking for myself, I think LyX is the best ePub authoring 
environment imaginable because you want your ePub formatting 
absolutely uniform, entirely styles-based, with no one-off 
manipulations or fingerpainting. And it just so happens that 
consistency and styles-based authoring are what LyX does the best.

SteveT

 
Steve Litt
Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Richard Heck]

On 09/10/2011 07:54 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
>
> Just speaking for myself, I think LyX is the best ePub authoring 
> environment imaginable because you want your ePub formatting 
> absolutely uniform, entirely styles-based, with no one-off 
> manipulations or fingerpainting. And it just so happens that 
> consistency and styles-based authoring are what LyX does the best.
>
Rob Oakes has also done some work along these lines, but starting with
LyX's internal XHTML export.

Richard

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

Progress on the LyX-eBook front!

My book is written in LyX (lastchance.lyx), and I converted it to 
ePub. Here's how.

Originally the directory has only a couple outlines and my LyX file, a 
6400 word book, shown in this directory listing displayed by Linux's 
ls command:

slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$ ls -l
total 64
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   629 2011-08-04 17:36 bookotl.otl
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt 50186 2011-09-08 06:01 lastchance.lyx
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   669 2011-08-09 04:23 
lastchance_overview.otl
slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$

Now I use the elyxer program (I believe it's available on Windows 
also) to convert my LyX book to HTML. If I had wanted, I could have 
specified a CSS file for elyxer to use and customize appearance, but 
this is a proof of concept and I didn't want to complicate matters. So 
I just did the simplest possible elyxer command to convert 
lastchance.lyx to test.html:

slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$ elyxer lastchance.lyx test.html
Line 66: Title: Our Last Chance
Line 1000: Parsing
slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$ ls -ltr
total 112
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   629 2011-08-04 17:36 bookotl.otl
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   669 2011-08-09 04:23 
lastchance_overview.otl
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt 50186 2011-09-08 06:01 lastchance.lyx
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt 48051 2011-09-09 22:10 test.html
slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$

You can clearly see the new test.html. Viewing test.html in Mozilla 
Firefox, you see it's a very faithful representation of 
lastchance.lyx. So far so good. Now let's epubize it test.html...

calibre ./test.html

Calibre spins for awhile, indicates that it's converting, and then 
comes up with the new eBook in the list of books. Unfortunately, the 
new eBook lists the author as nobody even though the author in LyX was 
Steve Litt. I don't know if the fault is in elyxer or calibre, but no 
matter, I can manually set metadata in calibre as follows:

Author(s): Steve Litt
Author sort: Steve Litt
Rating: 5 stars
Publisher: Troubleshooters.Com Books

Because this is a proof of concept, I leave the cover at its default 
-- a stock Calibre image. I click OK to exit the Edit Metadata screen 
and store the metadata.

With my book highlighted, I click the Convert Books icon and then 
click the EPUB Output symbol. Several conversion properties can be 
manipulated here. I changed none of them because my test book is very 
small, but if it were bigger I think I'd make the split files larger 
than amount in the tens of megabytes rather than 260 KB. But my file 
is small, so I simply click the OK button and watch it convert. Even 
with this tiny input file it took 10 or so seconds to convert. If the 
relationship between input size and conversion time were linear, that 
means it would take several minutes to convert my 1.06MB book Key to 
Everyday Excellence.

So now it's converted. But not saved. Before saving I'm going to make 
sure it's OK, so in Calibre I make sure my book is still highlighted 
on the list, go over to the right, and click the EPUB link. A nice 
ePub viewer pops up with my book in it. The formatting is plain 
vanilla, with no space between paragraphs nor indentation at the 
beginning of paragraphs, and there are a couple other minor problems, 
but it basically looks good.

Now I click the save icon and save to disk. Now, within the original 
directory is a directory called Steve Litt, and under that is a 
directory called Our Last Chance, which is the book title. Within 
that directory are Our Last Chance - Steve Litt.zip, .opf and .epub. 
Open the .epub directory with fbreader and you see the .epub all 
centered, with, as far as I can see, no way to make it left justified. 
Ugh! I think it's a flaw in fbreader, but don't know as yet.

I open it in Okular and it's justified correctly, but there are obvious 
mistakes, including bullet lists that have lots of blank bullets 
tacked on the end. I installed Mozilla's epubreader plugin, and the 
.epub then looks great in Mozilla Firefox, except the table of 
contents starts with an extraneous copy of chapter 2, which is true of 
several of the readers.

Anyway, the bottom line is, this was a proof of concept, and I took a 
LyX authored book and within a few minutes made it into an ePub.


SteveT

Steve Litt
Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

Progress on the LyX-eBook front!

My book is written in LyX (lastchance.lyx), and I converted it to 
ePub. Here's how.

Originally the directory has only a couple outlines and my LyX file, a 
6400 word book, shown in this directory listing displayed by Linux's 
ls command:

slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$ ls -l
total 64
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   629 2011-08-04 17:36 bookotl.otl
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt 50186 2011-09-08 06:01 lastchance.lyx
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   669 2011-08-09 04:23 
lastchance_overview.otl
slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$

Now I use the elyxer program (I believe it's available on Windows 
also) to convert my LyX book to HTML. If I had wanted, I could have 
specified a CSS file for elyxer to use and customize appearance, but 
this is a proof of concept and I didn't want to complicate matters. So 
I just did the simplest possible elyxer command to convert 
lastchance.lyx to test.html:

slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$ elyxer lastchance.lyx test.html
Line 66: Title: Our Last Chance
Line 1000: Parsing
slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$ ls -ltr
total 112
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   629 2011-08-04 17:36 bookotl.otl
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   669 2011-08-09 04:23 
lastchance_overview.otl
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt 50186 2011-09-08 06:01 lastchance.lyx
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt 48051 2011-09-09 22:10 test.html
slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$

You can clearly see the new test.html. Viewing test.html in Mozilla 
Firefox, you see it's a very faithful representation of 
lastchance.lyx. So far so good. Now let's epubize it test.html...

calibre ./test.html

Calibre spins for awhile, indicates that it's converting, and then 
comes up with the new eBook in the list of books. Unfortunately, the 
new eBook lists the author as nobody even though the author in LyX was 
Steve Litt. I don't know if the fault is in elyxer or calibre, but no 
matter, I can manually set metadata in calibre as follows:

Author(s): Steve Litt
Author sort: Steve Litt
Rating: 5 stars
Publisher: Troubleshooters.Com Books

Because this is a proof of concept, I leave the cover at its default 
-- a stock Calibre image. I click OK to exit the Edit Metadata screen 
and store the metadata.

With my book highlighted, I click the Convert Books icon and then 
click the EPUB Output symbol. Several conversion properties can be 
manipulated here. I changed none of them because my test book is very 
small, but if it were bigger I think I'd make the split files larger 
than amount in the tens of megabytes rather than 260 KB. But my file 
is small, so I simply click the OK button and watch it convert. Even 
with this tiny input file it took 10 or so seconds to convert. If the 
relationship between input size and conversion time were linear, that 
means it would take several minutes to convert my 1.06MB book Key to 
Everyday Excellence.

So now it's converted. But not saved. Before saving I'm going to make 
sure it's OK, so in Calibre I make sure my book is still highlighted 
on the list, go over to the right, and click the EPUB link. A nice 
ePub viewer pops up with my book in it. The formatting is plain 
vanilla, with no space between paragraphs nor indentation at the 
beginning of paragraphs, and there are a couple other minor problems, 
but it basically looks good.

Now I click the save icon and save to disk. Now, within the original 
directory is a directory called Steve Litt, and under that is a 
directory called Our Last Chance, which is the book title. Within 
that directory are Our Last Chance - Steve Litt.zip, .opf and .epub. 
Open the .epub directory with fbreader and you see the .epub all 
centered, with, as far as I can see, no way to make it left justified. 
Ugh! I think it's a flaw in fbreader, but don't know as yet.

I open it in Okular and it's justified correctly, but there are obvious 
mistakes, including bullet lists that have lots of blank bullets 
tacked on the end. I installed Mozilla's epubreader plugin, and the 
.epub then looks great in Mozilla Firefox, except the table of 
contents starts with an extraneous copy of chapter 2, which is true of 
several of the readers.

Anyway, the bottom line is, this was a proof of concept, and I took a 
LyX authored book and within a few minutes made it into an ePub.


SteveT

Steve Litt
Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: [Pub-forum] ebook follies

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

Progress on the LyX->eBook front!

My book is written in LyX (lastchance.lyx), and I converted it to 
ePub. Here's how.

Originally the directory has only a couple outlines and my LyX file, a 
6400 word book, shown in this directory listing displayed by Linux's 
ls command:

slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$ ls -l
total 64
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   629 2011-08-04 17:36 bookotl.otl
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt 50186 2011-09-08 06:01 lastchance.lyx
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   669 2011-08-09 04:23 
lastchance_overview.otl
slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$

Now I use the elyxer program (I believe it's available on Windows 
also) to convert my LyX book to HTML. If I had wanted, I could have 
specified a CSS file for elyxer to use and customize appearance, but 
this is a proof of concept and I didn't want to complicate matters. So 
I just did the simplest possible elyxer command to convert 
lastchance.lyx to test.html:

slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$ elyxer lastchance.lyx test.html
Line 66: Title: Our Last Chance
Line 1000: Parsing
slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$ ls -ltr
total 112
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   629 2011-08-04 17:36 bookotl.otl
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt   669 2011-08-09 04:23 
lastchance_overview.otl
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt 50186 2011-09-08 06:01 lastchance.lyx
-rw-r--r-- 1 slitt slitt 48051 2011-09-09 22:10 test.html
slitt@mydesk:/d/at/books/lastchance$

You can clearly see the new test.html. Viewing test.html in Mozilla 
Firefox, you see it's a very faithful representation of 
lastchance.lyx. So far so good. Now let's epubize it test.html...

calibre ./test.html

Calibre spins for awhile, indicates that it's converting, and then 
comes up with the new eBook in the list of books. Unfortunately, the 
new eBook lists the author as nobody even though the author in LyX was 
Steve Litt. I don't know if the fault is in elyxer or calibre, but no 
matter, I can manually set metadata in calibre as follows:

Author(s): Steve Litt
Author sort: Steve Litt
Rating: 5 stars
Publisher: Troubleshooters.Com Books

Because this is a proof of concept, I leave the cover at its default 
-- a stock Calibre image. I click OK to exit the Edit Metadata screen 
and store the metadata.

With my book highlighted, I click the "Convert Books" icon and then 
click the EPUB Output symbol. Several conversion properties can be 
manipulated here. I changed none of them because my test book is very 
small, but if it were bigger I think I'd make the "split files larger 
than" amount in the tens of megabytes rather than 260 KB. But my file 
is small, so I simply click the OK button and watch it convert. Even 
with this tiny input file it took 10 or so seconds to convert. If the 
relationship between input size and conversion time were linear, that 
means it would take several minutes to convert my 1.06MB book "Key to 
Everyday Excellence".

So now it's converted. But not saved. Before saving I'm going to make 
sure it's OK, so in Calibre I make sure my book is still highlighted 
on the list, go over to the right, and click the EPUB link. A nice 
ePub viewer pops up with my book in it. The formatting is plain 
vanilla, with no space between paragraphs nor indentation at the 
beginning of paragraphs, and there are a couple other minor problems, 
but it basically looks good.

Now I click the save icon and save to disk. Now, within the original 
directory is a directory called "Steve Litt", and under that is a 
directory called "Our Last Chance", which is the book title. Within 
that directory are "Our Last Chance - Steve Litt.zip, .opf and .epub. 
Open the .epub directory with fbreader and you see the .epub all 
centered, with, as far as I can see, no way to make it left justified. 
Ugh! I think it's a flaw in fbreader, but don't know as yet.

I open it in Okular and it's justified correctly, but there are obvious 
mistakes, including bullet lists that have lots of blank bullets 
tacked on the end. I installed Mozilla's epubreader plugin, and the 
.epub then looks great in Mozilla Firefox, except the table of 
contents starts with an extraneous copy of chapter 2, which is true of 
several of the readers.

Anyway, the bottom line is, this was a proof of concept, and I took a 
LyX authored book and within a few minutes made it into an ePub.


SteveT

Steve Litt
Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt