What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Jan Ulrich Hasecke 
Hi,

I want to publish ebooks and typeset books from the same source, because
today nearly all new books are offered as ebooks and as printed books.

Up to now I didn't find a good solution working out of the box.

Sphinx, the documentation system written in Python offers multiple
output formats from one source, eg. PDF via LaTeX. EPub support is
improving but not perfect yet. You have to tweak it a bit
(http://www.hasecke.eu/Members/juh/sphinx-a-tool-for-self-publisher)

I now want to give LyX a try, I used it years ago but always went back
to LaTeX.

I saw that there isn't a no epub support in LyX up to now. I read about
exporting to html and converting to epub via Calibre. This is a
workaround I could choose if I had to, but it is not the solution I am
looking for.

So what are the plans for the future? I read about a GSOC project aiming
to implement epub conversion in LyX. Is there a timeframe? In the road
map of 2.1 epub is not mentioned.

TIA
juh

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Les Denham 
On Fri, 17 May 2013 12:31:31 +0200
Jan Ulrich Hasecke juhase...@googlemail.com wrote:

 Hi,
 
 I want to publish ebooks and typeset books from the same source,
 because today nearly all new books are offered as ebooks and as
 printed books.
 
 Up to now I didn't find a good solution working out of the box.
 
 Sphinx, the documentation system written in Python offers multiple
 output formats from one source, eg. PDF via LaTeX. EPub support is
 improving but not perfect yet. You have to tweak it a bit
 (http://www.hasecke.eu/Members/juh/sphinx-a-tool-for-self-publisher)
 
 I now want to give LyX a try, I used it years ago but always went back
 to LaTeX.
 
 I saw that there isn't a no epub support in LyX up to now. I read
 about exporting to html and converting to epub via Calibre. This is a
 workaround I could choose if I had to, but it is not the solution I am
 looking for.
 
 So what are the plans for the future? I read about a GSOC project
 aiming to implement epub conversion in LyX. Is there a timeframe? In
 the road map of 2.1 epub is not mentioned.
 
 TIA
 juh

Jan,

I have faced the same problem myself, and have used the HTML route with
very little trouble and with very little effort. I simply export to
LyXHTML and import into Sigil. Some tweaking in Sigil is usually
desirable, if not strictly required. Sigil includes EPUB validation
with FlightCrew (which most publishers require), as well as the
capability to edit all parts of EPUB.

Overall, it is vastly superior to generating an EPUB file from an MS
Word document, which is what most self-publishers (and many publishers)
do. Better results, and less effort.

Les

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread stefano franchi 
On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Les Denham lden...@hal-pc.org wrote:

 On Fri, 17 May 2013 12:31:31 +0200
 Jan Ulrich Hasecke juhase...@googlemail.com wrote:

  So what are the plans for the future? I read about a GSOC project
  aiming to implement epub conversion in LyX. Is there a timeframe? In
  the road map of 2.1 epub is not mentioned.
 I have faced the same problem myself, and have used the HTML route with
 very little trouble and with very little effort. I simply export to
 LyXHTML and import into Sigil. Some tweaking in Sigil is usually
 desirable, if not strictly required. Sigil includes EPUB validation
 with FlightCrew (which most publishers require), as well as the
 capability to edit all parts of EPUB.

 Les (and all),
 this may be a silly question, but worth asking perhaps: could the tweaks
to the XHTML code that you carry out in Sigil be easily avoided with some,
perhaps minor, tweaks to the existing XHTML export? In other words:  could
we perhaps *completely* replace an ePub export function with a XHTML/Sigil
export? Relatedly: can Sigil be used latex-style, i.e. as a
converter/validator from the command line?

Cheers,

Stefano




-- 
__
Stefano Franchi
Associate Research Professor
Department of Hispanic StudiesPh:   +1 (979) 845-2125
Texas AM University  Fax:  +1 (979) 845-6421
College Station, Texas, USA

stef...@tamu.edu
http://stefano.cleinias.org

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Les Denham 
On Fri, 17 May 2013 13:32:51 -0500
stefano franchi stefano.fran...@gmail.com wrote:

  this may be a silly question, but worth asking perhaps: could the
 tweaks to the XHTML code that you carry out in Sigil be easily
 avoided with some, perhaps minor, tweaks to the existing XHTML
 export? In other words:  could we perhaps *completely* replace an
 ePub export function with a XHTML/Sigil export? Relatedly: can Sigil
 be used latex-style, i.e. as a converter/validator from the command
 line?

Stefano,

I don't think so: Sigil is not a command-line tool. Sigil has a
GPL3 license, so I don't see that there would be any problem re-using
code in it to create a command-line tool. But I think it would be
simpler to create such a tool from scratch.

If you just start Sigil from the command line with an HTML file as
the argument, you get a usable EPUB book brought up in the GUI, but it
has a few problems: firstly, the default text file is present but not
referenced; then there are four items of required metadata missing; and
the table of contents is inaccurate. There is also no cover. However,
with no editing the saved EPUB would probably work in most readers.

Fixing these problems takes no more than five minutes, unless you want
a fancy cover image.

Les

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Liviu Andronic 
On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 8:32 PM, stefano franchi
stefano.fran...@gmail.com wrote:
 export? Relatedly: can Sigil be used latex-style, i.e. as a
 converter/validator from the command line?

A quick search turned up this CLI ePub validator:
http://code.google.com/p/epubcheck/

And on Sigil's Issues tracker:
https://code.google.com/p/sigil/issues/detail?id=518
Actually there's an *undocumented and unsupported* HTML-to-EPUB
command line conversion option. See main.cpp for details. Did I
mention the feature is *undocumented and unsupported*? :)
It's there because a certain company was willing to pay to see it
included, but I'm opposed to the feature on principle. Sigil is an
editor, not an automatic converter. If you need one, there's Calibre.

And here's Calibre's documentation:
http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conversion.html#conversion
http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cli/ebook-convert.html#ebook-convert

I don't see why we couldn't support the CLI  tools if someone showed
us how to use them.

Liviu

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Les Denham 
On Fri, 17 May 2013 22:56:17 +0200
Liviu Andronic landronim...@gmail.com wrote:

 Actually there's an *undocumented and unsupported* HTML-to-EPUB
 command line conversion option. See main.cpp for details. Did I
 mention the feature is *undocumented and unsupported*? :)
 It's there because a certain company was willing to pay to see it
 included, but I'm opposed to the feature on principle. Sigil is an
 editor, not an automatic converter. If you need one, there's Calibre.
 
 And here's Calibre's documentation:
 http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conversion.html#conversion
 http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cli/ebook-convert.html#ebook-convert
 
 I don't see why we couldn't support the CLI  tools if someone showed
 us how to use them.

Liviu,

I've used Calibre to convert from HTML to EPUB, and that's why I prefer
to use Sigil. Calibre does a very good job of converting between ebook
formats, such as from EPUB to MOBI. But unless your book is very simple
it tends to run into problems with HTML input.

Les

-- 
http://lrdenham.wordpress.com/

What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Jan Ulrich Hasecke 
Hi,

I want to publish ebooks and typeset books from the same source, because
today nearly all new books are offered as ebooks and as printed books.

Up to now I didn't find a good solution working out of the box.

Sphinx, the documentation system written in Python offers multiple
output formats from one source, eg. PDF via LaTeX. EPub support is
improving but not perfect yet. You have to tweak it a bit
(http://www.hasecke.eu/Members/juh/sphinx-a-tool-for-self-publisher)

I now want to give LyX a try, I used it years ago but always went back
to LaTeX.

I saw that there isn't a no epub support in LyX up to now. I read about
exporting to html and converting to epub via Calibre. This is a
workaround I could choose if I had to, but it is not the solution I am
looking for.

So what are the plans for the future? I read about a GSOC project aiming
to implement epub conversion in LyX. Is there a timeframe? In the road
map of 2.1 epub is not mentioned.

TIA
juh

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Les Denham 
On Fri, 17 May 2013 12:31:31 +0200
Jan Ulrich Hasecke juhase...@googlemail.com wrote:

 Hi,
 
 I want to publish ebooks and typeset books from the same source,
 because today nearly all new books are offered as ebooks and as
 printed books.
 
 Up to now I didn't find a good solution working out of the box.
 
 Sphinx, the documentation system written in Python offers multiple
 output formats from one source, eg. PDF via LaTeX. EPub support is
 improving but not perfect yet. You have to tweak it a bit
 (http://www.hasecke.eu/Members/juh/sphinx-a-tool-for-self-publisher)
 
 I now want to give LyX a try, I used it years ago but always went back
 to LaTeX.
 
 I saw that there isn't a no epub support in LyX up to now. I read
 about exporting to html and converting to epub via Calibre. This is a
 workaround I could choose if I had to, but it is not the solution I am
 looking for.
 
 So what are the plans for the future? I read about a GSOC project
 aiming to implement epub conversion in LyX. Is there a timeframe? In
 the road map of 2.1 epub is not mentioned.
 
 TIA
 juh

Jan,

I have faced the same problem myself, and have used the HTML route with
very little trouble and with very little effort. I simply export to
LyXHTML and import into Sigil. Some tweaking in Sigil is usually
desirable, if not strictly required. Sigil includes EPUB validation
with FlightCrew (which most publishers require), as well as the
capability to edit all parts of EPUB.

Overall, it is vastly superior to generating an EPUB file from an MS
Word document, which is what most self-publishers (and many publishers)
do. Better results, and less effort.

Les

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread stefano franchi 
On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Les Denham lden...@hal-pc.org wrote:

 On Fri, 17 May 2013 12:31:31 +0200
 Jan Ulrich Hasecke juhase...@googlemail.com wrote:

  So what are the plans for the future? I read about a GSOC project
  aiming to implement epub conversion in LyX. Is there a timeframe? In
  the road map of 2.1 epub is not mentioned.
 I have faced the same problem myself, and have used the HTML route with
 very little trouble and with very little effort. I simply export to
 LyXHTML and import into Sigil. Some tweaking in Sigil is usually
 desirable, if not strictly required. Sigil includes EPUB validation
 with FlightCrew (which most publishers require), as well as the
 capability to edit all parts of EPUB.

 Les (and all),
 this may be a silly question, but worth asking perhaps: could the tweaks
to the XHTML code that you carry out in Sigil be easily avoided with some,
perhaps minor, tweaks to the existing XHTML export? In other words:  could
we perhaps *completely* replace an ePub export function with a XHTML/Sigil
export? Relatedly: can Sigil be used latex-style, i.e. as a
converter/validator from the command line?

Cheers,

Stefano




-- 
__
Stefano Franchi
Associate Research Professor
Department of Hispanic StudiesPh:   +1 (979) 845-2125
Texas AM University  Fax:  +1 (979) 845-6421
College Station, Texas, USA

stef...@tamu.edu
http://stefano.cleinias.org

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Les Denham 
On Fri, 17 May 2013 13:32:51 -0500
stefano franchi stefano.fran...@gmail.com wrote:

  this may be a silly question, but worth asking perhaps: could the
 tweaks to the XHTML code that you carry out in Sigil be easily
 avoided with some, perhaps minor, tweaks to the existing XHTML
 export? In other words:  could we perhaps *completely* replace an
 ePub export function with a XHTML/Sigil export? Relatedly: can Sigil
 be used latex-style, i.e. as a converter/validator from the command
 line?

Stefano,

I don't think so: Sigil is not a command-line tool. Sigil has a
GPL3 license, so I don't see that there would be any problem re-using
code in it to create a command-line tool. But I think it would be
simpler to create such a tool from scratch.

If you just start Sigil from the command line with an HTML file as
the argument, you get a usable EPUB book brought up in the GUI, but it
has a few problems: firstly, the default text file is present but not
referenced; then there are four items of required metadata missing; and
the table of contents is inaccurate. There is also no cover. However,
with no editing the saved EPUB would probably work in most readers.

Fixing these problems takes no more than five minutes, unless you want
a fancy cover image.

Les

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Liviu Andronic 
On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 8:32 PM, stefano franchi
stefano.fran...@gmail.com wrote:
 export? Relatedly: can Sigil be used latex-style, i.e. as a
 converter/validator from the command line?

A quick search turned up this CLI ePub validator:
http://code.google.com/p/epubcheck/

And on Sigil's Issues tracker:
https://code.google.com/p/sigil/issues/detail?id=518
Actually there's an *undocumented and unsupported* HTML-to-EPUB
command line conversion option. See main.cpp for details. Did I
mention the feature is *undocumented and unsupported*? :)
It's there because a certain company was willing to pay to see it
included, but I'm opposed to the feature on principle. Sigil is an
editor, not an automatic converter. If you need one, there's Calibre.

And here's Calibre's documentation:
http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conversion.html#conversion
http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cli/ebook-convert.html#ebook-convert

I don't see why we couldn't support the CLI  tools if someone showed
us how to use them.

Liviu

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Les Denham 
On Fri, 17 May 2013 22:56:17 +0200
Liviu Andronic landronim...@gmail.com wrote:

 Actually there's an *undocumented and unsupported* HTML-to-EPUB
 command line conversion option. See main.cpp for details. Did I
 mention the feature is *undocumented and unsupported*? :)
 It's there because a certain company was willing to pay to see it
 included, but I'm opposed to the feature on principle. Sigil is an
 editor, not an automatic converter. If you need one, there's Calibre.
 
 And here's Calibre's documentation:
 http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conversion.html#conversion
 http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cli/ebook-convert.html#ebook-convert
 
 I don't see why we couldn't support the CLI  tools if someone showed
 us how to use them.

Liviu,

I've used Calibre to convert from HTML to EPUB, and that's why I prefer
to use Sigil. Calibre does a very good job of converting between ebook
formats, such as from EPUB to MOBI. But unless your book is very simple
it tends to run into problems with HTML input.

Les

-- 
http://lrdenham.wordpress.com/

What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Jan Ulrich Hasecke 
Hi,

I want to publish ebooks and typeset books from the same source, because
today nearly all new books are offered as ebooks and as printed books.

Up to now I didn't find a good solution working out of the box.

Sphinx, the documentation system written in Python offers multiple
output formats from one source, eg. PDF via LaTeX. EPub support is
improving but not perfect yet. You have to tweak it a bit
(http://www.hasecke.eu/Members/juh/sphinx-a-tool-for-self-publisher)

I now want to give LyX a try, I used it years ago but always went back
to LaTeX.

I saw that there isn't a no epub support in LyX up to now. I read about
exporting to html and converting to epub via Calibre. This is a
workaround I could choose if I had to, but it is not the solution I am
looking for.

So what are the plans for the future? I read about a GSOC project aiming
to implement epub conversion in LyX. Is there a timeframe? In the road
map of 2.1 epub is not mentioned.

TIA
juh

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Les Denham 
On Fri, 17 May 2013 12:31:31 +0200
Jan Ulrich Hasecke  wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I want to publish ebooks and typeset books from the same source,
> because today nearly all new books are offered as ebooks and as
> printed books.
> 
> Up to now I didn't find a good solution working out of the box.
> 
> Sphinx, the documentation system written in Python offers multiple
> output formats from one source, eg. PDF via LaTeX. EPub support is
> improving but not perfect yet. You have to tweak it a bit
> (http://www.hasecke.eu/Members/juh/sphinx-a-tool-for-self-publisher)
> 
> I now want to give LyX a try, I used it years ago but always went back
> to LaTeX.
> 
> I saw that there isn't a no epub support in LyX up to now. I read
> about exporting to html and converting to epub via Calibre. This is a
> workaround I could choose if I had to, but it is not the solution I am
> looking for.
> 
> So what are the plans for the future? I read about a GSOC project
> aiming to implement epub conversion in LyX. Is there a timeframe? In
> the road map of 2.1 epub is not mentioned.
> 
> TIA
> juh

Jan,

I have faced the same problem myself, and have used the HTML route with
very little trouble and with very little effort. I simply export to
LyXHTML and import into Sigil. Some tweaking in Sigil is usually
desirable, if not strictly required. Sigil includes EPUB validation
with FlightCrew (which most publishers require), as well as the
capability to edit all parts of EPUB.

Overall, it is vastly superior to generating an EPUB file from an MS
Word document, which is what most self-publishers (and many publishers)
do. Better results, and less effort.

Les

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread stefano franchi 
On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Les Denham  wrote:

> On Fri, 17 May 2013 12:31:31 +0200
> Jan Ulrich Hasecke  wrote:
>
> > So what are the plans for the future? I read about a GSOC project
> > aiming to implement epub conversion in LyX. Is there a timeframe? In
> > the road map of 2.1 epub is not mentioned.
> I have faced the same problem myself, and have used the HTML route with
> very little trouble and with very little effort. I simply export to
> LyXHTML and import into Sigil. Some tweaking in Sigil is usually
> desirable, if not strictly required. Sigil includes EPUB validation
> with FlightCrew (which most publishers require), as well as the
> capability to edit all parts of EPUB.
>
> Les (and all),
 this may be a silly question, but worth asking perhaps: could the "tweaks"
to the XHTML code that you carry out in Sigil be easily avoided with some,
perhaps minor, tweaks to the existing XHTML export? In other words:  could
we perhaps *completely* replace an ePub export function with a XHTML/Sigil
export? Relatedly: can Sigil be used latex-style, i.e. as a
converter/validator from the command line?

Cheers,

Stefano




-- 
__
Stefano Franchi
Associate Research Professor
Department of Hispanic StudiesPh:   +1 (979) 845-2125
Texas A University  Fax:  +1 (979) 845-6421
College Station, Texas, USA

stef...@tamu.edu
http://stefano.cleinias.org

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Les Denham 
On Fri, 17 May 2013 13:32:51 -0500
stefano franchi  wrote:

>  this may be a silly question, but worth asking perhaps: could the
> "tweaks" to the XHTML code that you carry out in Sigil be easily
> avoided with some, perhaps minor, tweaks to the existing XHTML
> export? In other words:  could we perhaps *completely* replace an
> ePub export function with a XHTML/Sigil export? Relatedly: can Sigil
> be used latex-style, i.e. as a converter/validator from the command
> line?

Stefano,

I don't think so: Sigil is not a command-line tool. Sigil has a
GPL3 license, so I don't see that there would be any problem re-using
code in it to create a command-line tool. But I think it would be
simpler to create such a tool from scratch.

If you just start Sigil from the command line with an HTML file as
the argument, you get a usable EPUB book brought up in the GUI, but it
has a few problems: firstly, the default text file is present but not
referenced; then there are four items of required metadata missing; and
the table of contents is inaccurate. There is also no cover. However,
with no editing the saved EPUB would probably work in most readers.

Fixing these problems takes no more than five minutes, unless you want
a fancy cover image.

Les

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Liviu Andronic 
On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 8:32 PM, stefano franchi
 wrote:
> export? Relatedly: can Sigil be used latex-style, i.e. as a
> converter/validator from the command line?
>
A quick search turned up this CLI ePub validator:
http://code.google.com/p/epubcheck/

And on Sigil's Issues tracker:
https://code.google.com/p/sigil/issues/detail?id=518
"Actually there's an *undocumented and unsupported* HTML-to-EPUB
command line conversion option. See main.cpp for details. Did I
mention the feature is *undocumented and unsupported*? :)
It's there because a certain company was willing to pay to see it
included, but I'm opposed to the feature on principle. Sigil is an
editor, not an automatic converter. If you need one, there's Calibre."

And here's Calibre's documentation:
http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conversion.html#conversion
http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cli/ebook-convert.html#ebook-convert

I don't see why we couldn't support the CLI  tools if someone showed
us how to use them.

Liviu

Re: What about ePub support

2013-05-17 Thread Les Denham 
On Fri, 17 May 2013 22:56:17 +0200
Liviu Andronic  wrote:

> "Actually there's an *undocumented and unsupported* HTML-to-EPUB
> command line conversion option. See main.cpp for details. Did I
> mention the feature is *undocumented and unsupported*? :)
> It's there because a certain company was willing to pay to see it
> included, but I'm opposed to the feature on principle. Sigil is an
> editor, not an automatic converter. If you need one, there's Calibre."
> 
> And here's Calibre's documentation:
> http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conversion.html#conversion
> http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cli/ebook-convert.html#ebook-convert
> 
> I don't see why we couldn't support the CLI  tools if someone showed
> us how to use them.

Liviu,

I've used Calibre to convert from HTML to EPUB, and that's why I prefer
to use Sigil. Calibre does a very good job of converting between ebook
formats, such as from EPUB to MOBI. But unless your book is very simple
it tends to run into problems with HTML input.

Les

-- 
http://lrdenham.wordpress.com/