How to make a Project Gutenberg eBook

Post by **mightyfelix** » May 10th, 2019, 12:52 pm

That's a pretty great setup! Way out of my area of expertise, but I like it!

Post by **TriciaG** » December 19th, 2022, 5:13 pm

LikeManyWaters wrote: ↑May 9th, 2019, 9:52 am I meant to say THANKS before now, oops!

My husband says he will help me set up something like this DIY book scanner. Thought it might be nice to share... so if you have some scrap plexiglass... it doesn’t open the book all the way, so less spine stress.

April - did you ever get this set up? I just got a hard copy book, whose spine hardly feels used, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to photo the pages to upload to Archive without hurting it.

Oh, and for a different project - if anyone wants to take my 7000-word Word/OpenOffice document and convert it to clean html, I'd appreciate it! I've tried some of the online converters, and they make really messy html.

KevinS · Post by **KevinS** » December 19th, 2022, 8:13 pm

TriciaG wrote: ↑December 19th, 2022, 5:13 pm
Oh, and for a different project - if anyone wants to take my 7000-word Word/OpenOffice document and convert it to clean html, I'd appreciate it! I've tried some of the online converters, and they make really messy html.

I'll give it a try. I'd like to see if I know how this can be easily done. I'll pm my e-mail address.

I won't be offended if you say you would prefer someone who knows what he is doing!

LikeManyWaters · Post by **LikeManyWaters** » December 19th, 2022, 8:18 pm

LOL no, I wish I did, but never found time. !

TriciaG wrote: ↑December 19th, 2022, 5:13 pm
LikeManyWaters wrote: ↑May 9th, 2019, 9:52 am I meant to say THANKS before now, oops!

My husband says he will help me set up something like this DIY book scanner. Thought it might be nice to share... so if you have some scrap plexiglass... it doesn’t open the book all the way, so less spine stress.
April - did you ever get this set up? I just got a hard copy book, whose spine hardly feels used, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to photo the pages to upload to Archive without hurting it.

Oh, and for a different project - if anyone wants to take my 7000-word Word/OpenOffice document and convert it to clean html, I'd appreciate it! I've tried some of the online converters, and they make really messy html.

Post by **TriciaG** » December 20th, 2022, 6:20 am

KevinS wrote: ↑December 19th, 2022, 8:13 pm
TriciaG wrote: ↑December 19th, 2022, 5:13 pm
Oh, and for a different project - if anyone wants to take my 7000-word Word/OpenOffice document and convert it to clean html, I'd appreciate it! I've tried some of the online converters, and they make really messy html.
I'll give it a try. I'd like to see if I know how this can be easily done. I'll pm my e-mail address.

I won't be offended if you say you would prefer someone who knows what he is doing!

Hey, if you're willing to take a crack at it, go for it! Email being sent.

Post by **TriciaG** » December 22nd, 2022, 7:03 pm

What I have learned over the past few days:

(1) Find a way to make clean html. The online converters do a very bad job, even on "plain text" kinds of files. (I grabbed a simple work off PG, similar to the structure of the work I was converting, and changed over its html to my own in WordPad. It wasn't a cake walk, even knowing some html. CSS is/are my nemesis.)

(2) Just because you have the html file practically perfect doesn't mean you can neglect the plain text version.

(3) This page: https://upload.pglaf.org/ under "Required formats and checks" has a list of the html and txt checks you should do on your files. They don't catch everything, but you should correct the errors they find.

(4) The epub checker will give you errors you don't understand or even need to deal with (such as the lack of the PG header/footer). I guess there must be some errors that you DO have to deal with, which is why they recommend running your file through it.

(5) Their instructions and tips haven't been updated in a while.

Even a 7000-word work was... well, a lot of work!