james-

i wanna make sure that you and i don't get sidetracked by
this discussion that's going on about guiguts and .epub...

i think it's important to stay focused because -- for one --
you recommended guiguts in your "enlightenment" book,
and -- for another -- you've said here that _you_ use it...

let me say, right at the outset, that i do respect guiguts...
thundergnat -- the original programmer -- did a service
for distributed proofreaders that very few will ever match.
people who've worked on it since steve, including hunter,
have helped as well; guiguts has been invaluable to many.

and i mean all of that praise quite sincerely, i really do...

at the same time, however, guiguts is long in the tooth...
and it never was too user-friendly; it's a _bear_ to install.

but the worst thing about it is that it was molded out of
the d.p. workflow, which is _not_ something to emulate.

so unless you're working inside d.p. -- and maybe even
not then -- you definitely do _not_ want to use guiguts.

still...  as far as the current _discussion_ goes, join in!

hunter is _asking_ for advice, so give him some, and
he might just be able to improve the resultant output.
i'm not too hopeful about that, for reasons i'll append,
but i'm not opposed to change, and  it could happen...

but even if guiguts does "improve", in terms of input
for the .epub converter, you still won't want to use it.

all of the useful things it does -- and it does many --
are things that you can write your own scripts to do.

and scripts you write will work much better, for you.

this _specifically_ includes the text-to-html routine...

you might or might not decide to adopt my .zml, but
even if you don't, i can _guarantee_ that you will have
seen enough of the light to realize you can d.i.y. this.

so join the fun of the current discussion, and see if
you can learn anything from it, but understand that
-- in the long run -- guiguts will not matter to you.

-bowerbird

p.s.  so why i am not optimistic about this discussion?

1.  we discussed it a million times; it never mattered.
2.  marcello doesn't care a whit what anybody thinks.
3.  the d.p. postprocessors don't care what you think.
4.  postprocessors got recruited as snowflake makers.
5.  everyone wants the e-books made to _their_ taste.
6.  too many cooks spoil the soup; so then it's spoiled.
7.  3 d.p. committees worked on this; they all gave up.
8.  .epub is a moving target; tomorrow, apple moves it.
9.  it's impossible for a single .epub to please everybody.
10.  end-users will soon demand an ability to customize.

so... have fun.  but i've got better things to do...       :+)