On Fri, Oct 05, 2012 at 12:56:34PM -0700, Fred Salzer wrote:
Where/how do we learn how to properly prepare HTML files for PG? I think that most of us (DP) are doing the best we know how and want to do better.
Fred
Thanks for asking :) One specific guideline, which I don't think is fully adopted or enforced (yet. It will be), is to preview a project using epubmaker (http://epubmaker.pglaf.org) before submitting it. That will help to identify things that don't properly convert to derivative formats. The list that Adcock presented below is useful, though would need to be rewritten in a more positive and supportive manner. The bottom line for most points is to encourage use of HTML to mark up structure, not layout. It seems there are technical solutions that DO allow some safe use of HTML (or CSS) for layout, though I worry that what works today might not work as well tomorrow. For example, I was pleased to see that there is a set of CSS that better supports portability for use of images or large letters at the start of chapters (Louise posted this). Calling some of the beautifully & lovingly crafted eBooks "vanity" is unnecessarily derogatory. I find it easy to recognize the caring and passion that went into making them. Your question supports my belief that most people who help produce eBooks will be perfectly willing to follow guidance to insure their works are maximally readable, on a variety of devices, now and into the future. -- Greg
From: gutvol-d-bounces@lists.pglaf.org [mailto:gutvol-d-bounces@lists.pglaf.org] On Behalf Of James Adcock Sent: Friday, October 05, 2012 12:31 To: 'Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion' Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] blah blah blah blah blah
Ways PG html files commonly fail (listed about in order of what I typically see)
1) People who apply formatting to <p> who think they know what they are doing but do not.
2) Dropcaps by people who think they know what a dropcap is and know how to do it in html but know neither.
3) People who think they can position floats when they cannot.
4) People who apparently deliberately write html designed to fail on one or another common platform.
5) html absolute positioning assuming a particular display size.
6) margin sizing which assumes a particular display size and shape.
7) Text over images.
8) Text inside "images" which ought to be just text.
9) People who think they know how to turn page numbers on or off on one or another target device when they do not.
10) People who think they understand @media when they do not.
11) People who don't know or who don't care about common book formatting conventions.
Etc.
It may be "vanity" which causes these problems to exist, but "vanity" needn't cause these problems to exist. These "vanity" problems can usually be easily fixed in the html source code, often without negatively affecting at all how the html displays on a desktop computer.
Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive and Director Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation www.gutenberg.org A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization with EIN 64-6221541 gbnewby@pglaf.org