They look reasonable to me, but you might want to experiment with the font size.  Maybe a bit smaller?  I use a bit of in-line CSS for this, e.g. <pre STYLE="font-size: 10pt">, adjusting the point size as needed.
 
Table A - wny the double underscores after some items, e.g. "_m.__"?  If nothing else, Gutcheck will probably complain mightily.
 
Table B - you could reduce the amount of vertical space, e.g. between Pratosha/Santosha, to a single vertical bar, instead of two bars.
 
 
A couple of things I forgot to mention initially:
 
Your source book has a lot of macronized characters (the short horizontal bar over them).  You should consider creating two text files, one UTF8 and one Latin1.  For the latter, this article (http://www.pgdp.net/wiki/Proofing_Interface_tips_and_tricks) describes DP's methods of rendering Unicode characters in a Latin1 text file.  (In your HTML file, you can use either the actual Unicode characters or HTML entities to display the characters.)
 
Be sure to left-pad your tables/trees with a couple of blank spaces.  This will (hopefully) prevent them from being errantly reformatted.  See http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Volunteers%27_FAQ#V.89._Are_there_any_places_where_I_should_indent_text.3F.
 
 
A trick I've used when doing trees or complex tables in a text file is to have a bunch of lines, 60-70 characters long, that contain only blank spaces.  This lets me navigate around that area, inserting text and generally moving around as necessary, without suddenly finding myself back at the left margin.  Trailing blanks can be easily trimmed off afterwards.
 
 
Al
 
-----Original Message-----
From: James Simmons [mailto:nicestep@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2011 8:24 AM
To: Al Haines
Cc: Gutenberg Volunteers
Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Recommendations on handling family tree tables - critique wanted

Al,

I've started on the pages with family trees and I have some samples that I'd like to get some feedback on before I do too many more of them.  There are a LOT of family tree tables in this book.

TABLE A.

(Transcriber's Note: In the original book some tables were turned sideways.
For reading as an e-book, these tables have been modified to read left to
right rather than top-down).


SVÂYAMBHUVA MANU
_m.__ SATARÛPA -----+---Priyavrata
                   |
                   +---Uttânpâda
                   |
                   +---_Akûti__
                   |   _m.__ Ruchi       +--- KAPILA
                   |                     |
                   +---_Devahûti__       |
                   |   _m.__ Kardama ----+--- _Kalâ__
                   |                     |    _m.__ Marichi
                   +---_Prasûti__        |
                       _m.__ Daksha      +--- _Anasuyâ__
                                         |    _m.__ Atri
                                         |
                                         +--- _Sraddhâ
                                         |    _m.__ Angirasa
                                         |
                                         +--- _Havirbhu__
                                         |    _m.__ Pulastya
                                         |
                                         +--- _Gati__
                                         |    _m.__ Pulaha
                                         |
                                         +--- _Kriyâ__
                                         |    _m.__ Kratu
                                         |
                                         +--- _Khyâti__
                                         |    _m.__ Bhrigu
                                         |
                                         +--- _Arundhati__
                                         |    _m.__ Vasistha
                                         |
                                         +--- _Sauti__
                                              _m.__ Atharvan

TABLE B.

  RUCHI
  _m.__ ÂKÛTI --- YAJNA --------------+
                  (married his        |--+--- Tosha
                  sister) Dakshinâ. --+  |
                                         |
                                         +--- Pratosha
                                         |
                                         |
                                         +--- Santosha
                                         |
                                         |
                                         +--- Bhadra
                                         |
                                         |
                                         +--- Sâuti
                                         |
                                         |
                                         +--- Idâmpati
                                         |
                                         |
                                         +--- Idhma
                                         |
                                         |
                                         +--- Kavi
                                         |
                                         |
                                         +--- Vibhu
                                         |
                                         |
                                         +--- Svâhra
                                         |
                                         |
                                         +--- Sudiva
                                         |
                                         |
                                         +--- Rochana
                                         
   N.B. The sons of Yajna are the Sushita Devas of the 1st. Manvantarâ.


TABLE C


    Marichi
   _m. Kalâ__
      |
      |
 --+--+-----------------+-----
   |                    |
 Kasyapa             Pûrnimâ
                        |
         +--------------+------------+--------
         |              |            |
      Viraja         Visvaga     _Devakulyâ__
                               (River Ganges in
                             subsequent incarnation).

                             
TABLE D.

                      Atri
                   _m. Anasûyâ__
                        |
    +----------------+--+------------------------+
    |                |                           |
  Datta          Durvasas                      Soma
                 (Rudra)                     (Brahmâ)


TABLE E.

                     Angirasa
                    _m. Sraddhâ__
                         |
 ---+----------+-------+-+--------+----------+--------+-----
    |          |       |          |          |        |                    
_Sinivali__ _Kuhû__  _Râkâ__  _Anumati__  Utathya Vrihaspati



TABLE F.

                       Pulastya
                     _m. Havirbhu__
                           |
 -------------+------------+----------------+
              |                             |
           Agastya                       Visvaras
 _m. (1) Ilavila m. (2) Kesinî__
         |                |
       Kuvera      +------+------+-------------+
                   |             |             |        
                Ravana       Kumbhakarna   Vibhisana


               
TABLE G.

                        Pulaha
                       _m. Gati__
                           |
    -----+---------------+-+---------------+---                  
         |               |                 |
  Karma Sreshtha      Bariyas          Sahishnu


I hope the samples above are acceptable.  The only other option I can think of is to treat every diagram as an illustration.  Since this book is a translation of a Hindu scripture the diagrams are something we might live without in the plain text version.

The samples above should use the Courier font, and there are no tabs in my file.

Thanks,

James Simmons


On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 5:26 PM, Al Haines <ajhaines@shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> James, to say you've bitten off a mouthful would be an understatement <g>!  To answer your question...
>  
> Highly structured material (trees, tables, etc) (such as that on page 13 and elsewhere) can exceed 70 characters.  For reproducing trees in HTML, the simplest method (and the one I've used), is to take the text version of the tree, copy/paste it into your HTML file, and wrap it in <pre></pre> tags.
>  
> For trees with preceding diagrams (page 13 again) insert something like "[Illustration: Purusha]" in your text file, and the actual diagram in your HTML file.
>  
> For extremely wide trees/tables, if any (more than 100 characters, say), split the tree into left and right halves for the text file.  At the end of the file, include a transcriber's note mentioning which tables have been treated this way.  For HTML, you can rejoin the halves, or leave them as in the text file, again using the <pre></pre> trick.
>  
> I notice that some tables (pages 58, 59) are split across pages. Unless you can figure out how the two portions are joined, it's probably best to treat them as two separate tables.  If you can figure how they're joined, it's acceptable to join them, but it looks as though you might end up with an extremely wide table.  I'd say to keep things simple, and don't attempt a join.
>  
> From what I've seen of the book, you should be able to render all trees/tables with alpha-numerics.
>  
> Good luck!
>  
> Al
>  
>  
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gutvol-d-bounces@lists.pglaf.org [mailto:gutvol-d-bounces@lists.pglaf.org] On Behalf Of James Simmons
> Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2011 11:56 AM
> To: Gutenberg Volunteers
> Subject: [gutvol-d] Recommendations on handling family tree tables
>
> I am working on transcribing this book:
>
> http://www.archive.org/details/studyofbhagavata00benaiala
>
> This is a translation into English of an important Hindu scripture, originally in Sanskrit.  Now that I have committed myself to transcribing it I find that it has many, many family tree tables in it.  These are not part of the scripture itself, but were added to clear up who begat who.  (All mythical characters).  Some of these stretch out so wide that the page is rotated in the original.  Others could easily be duplicated with ASCII characters in 80 columns or less.
>
> I've looked at some PG titles with geneologies like this one about Bach:
>
> http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35041/35041-h/35041-h.html#toc49
>
> In this one the family tree tables are treated as illustrations.  That would certainly be a simple way to deal with them, but again about half of the diagrams could be done with ASCII text.  It would be painful, but it could be done.  So do I do half and half, or try and do all text, or just do illustrations all the way?
>
> Thoughts?
>
> James Simmons
>