a review of some digitization tools -- 004
so now let's take a look at another book that jim adcock did, pg#29452, "the wings of the dove", written by henry james... once again, hats off to jim for digitizing this important book. i've appended a full list of the tags that jim used in this book. this list is even more brief than the one from yesterday, since jim didn't include a linked table-of-contents within this book. in general, i think an e-book should have a table-of-contents, because it increases the readers power to navigate the e-book, but i guess there's no need to make a big deal about that here. another quibble might be that he gave the section-headers ("book first", "book second", etc.) the same heading-level as the chapter-headers below them (i.e., an [h2] tag), but again, the chapter-structure of this book was simple enough that i'd have to say that that probably doesn't matter that much. the point is, jim didn't use any anchor-link .html in this book. nor did he use an [pre] tags, likely because none was required. again, the point is that, for a great many books, the _tagging_ that a person needs to do for an e-book is extremely minimal. also of note is that jim goes with some radically sparse .css, and sometimes eliminates it entirely -- a breath of fresh air! -bowerbird p.s. here is the list of .html tags that jim used in pg#29452...
[br] [p][/p] [i][/i]
[h1 align="center"]THE WINGS OF THE DOVE[/h1] [h3 align="center"]BY[/h3] [h5 align="center"]Copyright, 1902, by[/h5]
[h2 align="center"]BOOK FIRST[/h2] [h2 align="center"]THE WINGS OF THE DOVE[/h2] [h2 align="center"]I[/h2] [h2 align="center"]II[/h2] [h2 align="center"]BOOK SECOND[/h2] [h2 align="center"]III[/h2] [h2 align="center"]IV[/h2] [h2 align="center"]BOOK THIRD[/h2] [h2 align="center"]V[/h2] [h2 align="center"]VI[/h2] [h2 align="center"]BOOK FOURTH[/h2] [h2 align="center"]VII[/h2] [h2 align="center"]VIII[/h2] [h2 align="center"]IX[/h2] [h2 align="center"]BOOK FIFTH[/h2] [h2 align="center"]X[/h2] [h2 align="center"]XI[/h2] [h2 align="center"]XII[/h2] [h2 align="center"]XIII[/h2] [h2 align="center"]XIV[/h2] [h2 align="center"]XV[/h2] [h2 align="center"]XVI[/h2]
so now let's take a look at another book that jim adcock did, pg#29452, "the wings of the dove", written by henry james...
This book and a previous one BB mentions I did at the request of Michael Hart, and did them when I was still pretty new to this process, and these are very large books. My goal has always been, and will continue to be: do as well as I can until family demands demand that I cease and desist, and then I send the book in to PG. I look forward to the efforts of BB or any other volunteers at PG who want to fix any remaining errors in these books, assuming such volunteers know what they are doing and hopefully dear god actually look at the original text my efforts are based on when they do their "fixes" rather than guessing that they know better than the original author and/or publisher.
once again, hats off to jim for digitizing this important book.
It is not an issue of "digitizing" which BB would know if he actually tackled a non-trivial book.
this list is even more brief than the one from yesterday, since jim didn't include a linked table-of-contents within this book.
I have very mixed feelings about including TOCs and other transcriberisms -- when the author chooses not to include a TOC -- But often the WWs demand them.
nor did he use an [pre] tags, likely because none was required.
pre tags "don't work," as anyone knows who has checked out the generated html/epub/mobi on a variety of devices.
also of note is that jim goes with some radically sparse .css, and sometimes eliminates it entirely -- a breath of fresh air!
Most of what PG/DP people put into CSS "doesn't work" as anyone knows who has checked out the generated html/epub/mobi on a variety of devices. Sometimes I have checked in HTML that "works" but doesn't have a CSS -- and then the WWs "help me out" by putting in a CSS "for me" -- which breaks my efforts on a variety of different devices. Sigh. PS: If BB did a more complete analysis he would find that I put a great deal of HTML "quirks" into these books to make them work, look similar, and look more-or-less attractive on a great variety of devices. But then the PG processing chain gets tweaked and there we go again....
I know of ten projects James Adcock has submitted to PG, of which I WWed/posted nine. At no time did I add, or urge him to add, any CSS. If he's referring to whatever might be in PG's generated files (epub, kindle, etc), it should be pointed out, emphatically, that the WWers have absolutely no control over those files or what goes into them. As a WWer, I've never asked a submitter to add a TOC or a CSS section to their submitted files. As far as I'm concerned, that is entirely up to the ebook's producer. Hopefully, a WWer who thinks a TOC or CSS is a desirable addition consults with the producer. As a producer, I've occasionally added TOC's and Lists of Illustrations to my projects, as a convenience for the reader. TOC's and LOI's were probably far more likely to have been produced by the publisher than by the author. Al
-----Original Message----- From: gutvol-d-bounces@lists.pglaf.org [mailto:gutvol-d-bounces@lists.pglaf.org] On Behalf Of Jim Adcock Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 5:09 PM To: 'Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion' Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] a review of some digitization tools -- 004
so now let's take a look at another book that jim adcock did, pg#29452, "the wings of the dove", written by henry james...
This book and a previous one BB mentions I did at the request of Michael Hart, and did them when I was still pretty new to this process, and these are very large books. My goal has always been, and will continue to be: do as well as I can until family demands demand that I cease and desist, and then I send the book in to PG. I look forward to the efforts of BB or any other volunteers at PG who want to fix any remaining errors in these books, assuming such volunteers know what they are doing and hopefully dear god actually look at the original text my efforts are based on when they do their "fixes" rather than guessing that they know better than the original author and/or publisher.
once again, hats off to jim for digitizing this important book.
It is not an issue of "digitizing" which BB would know if he actually tackled a non-trivial book.
this list is even more brief than the one from yesterday, since jim didn't include a linked table-of-contents within this book.
I have very mixed feelings about including TOCs and other transcriberisms -- when the author chooses not to include a TOC -- But often the WWs demand them.
nor did he use an [pre] tags, likely because none was required.
pre tags "don't work," as anyone knows who has checked out the generated html/epub/mobi on a variety of devices.
also of note is that jim goes with some radically sparse .css, and sometimes eliminates it entirely -- a breath of fresh air!
Most of what PG/DP people put into CSS "doesn't work" as anyone knows who has checked out the generated html/epub/mobi on a variety of devices. Sometimes I have checked in HTML that "works" but doesn't have a CSS -- and then the WWs "help me out" by putting in a CSS "for me" -- which breaks my efforts on a variety of different devices. Sigh.
PS: If BB did a more complete analysis he would find that I put a great deal of HTML "quirks" into these books to make them work, look similar, and look more-or-less attractive on a great variety of devices. But then the PG processing chain gets tweaked and there we go again....
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As a WWer, I've never asked a submitter to add a TOC or a CSS section to their submitted files.
Actually, reviewing our emails, what you in fact asked was that I turn a static TOC into an hot-linked one. Re CSS, I don't remember who the WW was, but one "helped me out" by putting in a CSS "for me."
A linked TOC and CSS are integral parts of ebooks. The problem is that the CSS has to be designed for use with ereaders. regards Keith. Am 01.12.2011 um 02:32 schrieb James Adcock:
As a WWer, I've never asked a submitter to add a TOC or a CSS section to their submitted files.
Actually, reviewing our emails, what you in fact asked was that I turn a static TOC into an hot-linked one.
Re CSS, I don't remember who the WW was, but one "helped me out" by putting in a CSS "for me."
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A linked TOC and CSS are integral parts of ebooks.
I don't see the need for a TOC when the author didn't see the need for a TOC. In any case most PG books don't correctly link TOC on Kindles.
The problem is that the CSS has to be designed for use with ereaders.
And historically at least Kindle and kindlegen have very weak support for CSS and interpret it considerably different than modern desktop web browsers. Thus, for example, grabbing the last 10 books PG has published, I find that 6 out of 10 books have serious broken formatting on Kindle -- and arguably 10 out of 10 -- are ill-formatted on pretty basic grounds -- i.e. "What is the correct way to format a paragraph?" Don't know if the kf8 tools if and when they are actually release will help this any.
participants (5)
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Al Haines -
Bowerbird＠aol.com -
James Adcock -
Jim Adcock
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Keith J. Schultz