Ah, converting books into EPUB file format. So much fun.
It’s really not. But it at least isn’t hard, it’s just time consuming and tedious. But it’s gotta get done if the book is going out, so I’m doing it.
Just to give you a quick idea, the first three steps are all Find/Replace commands in MS Word. Find all quotation marks (“) and replace with… quotation marks (“). Basically to make sure that the entire document’s quotes are left-quote and right-quote aligned properly. Then repeat that with single quotation marks, and then with ellipses (…). Fun!
But then you convert the whole thing into HTML, strip out all the formatting, and put that back in with code. That’s okay.
And then find and replace all the correctly aligned quotation marks (both single and double) with code. THAT’s the slow part. Faster now, but still slow.
That’s the part I’m working on today. Which is good, because it’s basically the last part! I don’t do any fancy-schmancy formatting stuff with my books (chapter flourishes or pictures or whatever). Maybe someday, but not for Tintian Book 3, at least. Oh, and I have to get another ISBN… just a self-reminder.
Anyway! Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!