Atlantis for epub creation for Smashwords and Topstyle 5

General comments and questions. Technical support.
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Bad_Wolf
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2013 11:58 am

Atlantis for epub creation for Smashwords and Topstyle 5

Post by Bad_Wolf »

Hello everyone,

I am looking for a wordprocessor, which respect my encodings.

What I like to do is twofold,

I intend to use Atlantis for just writing the stories. Then create the ".doc" file just within "Atlantis" and upload that to Smashword for ebook creation.

On the other side, I like to use Atlantis for generating a text (txt) file, which I load into TopStyle 5. Once loaded in Topstyle, I manually code the xhtml tags. In other words, creating the epub version manually.

I am an application developer create regularly txt files for my applications. That is why respecting the encoding of a document is very important to me. I do not want to have strange characters inside the text.

I like to write stories in Atlantis, complete text stories. This can be a story for a game or a story to put on SmashWords.

I also like to use Atlantis for writing tutorials (text with screenshots).

I have very little knowledge about Atlantis but it seems exactly what I need. Can you give me some advice on ebook creation for Smashwords, encodings and if Atlantis and TopStyle 5 can smoothly work together side by side.

Thank you very much for your reply which will be very much appreciated.

Friendly greetings,

Bad_Wolf
acra-endeavours
Botswana - Belgium
Robert
Posts: 1890
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2003 8:27 pm

Post by Robert »

Hi,
Atlantis produces very clean EPUB files which pass through the validation test of the EPUB Validator available on the IDPF site (International Digital Publishing Forum). To create such EPUB files, you only need to create a RTF, DOC, or DOCX source file in Atlantis and run the “File | Save Special | Save as eBook…” main menu command in Atlantis, input any suitable file name, then click “Save”. You’ll find all details at Saving documents as eBooks.
In other words, there is no need to write the EPUB code yourself. If you should ever feel the need to rework the EPUB code produced by Atlantis, we suggest using the free “Tweak EPUB” utility available on the Atlantis site at Modifying EPUB files. The “Tweak EPUB” utility will allow you to open and modify the EPUB code created by Atlantis in any pure text editor. In your case, it will be TopStyle 5.

Regarding the Smashwords requirements, you’ll find all details in the “Smashwords Style Guide” available on this page.

HTH.
Cheers,
Robert
Bad_Wolf
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2013 11:58 am

Post by Bad_Wolf »

Hello Robert,

Thank you very much for your fast reply and your information.

We will use Atlantis as our wordprocessor and ebook creator. As you can read I used TopStyle a lot, even for writing text files, but Atlantis will be much more easy to use I am sure.

I just bought a license at the Atlantis website.

Thank you very much for your support which is very much appreciated.

Wish you a very nice day and all the best.

Friendly greetings,

Bad_Wolf
Daher
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Jun 01, 2013 7:39 am

Post by Daher »

For the modification of epubs created by Atlantis, I use Sigil which is much more powerful than tweak_epub. In addition to syntax highlighting, it provides book view and code view of html files. To insert files (audio, videos, fonts), it is very easy using the menu.
Robert
Posts: 1890
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2003 8:27 pm

Post by Robert »

Hi,
You can choose which editor will be used to edit the XHTML code directly in “Tweak EPUB”:

Image

Image

If you use an editor like Notepad++ which provides syntax highlighting, you’ll have syntax highlighting of the EPUB code created by Atlantis directly from within “Tweak EPUB”.

“Tweak EPUB” natively provides an opportunity to preview the EPUB file in the associated eReader:

Image

There is no need to include code for the fonts, or to embed the font files manually yourself. The Atlantis “Save As eBook” dialog natively offers such an opportunity, and will do it for you automatically:

Image

Embedding audio and video manually might be tempting, but bear in mind that most current eReaders have very poor or limited support for such features, when they support them at all!

Finally, note that from experience, I can say that the EPUB code produced by Sigil does not always pass through the validation test of the EPUB Validator available on the IDPF site (International Digital Publishing Forum).

What’s more, the code produced by Sigil is often needlessly bloated.

The risks are even greater if you tweak the EPUB code yourself…

HTH.
Cheers,
Robert
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admin
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Post by admin »

Daher wrote:For the modification of epubs created by Atlantis, I use Sigil which is much more powerful than tweak_epub. In addition to syntax highlighting, it provides book view and code view of html files. To insert files (audio, videos, fonts), it is very easy using the menu.
I do not see a point in comparing the functionality of tweak_epub and Sigil because these two tools are meant for different purposes. With the tweak_epub utility, you can adjust individual files within an EPUB package without affecting the other files in it. Such delicate changes to an EPUB file are not possible with Sigil because Sigil "rebuilds" the EPUB file, not modifies individual files within the EPUB package.
Daher
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Jun 01, 2013 7:39 am

Post by Daher »

I use Sigil to insert fonts (just trials) and, mainly, audio.

The "Save As eBook" can't embed fonts with non-Latin font names (see the other topic). That is why I have made some trials to insert very special fonts myself.

Audio is my main interest, shared with a friend of mine, for language learning. Yes I took long time to find an eReader or plugin for audio. Now, I use Gitden EPUB3 Book Reader on Android, EPUBReader on Firefox, Readium on Chrome. My friend uses Readium on Chrome.

Due to non-Latin fonts (saved but non embedded) and audio, Adobe Digital Editions (called by Tweak EPUB to preview ebook) is unable to display the book. So, I preview either with the Book View mode of Sigil when inserting audio files, or with Firefox/Chrome.

I just insert audio with Sigil, and have not checked to which extend it will modify the code generated by Atlantis.
Bad_Wolf
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2013 11:58 am

Post by Bad_Wolf »

Hi everyone,

This evening I did a small test with one application I know (Serif PagePlus X7 which is a DTP application with the option to create epub ebooks) and Atlantis.

It was a very simple test, just a paragraph of text, then an image and then a paragraph of text again. The paragraphs where left aligned, the image centered.

In PagePlus the image did not even show up, in Atlantis the image was centered, and the ebook just showed the way I intended.

Then I uploaded the ebook to my Onyx i62 angelglow reader, and also the Atlantis ebook exactly showed as intended.

I read somewhere to be carefull using audio files, because they can disrupt the whole ebook. The Onyx Angelglow has audio support but I did not use it.

To start somewhere to learn Atlantis, I started typing over short stories from a book and will create an epub ebook from it. I like what I see in Atlantis very much. I will use Atlantis for much more than only creating ebooks.

Thank you all for your very interesting information.

Wish you all a very nice day.

Friendly greetings,

Bad_Wolf
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