FG User Manual in ePub format

[MacDork]

Any chance of getting the PDF converted to ePub? I've used Calibre to get me part of the way there, but the formatting gets wrecked. I imagine ddavison wrote it in Word, so converting from there to ePub would be trivial if I had the source document.

I'd happily post the doc here in whatever format people's ereaders require (mobi, epub, azw3, etc).

[Trenloe]

It was created directly from the User Guide pages in the Wiki: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/User_Guides Maybe you could try some of the website to ePub solutions out there?

[MacDork]

Awesome :D

I used the Wikipedia page importer for Calibre and it worked wonderfully. Thank you!

[Trenloe]

Cool! Good to know Calibre works for that. :)

[MacDork]

Hm. I don't see an easy way to upload the file here. If anyone wants it, let me know and I'll post it on dropbox or something.

[Trenloe]

Click the "Go Advanced" button on the "quick reply" frame - then you can see the paperclip attachment button.

[MacDork]

Doh. Thanks. File's too big (9.8MB), but I'll post it if someone's interested.

[Nylanfs]

Throw on google drive or dropbox and share link. :)

[MacDork]

Throw on google drive or dropbox and share link. :)


https://www.dropbox.com/s/o3fqct9gzqhn5fz/FantasyGroundsUserManual%20-%20Doug%20Davison.epub?dl=0

[Xemit]

Formatting is a bit broken and many images are cropped, but a good first pass!

I use Sigil to edit ePubs as it is very plain vanilla. Calibre has too many bells and whistles that I'd never use / don't want, so I stopped using it several years back.

[MacDork]

I've taken a brief look at Sigil but never dug in -- I'm encouraged to hear that it produces better results; I'll give it a look.

Do you know if it can scrape Wiki pages? The epub I created was literally me just adding the URLs to a text field and pressing "go", so the ratio of work:result is still high enough for me to accept it, since my goal was to have a mobile-friendly epub.

The tiny picture issue is enough of a bummer that I may search for a better way.

[damned]

Any chance of getting the PDF converted to ePub? I've used Calibre to get me part of the way there, but the formatting gets wrecked. I imagine ddavison wrote it in Word, so converting from there to ePub would be trivial if I had the source document.

I'd happily post the doc here in whatever format people's ereaders require (mobi, epub, azw3, etc).

Ive uploaded a version from the original file to the Wiki.
I dont believe its as up to date as the Wiki itself is though.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

[MacDork]

Ah cool -- thanks!

[Xemit]

Sigil is simpler than Calibre, but it isn't perfect, it sometimes generates bad markup while you edit. Easy to fix, but you need to know what you are doing (and keep a backup).

Sigil doesn't have a tool for the conversion of PDF or Wiki scraping, but there are several cloud solutions that do that separately.

Most converters will not put the appropriate markup around pictures to keep them full page width, but it isn't too hard to fix. I noticed that the images were also in the wrong places in the document. A wiki scrape 'should' get the best first pass results. PDF conversion uses OCR, which can sometimes get it wrong.

I'm taking a stab at converting this as well. I had started with the PDF, but will switch over to the Wiki as the source.

I see a "v3.4" ePub on the links of the main Wiki page. It is a closer start, but can use a bit of tweaking yet.

BTW, I noticed the TOC in the PDF is a bit mixed up. There is no Token section title and the references to it and the combat tracker are to web URL instead of the same document.

[MacDork]

Good info on Sigi -- thanks!

[Xemit]

OK, I grabbed the ePub marked as v3.4 off of the Wiki main page. I then modified it so that the images now auto size to the eReader page size. I also trimmed out a bunch of the Calibre 'fat' where it tries to match formatting as exactly as possible of the original source. This reduces the HTML size by about 50%. It is still a large ePub as the included images are 12.7 MB (unzipped). The ePub itself is now about 12.6 MB.

I've marked it as a v3.3.7 edition as I intend to make it match up the current Wiki, which 'should' match the live version for content (I know it doesn't, but we'll pretend for now). There might still be some formatting that needs attention, but on a quick pass it looks good to me. Many of the links are to the Wiki pages instead of to the appropriate part of the ePub. I'll clean those up as I go through the next pass.

Attempting to attach the ePub here. The forum says it can handle files bigger than 9.6MB when extension is something specific (such as MOD). Trying to rename the file extension to see if we can get it through. Nope, that isn't working.

We need to set up ePub as a valid extension on this forum, with a max payload size of say 20MB.

Try this:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bd2xR65XeOtqexIVAJxcnX6r2xYw4UH7

Feb. 8 - Posted an updated file with the internal links set to point to the correct sections within the ePub, instead of the Wiki. Fixed a few formatting issues I spotted and updated the TOC.

[Xemit]

Posted a new update of the ePub using same link as in Post #16 above.

Started making the content match the Wiki a bit more closely.

A bit more formatting fixes and filled in the Chat section which was missing most of the Wiki content.

I've put a date on the bottom of the first page to indicate the 'version' of the ePub so you can tell which one you have easier.

I've noticed that the table formatting doesn't show with alternate line shading inside the two reader programs I have (Sony Reader for PC. Adobe Digital Editions), yet they show correctly within Sigil. I'll investigate further to see if this is something I can 'fix'.

[Xemit]

And posted another update.

This refreshed the entire section on Effects, including using the new content that Zacchaeus just posted from his 5E posting (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?35937-How-to-Automate-effects-on-NPCs).

Also fixed up a few 'non-standard' markups. You won't really see any difference from these unless you break open the ePub and browse the pages in a very strict web browser. This ePub is a v2 package, and these edits make it possible to upgrade this to a v3 package at some point.

Same link as before:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bd2xR65XeOtqexIVAJxcnX6r2xYw4UH7

[MacDork]

Wow, thank you. I sometimes feel people don't "get" how convenient and accessible epub is.


... could also be my old eyes, but whatever :p

[Xemit]

All to often the PDF document forms are designed for an 8.5" x 11" page. That doesn't scale well down to a phone or smaller tablet. The ePub format re-paginates to match the available screen size while maintaining fonts at their intended size. This results in more pages, but you can read it without having to zoom and manually scroll around the page constantly.

Small update posted. I've included the missing keyboard shortcuts shown in the weekly tips email.

Same link as post 18.

[MacDork]

Thanks, again :)