A new version of eScape is now available for download from the eScape web page.Both Linux and Windows versions are available.
This release improves output file size with deflate compression when making the zip. This was primarily done to prevent the Sony BBeB device from being confused when assessing file size, but has the obvious advantage of making considerably smaller ePub packages. The specification allows store or flate methods in zip. This is a significant improvement and it is recommended that regular users upgrade to this version to take advantage of this feature.
The rest of this blog entry outlines a new localization feature, some general information and little known facts about eScape. Read on...
Continue reading "eScape Release 1-1 and other notes" »
We have received a lot of requests for image support in eScape. We rely on the excellent XSL convertors to XHTML that come standard with OOo (if you install them). We then clean them up to IGP:FoundationXHTML standards. Unfortunately images are processed to XHTML differently in different versions of Open Office. In the latest they convert them to Base 64, so there is not a one size fits all conversion from OOo to ePub.
eScape uses OOo as a Structure Stying environment - not a presentation styling environment, that means you are using it as a production environment to create an ePub, not a nice ODT/PDF and an ePub. We can handle images as inserts using the following, slightly inelegant strategy.
If you are interested read on. It gets a bit technical from here ...
Continue reading "Image Strategy for eScape" »
Thoreau wrote this great book, possibly a little relevant in tough economic times. You can download the ePub, or the components from the Azardi resources page. Anyway the point of this blog is just a quick analysis on creating what is a slightly larger book using eScape. I just thought this was an interesting enough book both in terms of
content (man that guy has a POV!) and content structures to make it a
little bit interesting.
Continue reading "Walden, and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" »
The eScape ODT to ePub Online tutorial is taking shape, probably to the stage where it is usable. If you haven't noticed it's available it is probably worth a look here (opens in a new window). Hopefully the tutorial will be substantially finished tomorrow (24th Feb 2009). Besides the usual do 1, 2, 3, it also tries to give some explanation of the inside workings of XML for publishing, and how consistent structure gives enormous flexibility in reuse.
I need to extend the page on pre-processing text files (eg. from Project Gutenberg) to handle end-of-lines, smart quotes, em-dashes and a few more minor issues. It is pretty important to condition the text file nicely before applying Structure-Styling because macro processes can really upset the metadata and other applied styles (as I found out the hard way).
Continue reading "eScape Online Tutorial" »