Book Cleaner files v1.7 2009-02-20

[Patricia]

Just a thought, but when making an LRF book, be sure to click on:
Make books/Sony Reader, then select the 'options' tab and click on 'as it it' in the dashes option.

[babyd]

Yep, done that too

I'm really stumped why mine seems to be working opposite to all of yours LOL

For now I'm using German and then using find/replace to hunt for all the oe emdashes and changing them back. Using English causes way too many quirks that need correcting. Hunting out the oe emdashes is really tedious though.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RWood

Jon:

Since you keep improving the Book Cleaner files, could you make a note including the date when you post a new version? When did version 1.5 get posted?

I'm going to sort out the book cleaner files today and post 1.6. 1.5 was posted on January 8, 2008.

[JSWolf]

The Book Cleaner files are now up to 1.6.

They add in a fix for gun types because when you have something like .44 the space in front of the . in .44 gets stripped.

[Patricia]

Thanks, Jon.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Thanks, Jon.

Thread title needs changing.

[Patricia]

Done.
I only wish that vvv, who developed the Book Designer program, was as punctilious as Jon about updating and improving it. Meanwhile the new Book Cleaner files are working extremely well on my latest book.

[JSWolf]

I'm hoping that because this thread has been brought to the front, more people who use Book Designer will see this and download these Book Cleaner files.

But at least the 1.5 files were downloaded 795 times. At least I hope that is correct. This is not just for Sony Readers.

[babyd]

Jon, you are a star !! All my emdash/oe woes have gone ! It all works beautifully now, after using your update.

thank you so much

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by babyd

Jon, you are a star !! All my emdash/oe woes have gone ! It all works beautifully now, after using your update.

thank you so much

You are very welcome. I'm happy it's working for you. Dashes/emdashes are one of my pet peeves with books. If it wasn't for Book Cleaner, I would have bugged the author of BD to get that fixed.

[Novasea]

Thank you

[Roberts324]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You are very welcome. I'm happy it's working for you. Dashes/emdashes are one of my pet peeves with books. If it wasn't for Book Cleaner, I would have bugged the author of BD to get that fixed.

Unfortunately, version 1.6 (as well as 1.5, btw) is broken when your language is French - that's my case - and the "oe" symbol is found in a text (mostly in words like "oeuvre", "oeuf", "coeur" or "loess".

At the very least, this sign should be changed to "oe", which is acceptable in French typography and wouldn't shock a soul. What really happens is that the sign disappears altogether, leaving "uvre", "uf", "cur" or "lss", that are mostly unreadable. But the best solution would be to leave the original sign alone.

Here is the output Bookdesigner gave me on an example text I created for this:
---
Robert Soubie
Fichier de test pour Bookdesigner
Je suis à l'uvre, et je marche sur des ufs.
Cette phrase contient les mots «oeuvre» et «oeufs».
Tant que nous y sommes, occupons-nous
· des accents:
car pâtre là
me léger hère être
i
cor hôte
ubiquité où
· de la cédille
çà et là

This file was created with BookDesigner program
bookdesigner@the-ebook.org
31/10/2008
---
And here is the original (note that the Mobilread preview shows the "official oe sign" on one line (in French, we say "o, e dans l'o"), and "oe" with separate letters on the following line (words enclosed in quotes):
---
Robert Soubie
Fichier de test pour Bookdesigner


Je suis à l'œuvre, et je marche sur des œufs.
Cette phrase contient les mots «oeuvre» et «oeufs».
Tant que nous y sommes, occupons-nous
• des accents:
car pâtre là
me léger hère être
i
cor hôte
ubiquité où
• de la cédille
çà et là
---
Perhaps a version 1.7 can cure this?

[Patricia]

I have noticed the problem with oeuvre, manoeuvre, coeur etc.
I always search for the 'oe' ligature and replace with the characters 'oe' in an early edit on the source text, before I put it into BD.

[Roberts324]

Originally Posted by Patricia

I have noticed the problem with oeuvre, manoeuvre, coeur etc.
I always search for the 'oe' ligature and replace with the characters 'oe' in an early edit on the source text, before I put it into BD.

Not a good solution, if you'll pardon me. Ligatured oe is a French character in the same way the cedilla is, for instance, and should remain untouched anytime the French language is involved.

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by Roberts324

Not a good solution, if you'll pardon me. Ligatured oe is a French character in the same way the cedilla is, for instance, and should remain untouched anytime the French language is involved.

I agree. And if I could find some workaround that allowed the oe ligature then I'd be very pleased to use it.

In fact, Book Designer is very poor with French typography. It removes the spaces adjacent to many punctuation marks. Guillemets should have a space next to them. I now add a non-breaking space during the conversion.