Preparing a Word Processor Manuscript

Overview

You can lightly or comprehensively style word processor files such as Microsoft Word *.doc files or Open Office *.odt files for importing into IGP:Digital Publisher. The styles applied are termed Structure Styles™. Structure Styles make it easy to have a well styled manuscript that will import and convert your manuscript as nearly fully tagged XML.

The process is:

At any time during your manuscript editorial processes, apply Structure Styles according to the simple set of rules.

1. Create a IGP:Digital Publisher stub document.
2. Import the manuscript to the newly created IGP:Digital Publisher book or document.
3. Immediately start working with the document in IGP:Digital Publisher.
4. Remember fromIGP:Digital Publisher you can instantly generate all format outputs immediately after importing.

Standard word processor styling in manuscript can be quite ad hoc and if imported directly would create a document that contains extraneous styling and no structured XML - that is not the objective when importing a manuscript.

By applying well named and defined structure styles, any extra or extraneous word processor styles are removed, and only the Structure Styles get through. Since the Structure Styles are all common publisher sections, blocks, paragraphs and inline styles. Mastering Structure Styles can be both a quality and productivity booster and adds little or no overhead to the manuscript editorial process.

You can include lists and tables in your manuscript.This can be useful as creating complex tables can often be easier in a word processor than in the XML editing interface. But note that only table structures (columns/rows/header rows) will be imported, not table styling. So do not waste time overstyling tables, it will just have to be redone in IGP:Digital Publisher.

It is very important to Stucture Style your inline content (for example, italics, bold, small caps or any other inline style). This is because the standard word processor inline styles are erratic on exporting, and can become anything, so this has to be explicitly handled.

Standard Templates

You will be provided with the default MS Word *.dot and Open Office *.ott template files when you take delivery of your application. You can also download them at any time from the IGP:Digital Publisher resource site.   

Structure Styling in Detail

There are four classes of structure styles:

1. Book Section Styles
2. Block Styles
3. Line Styles
4. Character Styles

The default style sheets have highly coloured styles as a training aid. These can be modified and customized at any time as long as you follow the Structure Styling Guidelines.

Book Section Styles

These are subdivided into three classes: frontmatter (green), body (maroon/orange) and backmatter (blue).

Book structure styles are placed on empty paragraphs, to instruct any XML processor how to construct the document or book. These are probably the most important styles and remember, they are processing instructions, rather than styles. The processor radically changes the content during manuscript importing. For example, the chapter section style XML result after processing looks something like this:

<div class="body Chapter" id="bookid-sec-chap-001">

  <div class="title-block">

      <p class="title-num">Chapter One</p>

      <h1>Chapter Title</h1>

  </div>

  <p>page content....</p>

  <!-- Rest of chapter content continues -->

</div>

So that takes a little bit of processing and reorganizing of the manuscript text. It is essential they are there so your XML file is correctly broken into the correct section pages in IGP:Digital Publisher.

In the default template the section markers are brightly coloured. You can change these styles anyway you like including no colour. It's your choice. The important thing is the style name, not the style attributes applied.

In the following list, PID is your specific publisher ID. Each Structure Style manuscript template is customized for each customer. This is done so when you select view custom styles in your word processor, you can clearly see which styles are Structure Styles, and which ones are casual styles.

frontmatter-HalfTitle

Creates the Half title page as a separate file, and allows the title text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS selector: 
.HalfTitle h1 { } 

frontmatter-Title

 Creates theTitle page as a separate file, and allows the title text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS selector:
.Title h1 { ... }

frontmatter-Copyright

Creates the Copyrightpage as a separate file, and allows the paragraph text inside to be styled independently form other text using the CSS: selector:
.HalfTitle p { }

frontmatter -Dedication

Creates the Dedication page as a separate file, and allows the paragraph text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS: selector:   .Dedication p { } 

frontmatter -Contents

Creates the Content page as a separate file, and allows the content inside to be styled independently from the book using the CSS: selector: 
.TOC ul { } and other styles

frontmatter -Foreword

Creates the Foreword page as a separate file, and allows the title and paragraph text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS  selector:  .Foreword { }

frontmatter-Preface

Creates the Preface page as a separate file, and allows the title text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS  selector:  .frontmatter .Preface h1 { }

frontmatter -Introduction

Creates theIntroduction page as a separate file, and allows the title and paragraph text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS  selector:
.Introduction { }

body -Part

Creates a Part page as a separate file, and is also a nesting indicator for chapters when generating the ncx. It also allows the title and paragraph text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS selector:
.Part { }

body-Chapter

Creates a Chapter page as a separate file. It also allows the title and paragraph text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS selector:
.Chapter { }

backmatter-Appendix

Creates an Appendix page as a separate file. It also allows the title and paragraph text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS selector:
.Appendix { }

backmatter-References

Creates a Reference page as a separate file. It also allows the title and paragraph text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS selector:
.References { } 

backmatter-Endnotes

Creates an Endnote page as a separate file. It also allows the title and paragraph text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS selector:
.Endnotes { }

backmatter-CopyrightAlternate

Creates a Copyright page in the backmatter as a separate file. This is there for those who like their e-book copyright page in the backmatter rather than the frontmatter. It also allows the title and paragraph text inside to be styled independently from other text using the CSS selector:
.CopyrightAlternate { }

To use section styles

1. In your word processor, create an empty paragraph in the content position you want a new section to start. This is typically just before a chapter title or title number
2. Click on the required style. You can choose from any frontmatter, body, or backmatter styles.
3. The style will be applied. The default will colour the empty paragraph.
4. If there is any content in the paragraph it will not be imported. You can annotate Section Style paragraphs with comments if you like.
5. When imported, the assigned style will assume the properties and appearance defined by the IGP:Digital Publisher document template.

Content Block Styles

Content Block styles are document paragraphs that are styled together and are members of a block. After processing, the paragraphs are incorporated into a single XML structure. For example, three sequential paragraphs with the style block-extract applied, and a last paragraph with block-attribution applied will make the following XML:

<div class="block extract" id="block-big-generated-unique-id">

   <p> ...paragraph content... </p>

   <p> ...paragraph content... </p>

   <p> ...paragraph content... </p>

   <p class="attribution"> ...Attribution text... </p>
</div>

 This XHTML is an efficient minimum tag model. It becomes a very clean target for CSS styling, plus it is an XML target ready for other XML processes such as X-Queries and extraction.

block-attribution

This is generally used as the last paragraph of a sequence of epigraph or extract paragraphs. It allows the processor to include the attribution line into a block, and allows the paragraph text to be styled independently, even on a block by block basis using various multi-CSS selectors. Eg:  
.block .Attribution { } .block .epigraph {}, etc.

block-boxed-text

Apply this to a sequence of paragraphs you want to be displayed as boxed-text. You can optionally put block-header as the first line, and block-attribution as the last line  and these styles will be incorporated into the boxed text block.

block-caption

This is generally used as the last paragraph of a sequence of epigraph or extract paragraphs. It allows the processor to include the attribution line into a block, and allows the paragraph text to be styled independently, even on a block by block basis using various multi-CSS selectors. Eg:  
.block .caption { }

block- code

Apply this to a sequence of paragraphs you want to be displayed as a code block. The XHTML <pre> element will be applied to the text and your nesting white space will be preserved. Only use spaces for nesting your code. Do not use tabs.  

block- epigraph

Apply this to a sequence of paragraphs you want to be displayed as an epigraph. Generally this will be placed immediately after one of the title block paragraph styles. If it is placed there, it will be incorporated into the title block. 

p-block-extract

Extracts are one of the most common types of blocks in general content collections. Apply this style to all the sequential paragraphs you wish to be in the extract block. Use block-attribution as the last line if you have an attribution.

block- header

This is a single paragraph style that can be used at the start, or inside any other block paragraph sequence. If it is the first paragraph in a block sequence it will be incorporated into the block. This applies to block-epigraph, block-boxed-text, block-extract and block-notebox.

block-notebox

A notebox is identical to the boxed-text model, except it has a coloured background rather than an outline. It is probably used more in textbooks than tradebooks. Follow the same rules as for extracts and boxed text.

block-notes

If you have numbered notes at the end of a chapter, or end of the book you can apply this style to the paragraphs to make a continuous note block. This version of eScape does not give you a method to link notes to their references in text at this time although internally the note paragraphs do have linkable ID's generated.

block-poem

You can make very nice looking poetry. Treat each line of the poem as a paragraph (don't use  line-breaks). This includes blank lines between stanzas. Apply the block-poem style to each line of the poem, and line-leading to the stanza break lines. The eScape processor will create a poem block which is centered on your page based on the longest line in the poem.

block-reference

If your book has a reference section, apply this style to each of the reference paragraphs. The default styling is a slightly smaller font and a hanging paragraph applied through a reference block element to the contained paragraphs.

To use content block styles

1. In your word processor, click to insert your cursor in the paragraph to which you want to apply a Content Block style. A content block style must contain content.
2. Click on the required style. You can choose from any block style.
3. The style will be applied. The block styling will highlight or mimic the print output style.
4. You can apply Content Block styles to a range of consecutive paragraphs. These will be combined into a single XML block on importing.
5. When imported, the assigned style will assume the properties and appearance defined by the IGP:Digital Publisher document template.

Line Styles

There are currently two line styles. The advantage in using these, rather than just an empty line is that it creates a block structure in the XML and using CSS rules allows the paragraph following the line to have no indent.

line-decorative

When applied to an empty paragraph this creates three lines. You have to place your required decorative characters into the middle line.

line-leading

When applied to a paragraph this will create a single blank line. You will have to insert at least two spaces into the empty paragraph  or the processor will strip the paragraph out.

To use line styles

1. In your word processor, create an empty paragraph in the content position you want a new line style.
2. Click on the required style. You can choose from leading (blank line) or decorative.
3. The style will be applied. If you select decorative line enter three stars.
4. The lines will display gray so they are visible in review processes.
5. When imported, the assigned style will assume the properties and appearance defined by the IGP:Digital Publisher document template.

Character Styles

There is a group of character styles which should be used to create special styling. Do not use the default word processor styling tools as they create a series of random style statements internally which may result in unpredictable output results (Example, your italic may become bold in the output).

All custom character styles are mutually exclusive. They cannot be applied on top of each other. Applying one will replace any underlying styles.

char-bold

Makes selected text bold. Use this style rather than the word processor bold button for consistent styling.

char-bold-italic

Makes selected text and italic bold. Use this style rather than the word processor bold and italic buttons for consistent styling.

char-dropcap

Makes selected text dropcap. This is generally applied only to a single character at the start of a chapter. Use this style rather than theword processor font properties for consistent styling.

char-italic

Makes selected text italic. Use this style rather than the word processor italic button for consistent styling.

char-large

Makes selected text about 20% larger. Use this style rather than the word processor font-size properties for consistent styling.

char-raisedcap

Makes selected text raised cap. This is generally applied only to a single character at the start of a chapter. Use this style rather than the word processor font-size properties for consistent styling.

char-small

Makes selected text about 20% smaller. Use this style rather than the word processor font-size properties for consistent styling.

char-smallcaps

Applies a small-caps style to the selected text. Use this style rather than the word processor font-size properties for consistent styling.

Caution. As of the document date, Adobe Digital Editions does not support the CSS font-variant: small-caps; style. Therefore you will not see this style in ADE unless you modify the stylesheet statement to synthesize small caps by transforming and sizing the text.

char-subscript

Makes selected text about 20% smaller. Use this style rather than the word processor font-size properties for consistent styling.

char-superscript

Makes selected text about 20% smaller. Use this style rather than the word processor font-size properties for consistent styling.

char-title-num-label

When applied to a number label inside a title-num paragraph, it preserves the content from number processing.

To use character styles

1. In your word processor, highlight the text to which you want to apply the style.
2. Click on the required inline style. You can choose from any style with the -char- descriptor.
3. The style will be applied. The text will be highlighted in a background colour so it is visible in review processes.
4. When imported, the assigned style will assume the properties and appearance defined by the IGP:Digital Publisher document template.

Structure Styling Rules

You can create your own styles following these simple rules. Of course a style must be matched by an equivalent CSS style in yourIGP:Digital Publisher templates.

Structure styles are created from three parts using a major to minor classification style. Eg:

identifier-majorStructure-minorStructure

body-chapter

The rules

1. A Heading 1 is always a title (book, chapter, topic, etc.).
2. You can use all Header levels up to Heading 6. Header 2 is equivalent to A Head, Header 3 is equivalent to B Head and so forth.
3. The import processor will only notice styles which begin with identifier followed by a hyphen. All other styles will be ignored.
4. The identifier must be followed by one of the following structure keywords: frontmatter, body, backmatter, block, line, char.
5. The third term is your custom style definition.
6. You must turn word processor generated content off (eg. Headers and footers) before importing.