Project Gutenberg and MS Word

[tregnier]

I have downloaded several books from the plain text Project Gutenberg files. I put the text into MS Word and then use the MS Word/Microsoft Reader conversion tool to convert the Word doc into a MS Reader file. The problem is that there are line returns in the Word file that cause the Reader file to be choppy.

Question: Have some of you found a way to address this? What are the solutions?

Thanks in advance!

[tregnier]

I have downloaded several books from the plain text Project Gutenberg files. I put the text into MS Word and then use the MS Word/Microsoft Reader conversion tool to convert the Word doc into a MS Reader file. The problem is that there are line returns in the Word file that cause the Reader file to be choppy.

Question: Have some of you found a way to address this? What are the solutions?

Thanks in advance!

[binstpa]

I just use ubook. You can take the .txt file and copy it to your device and can avoid the whole conversion process in the first place.

[tregnier]

Yes, this works great. uBook is the way to go. I appreciate your help, "binstpa"!

[Jorgen]

>Question: Have some of you found a way to address this? What are the solutions?

Yes, I wrote a program that converts each paragraph to a long line. It can also deal with various other formats.

However, it is DOS based and therefore apparently beyond what most people can work with. Experience from other DOS programs I have published shown that I would end up with lots of emails asking for support.

You are welcome to send me a private message with an email address if you want the .EXE file and can work in a DOS box.

Jorgen

[AndrewBurke]

Find the macro menu item in your version of Word and choose to record a new macro, give it a descriptive name and, for now assign it an easy to remember shortcut key (this can, of course be changed later when you decide to keep the macro). When text is pasted from an HTML screen proper paragraph code is replaced by two paragraph marks so you want to keep these; the first step is to replace these temporarily by some text that won't be wiped out by mistake.

With the macro recorder running choose Edit/Replace and choose to search the whole document. In the search field type "^P^P^P^P^P^P" (without the quotes) and in the replace field type "^P^P" and let the replace engine do it's thing. Repeat this process while still recording with 5, 4 and 3 paragraph marks in the search field and 2 in the replace. What this does is take any gap larger than two lines between text and reduce it to a proper paragraph gap. Now that we have the proper gaps established we stash them by replacing "^P^P" with "~~~" and move onto the next step which is replacing "^P" (the erroneous line breaks we want to get rid of) with a space.

This macro isn't over yet as the final phase is to replace "~~~" with "^P^P" and put back the "proper" formatting. As you can see, if we didn't use the "~~~" trick then the final search would have wiped out all the paragraph marks.

Good luck,
Andrew

[portnoy]

Ok, this may seem a little strange, but I use a utility called "email stripper" to do exactly that. It is actually for removing the leading carats in forwarded messages, but it also reformats the text really well.

http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm

[xendula]

Wow, this emailstripper is really idiot-proof. But it does not seem to manage long texts, at least the one I tried seemed to be too long. Still, nice little program, portnoy!

[Jorgen]

But it does not seem to manage long texts, at least the one I tried seemed to be too long.

That is the problem with many of the text tools you find on the Internet: they either have problems with long paragraphs or problems with very long texts. And you won't know until it is too late.

That's why I wrote my own. I don't think it has any limitatations.

Jorgen

[Cleisthenes]

does anybody make their own mp3 audiobooks? i've made lots from either .txt or .doc files using a tts program. i've searched the archives to see if anyone discusses this, but perhaps i missed it. anyway, i use Word to strip the files of the carats etc (so they don't mess up the tts voices) and make all my ebooks audiobooks. i find i listen to a lot more than i used to read. does anyone have any other techniques?

[xendula]

Originally Posted by Cleisthenes

does anybody make their own mp3 audiobooks? i've made lots from either .txt or .doc files using a tts program. i've searched the archives to see if anyone discusses this, but perhaps i missed it. anyway, i use Word to strip the files of the carats etc (so they don't mess up the tts voices) and make all my ebooks audiobooks. i find i listen to a lot more than i used to read. does anyone have any other techniques?

Sounds intriguing, but:
-what is tts?!? (text to speach?)
-what does a tts program do?!?
-which programs are out there and which one is best?/easiest to use?
-what are carats (the only ones I know are the ones that go on your finger :wink: )?!?
-how do carats mess up tts voices?!?

You see, a lot of interest and a lot of questions mean you'd have to post a little guide for absolute beginners - please!!!