Checklists for New PPers
From DPCanadaWiki
In my periodic "Simon Says" articles, I have been offering checklists to help new PPers get started with an essential task that sometimes seems rather overwhelming. Because the PPer has almost complete freedom to adopt whatever styling and formatting decisions seem attractive or useful, there may seem to be "no roadmap".
In fact, once you break the task down into manageable chunks, it's not so formidable. And it's quite possible to "ease into" the procedure a bit at a time. Start by choosing a simple project, and don't be shy to ask questions, or request that an experienced PPer "mentor" you.
This wiki page will be a place to collect the checklists I've been developing in the Newsletter--and, of course, because it's a wiki page, anyone can edit it. I only ask that PPers who change the content keep in mind the purpose of the page--to offer new PPers simple checklists for straightforward PP projects.
If the idea proves popular, we could establish a separate page to contain more complete PPing checklists, and even "galleries" of PP ideas with complete examples.
Contents |
Start up and Text Version
Start-up: make sure you have PP status--if not, contact Simple Simon and request it.
- Select your project to work on--try to choose something relatively short and straightforward--avoid large numbers of illos, indexes, tables and footnotes--but always a book that interests you.
- Go to the project page, and click on the "Check Out Book" button.
- Click on the "Download Zipped Text" button.
- Decide whether to download the zipped Images file--you could work from the .pngs in the project itself. If you want the images, contact Simple Simon, and request he create the zipped images, wait a few hours, then click the "Download Zipped Images" button.
- Create a directory for the project on your hard drive, with subdirectories for .pngs (if you have them) and the PP files themselves. If there are illos, make an "images" sub-dir inside the PP directory.
- Open the zip archive for the text, and extract the "concatenated" text file to your PP directory. Re-name the file project.txt where "project" is your favourite abbreviation of the book title.
- Open the zip archive for images and extract them to your .pngs directory.
- Move any illos to your "images" directory.
- Read the Project Instructions on the project page, and scan through the Forum for any issues that have been raised, and problems flagged.
- You will need to produce a text version (ASCII or Latin-1) and an HTML version. If you're not sure about this "character encoding" subject, consult Simple Simon, or one of the PFs.
- You will need some tool for doing the PPing. While some people do it in a simple text editor, like Word for Windows, I recommend guiguts--if you don't have that, contact me for instructions.
Text version: NB this is "bare-bones"--many other checks and tools are available.
- Open the text file in guiguts, and scan through it checking out the structure of the book.
- If you have the .pngs, open them with IrfanView, and page through them. Otherwise, look at the scans in the Project.
- Use the guiguts "Fix Page Separators" tool to remove all the page header information--don't worry, it won't remove the actual page markers--they will be preserved in the text.bin file automatically created the first time you save the file in guiguts.
- Use the Search tool to find, and deal with, all the [**] notes left by the proofers and formatters.
- Move all footnotes to the end of a paragraph, and close up the gap that may have been left in the text.
- Same with illos.
- Clean up the title page and other front material--use spacing to create a close approximation to the original "look".
- Align the Table of Contents, making sure that items and page numbers are lined up.
- Check all illos--should look like [Illustration: caption if any].
- Check all formatting for consistency; all < i >, < b >, < sc > tags should be in pairs; thought breaks should be <tb>.
- Check spacing of chapter, section headings: chapters 4-1-2 (4 blank lines, Chapter title, 1 blank line, chapter sub-heading (if any), 2 blank lines, then first paragraph), sections 2-1 (2 blanks, section heading, 1 blank, first paragraph).
- Run guiguts "Search for Stealth Scannos" tool, and resolve any that turn up.
- Run Jeebies to find "he" and "be" errors.
- Run Word frequency routine: check for Unicode characters, accents, click "suspects" option, the check em-dashes, hyphens, use Character Count to find weird characters, Check Spelling; NB you should have Aspell installed--or else take the file "off-line" to your favourite spell-checker.
- Run Gutcheck, and resolve errors reported. Note that many items reported by Gutcheck are not truly errors, you'll have to bounce these off an experienced PPer until you learn which ones you must deal with.
- Now, scan through the file line-by-line, looking for remaining "weirdnesses".
- Move the file into your browser, or other sophisticated text reader, and see how it looks.
- Rewrap the file (item on the Selection menu)--special areas will be protected by /* and */ markers, or treated specially by /# and #/ markers.
- Put the file aside for half a day, then look through it again.
- Save a copy of the file, and re-name that copy as project.html. This will be the starting point for the HTML version.
- Go back to the project.txt version.
- Replace all < i > and < /i > tags with _ (the underscore character), using the search tool.
- Replace all < b > and < /b > tags with =.
- Replace all < tb > tags with a line of 5 asterisks separated by 4 spaces (....*....*....*....*....*).
- Remove all < sc > and < /sc > tags, and consider whether to change the material between them to ALL CAPs.
- Remove any < f > and < /f > tags, and consider whether to change the material between them to italic (surrounded by _ ).
- Remove any /p and p/ tags, and indent the material between 4 spaces, and add relative indents on lines to match the scans.
- Remove any /# and #/ tags, and Block Rewrap the material between (there is an item on the Selection menu).
SAVE YOUR FILE FREQUENTLY
HTML version
1. load the "copy" of the text version you saved at step 20 in the text version, now called project.html, into guiguts
2. open the formatting snippets "palette" I've provided in NotePad--this contains handy snippets of code to help with styling (see below)
3. if you don't plan to include visible page numbers, skip to step 5
4. (a) open the HTML "palette", using the button at the bottom of the guiguts window.
(b) click on the Custom Page Labels button
(c) adjust the page numbers assigned to the images, selecting whether the pages have Roman or Arabic numbers, and "skipping" pages that have no visible image
(d) occasionally press Recalculate, and check how the numbers are lining up against the book
(e) when you're satisfied, click Use These Values
5. select "Keep UTF-8 Chars" and "Convert Fractions", then click Autogenerate HTML--wait till it settles down
6. clean up the "front matter" of the book (title page, dedication, copyright notice...), matching the appearance of the images, using the tools on the HTML Palette
7. create the Table of Contents (TOC) using a table (subject of part 3 of this checklist, coming soon)--you will move the segments of the table autogenerated , and the chapter names and page numbers from the rounds, into the table. Mark the TOC with a bookmark
8. create the Table of Illustrations (if any) the same way
9. work through the whole document, fixing the following items. Use your own styling preferences for size of headings etc.
(a) chapter headings and sub-headings, chapter numbers (if any)
(b) check that chapters start on the pages listed in the TOC, and that the name/labels attached to chapters match those in the TOC exactly
(c) shift page number tags to the best spot for them--usually only necessary around the beginning of chapters
(d) remove page number tags associated with empty pages, and the [Blank Page] markers if still there
(e) make sure that block quotations have been formatted with the proper divs
(f) check that any poetry has been indented to match the images--adjust the amount of indent if needed
(g) make sure footnote anchors match the footnote, then move footnotes to the end of the book, close up the paragraphs
(h) use blockquot divs to indent correspondence,announcements or other material that needs to be indented
10. style the list of footnotes to your preference (see the "Footnotes" section of the snippets)
11. style any illos using the "Illustrations" section of the snippets--see also part 4 of this checklist, coming soon
12. style any Index--headings and sub-headings to your preference. Insert a link for each item, delete the original page number, and insert it into the link, in 2 places, so the following item
Index item A, 123
becomes first
Index item A, <a href="#Page_3" class="indexlink">[3]</a>123
then
Index item A, <a href="#Page_123" class="indexlink">[123]</a>
...and if any items come up that I haven't mentioned, you selected the wrong book as your first PP project!!!
13. Now, you have to insert a "CSS section" at the top of your file. This will make all the tags you've been inserting work. For your first project, use the standard CSS file I've included here--it will handle most standard books.
14. Then, load your file into your favourite browser, and see how it looks--you'll probably see some weird things. Try to figure them out, fiddle with the settings in the tags you inserted and the heading settings you made, then re-view it. You might try looking at the file in other browsers, too.
Ask questions in the Forums, or of your PP Mentor. You'll probably find someone willing to look at your file and suggest improvements.
15. Now it's time to check that your file "works":
(a) click the "Link Checker" at the bottom of the HTML Palette--it will show you any broken links--usually they are illos you didn't use, or anchors that don't have a place to go. Don't worry about ANCHORS WITHOUT LINKS.
(b) click on HTML Tidy button on the HTML Pallette. Work your way through the errors it reports--clicking on the error line will take you to the location of the error in the file. In theory, it's possible to remove every error, but you'll find that some are unimportant--for example, the "nested span" error can be ignored. Eventually, you could get down to seeing just 2 lines beginning with the word Info: you're finished!
DO NOT LET HTML TIDY 'FIX' YOUR FILE--IT WILL DESTROY IT!!!
(c) in your browser, go to the W3C Markup Validation Service web page at http://validator.w3.org/#validate-by-upload
(d) browse to the location of your file, then click the "Check" button
(e) you'll get a report showing any remaining HTML errors--you have to eliminate every one--ask for help the first time you do this
AND do not be disconcerted if it says 1348 errors--usually there's really only a few, but they cause cascading error reports
...and now you're done--that was easy, let's do another.
Don’t forget: SAVE YOUR FILE FREQUENTLY
___________________________________________________
Here is the "snippets" file:
<br /> to break a line
<br /> OR <p> </p> to insert a blank line
  ; to insert a non-breaking space
[Editor note: there is no space between " " and ";"--however, I couldn't find another way to "code" the code without it disappearing.]
<span class="smcap"> </span> to change to small caps
<div class="blockquot"> </div> to insert a block quote
<span style="margin-left: 2em;"> </span><br /> to shift a portion of a line right by 2 em
<p style="margin-left: 1em;"> </p> to move the start of a paragraph 1 em right
{<div class="right"> </div> to shift text to right margin
{<p class="right"> </p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /> to insert a wide thought break }
} the % parameter can be adjusted
<hr style="width: 25%;" /> to insert a narrow thought break }
<p style="color:red"> </p> to change the colour of the text
Page Numbers:
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a></span> insert a page number plus anchor <span class="pagenum">[x]</span> insert a "naked" page number
Illustrations:
insert this following the [Illustration;...] block, change the variables width, height, and the illo name, move any caption that was in the Illustration marker below the illo code, and set it to <h4>...</h4>, then delete the [Illustration:...] block <div class="figcenter" style="width: 456px;"> <img src="images/0280.png" width="456" height="273" alt="logo" title="" /></div> <br />
Footnotes:
<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a> insert a footnote anchor <a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> <a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a> insert a footnote link <a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <div class="footnotes"> begin a footnote list put <br /> after each footnote <div class="footnote"> </div> end a footnote list </div>
Index:
<a href="#Page_3" class="indexlink">[3]</a> insert an index link (to existing page anchor)
Poetry:
<div class="poem"> start a poem <div class="stanza"> start a stanza <span class="i0"></span><br /> for indents <span class="i1"> <span class="i2"> <span class="i3"> <span class="i4"> <span class="i5"> <span class="i6"> </div> end a stanza </div> end a poem
Table of Contents:
Here are my TOC snippets, but you really need a separate check list for tables
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<a name="toc" id="toc"></a>
<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
<h2 class="toc"><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents</h2>
<table border="0" width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto">
<col style="width:15%;" />
<col style="width:5%;" />
<col style="width:70%;" />
<col style="width:10%;" />
<tr>
<td align='right'><span style='font-size:x-small'>CHAPTER</span></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td align='right'><span style='font-size:x-small'>PAGE</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">I</td>
<td></td>
<td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Strange Riddle</span></td>
<td align="right"><a href="#THE_CROOKED_HOUSE">9</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
Tables
Illustrations
CSS
Here is the standard CSS file--I'm not going to try to explain it--just insert it at the top of your HTML file, and change the "Title" and "Author" entries near the top of it [Ed. note: several lines in this header have been removed as an experienced PPer advised that they are no longer required.]
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
<title>
The Project Gutenberg Canada eBook of "Title",
by Author.
</title>
<style type="text/css">
p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em; }
p.main {font-style: normal; font-size: 100%; text-indent: 0em;}
h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;}
hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;}
body{margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: serif}
.cen {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;}
.smcap {font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 95%;}
.right {text-align: right; padding-right: 2em;}
.blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; font-size: 90%;}
.pagenum {position: absolute; left: 2em; font-size: 70%; text-align: right;}
.figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
.figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-top: -0.5em; margin-right: 0.2em; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
.figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
.tdr {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;}
.tdl {text-align: left; padding-left: .25em;}
.tdc {text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;}
.poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;}
.poem br {display: none;}
.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
.poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
.poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
.poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
.poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 3em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
.poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
.poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
.footnotes {border: dashed 1px; margin-top: 1em; clear: both;}
.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
.footnote .label {float:left; text-align: left;}
.fnanchor {font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
Don’t forget: SAVE YOUR FILE FREQUENTLY
