Editing and creating EPUB files

[holyschist]

I recently picked up a used Sony PRS-600 to try out ereaders properly, and so far I like it. However, I have noticed that EPUB files converted from PDF annoy the hell out of me, because they have hard page breaks, which do not coincide with ereader pages on my preferred font size. So I have two questions:

1) What's the easiest way to edit EPUB files created by someone else to add a table of contents, fix formatting issues and typos, etc.?

2) What's the easiest way to create basic EPUB files from scratch, if one felt inclined to do so? (No images, no fancy formatting.)

I could do it entirely by hand, but that seems less than efficient--I'd rather generate the file automatically and clean up by hand if necessary. I'm using a Mac, current operating system, and I do have Adobe InDesign (CS3), but that sounds like it might be overkill. Free is good.

Has anyone tried Sigil or eCub? Have another favorite EPUB editor/creator?

Also--does anyone happen to know how the PRS-600 handles epub ebooks that were originally created from HTML that had non-Roman unicode characters (e.g. Chinese)? I know I am going to run into this on occasion. Do ebooks with non-Roman characters have to be PDFs to display correctly?

Thanks!

Comments

[valiha]

I can attest that font embedding wasn't easy to solve. I had major problems trying to embed fonts so I could display Central European characters in my epubs in a textbook I was using to prepare for an exam. I had a 6" Astak reader at the time, which now belongs to my sister.

I posted threads in both the Astak reader forum and the Sigil forum. The Astak thread was about fixing embedding in the textbook, and the Sigil about doing the same in my lecture notes.

The Sigil posts contain links to some of the files used, and a detailed and simple description of what needs to be done to get embedding to work. I was close to pulling all my hair out.

Sigil creator Valloric noted that "the style rule that uses a new font family name has to come after the @font-face rules that declare it."

[holyschist]

Oh dear, there are problems with diacriticaled Roman letters, too? That seems rather unfortunate.

Well, I will attempt to figure this out later.