Sadly, this add-on is no longer available.
This add-on for Google Docs™ helps you prepare a manuscript for creating eBooks (Mobi or EPUB) and/or printed books (camera-ready PDF) through the Nepo Press web-based formatting service. It automates the “donkey work” of inserting the initial eBook typesetting markup into an existing manuscript.
Typically, the most tedious aspect of marking a manuscript for turning it into an eBook (or printed book) is marking the italicized words and phrases. Rather than finding each one to mark by hand, this add-on marks them all at once. It also fixes other common problems, such as those related to quotation and ellipsis marks.
This initial markup only needs to be done once per manuscript.
Upload your manuscript to Google Drive™ (if it is not already there)
Make a backup copy “File > Make a copy…”
Open your manuscript with Google Docs™
Choose “Tools > Preferences…” then make sure all four checkboxes are unchecked:
Use smart quotes
Automatically detect links
Automatically detect lists
Automatic substitution
Open the add-on’s Sidebar by choosing “Add-ons > eBook Formatting Butler > Start…”
In the Sidebar:
Step 1. As a one-time step, click the blue “Apply eBook typesetting markup” button. You will then see a “Processing …” message. This step can take 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the size of the manuscript. Wait until you see the “Finished” message.
(If you get a “Failed …” message or an “Aw, Snap!” message, or similar, the document may be too large to process all at once. The solution is to split your document into several smaller files as described in the Possible Problems section below.)
Step 2. Edit your manuscript further, if you wish, applying any additional markup by hand as needed.
Step 3. Download as a plain text file by clicking on the grey “Download as .txt file” button or by choosing “File > Download as > Plain Text (.txt)”.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 as many times as you wish.
Upload the plain text file to your Nepo Press account and press the Mobi, EPUB, or PDF button to turn it into an eBook or camera-ready PDF.
When you click on the blue “Apply eBook typesetting markup” button in the Sidebar, the add-on will perform the following actions on the manuscript:
Delete header and footer
So the header and footer won’t appear in the middle of eBook pages.
Delete page breaks
Otherwise, these get translated by Google Docs™ into horizontal lines that would appear in the middle of eBook pages.
Mark chapter sections and headings
If your chapters, sections, subsections are already styled as headings (“Title”, “Heading 1”, “Heading 2”, etc.), these will be marked appropriately for the eBook. Otherwise, you can mark them easily by hand later (by putting an asterisk followed by a space at the start of each chapter name).
Mark italics
This adds asterisks tight against each italicized word or phrase. For
example, it turns this is italicized into
*this is italicized*
. Otherwise, there would be no
indication of italics in the plain text file.
Mark bold
This adds double asterisks tight against each bold word or phrase.
For example, it turns this is bold into
**this is bold**
. Otherwise, there would be no indication
of bold in the plain text file.
Fix quotation marks
This fixes up the single and double curly quotes, plus the apostrophes used in possessives and contractions, so they will look right (and curl in the correct direction) in the finished eBook or PDF.
Fix ellipses
This fixes up ellipsis marks to eliminate common problems such as using too few or too many dots, failing to put spaces before and after, etc., following the Chicago Manual of Style.
Fix hyphens
This fixes up hyphens representing em dashes so they will look right in the finished eBook or PDF, following the Chicago Manual of Style.
The initial markup process can take a long-time, perhaps up to 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the size of the manuscript. Please be patient. This is still a lot faster than marking it up “by hand”.
When it starts, you will see a “Processing …” message.
When the “Processing …” message changes to “Finished”, the actual modification of the manuscript is complete. However, it may take a while longer for the web browser to refresh fully.
If you get a “Failed” message instead of a “Finished” message, the solution is to split your document into several smaller documents, then process each smaller document individually, then reassemble them.
To split a large document, divide it into smaller documents, each containing no more than about 100 pages. So if you have a 300 page document named “stormy”, create 3 new documents, named perhaps “stormy1”, stormy2”, and “stormy3”. Then, copy and paste about a third of “stormy” into each of the three new documents.
To help keep track of where to “cut” the original document, you might add a line such as “FIXME: end of first part”, “FIXME: end of second part”, etc. (“FIXME” is unlikely to appear in your original document, so this is something easy to search for.)
After applying the markup to the three new documents (with the “Apply eBook typesetting markup” button in the sidebar), reassemble them. Just copy and paste them into a single new document.
For more information on marking up a manuscript, please see the documentation and videos here, especially the user manuals. To get a book account, if you don’t have one already, email frank@nepotism.net.