Scrivener has enabled me to think clearly about a book I’ve wanted to write for thirty years.
I want to publish the draft of this book on my site, for reviewers. It’s way too long for a single page. I’d like to break it into chapters with an opening page that links to the chapters.
I’ve searched the L&L forums for an HTML post-processor, without success. (Perhaps I didn’t use the right search terms.)
Has anyone tackled this problem?
– Kay
That specific problem, I don’t think so. Most people either want one single document, or they use Scrivener to organise smaller projects like blog articles. I think what you are looking for is more like the latter, though unfortunately you’d be lumping up all of the exports at once, so it will feel like more work than someone who does this once a week or so. What you can do there is set the Compiler to only use part of the Draft, rather than the entire thing. If you call it up ([b]Cmd-Opt-E[/b]), in the first tab on the left, you’ll see a drop-down called “Choose Folder”. From there you can select each chapter and export it by itself using the HTML export format, one at a time.
The MultiMarkdown post-processor won’t really help you out a whole lot either (at least not without a good understanding of Perl and a willingness to program a modification into the core scripts that splits things apart), though it will produce a “cleaner” HTML file that works better in environments where there is a heavy amount of CSS reliance. The HTML produced by the regular engine will look quite a bit like the RTF files—though that may be all right depending on what you need.
Either way, you would have to develop a table of contents on your own. I’m afraid the application just isn’t really set up for site publishing. It’s pretty good for web publishing as atomic pieces, but for constructing entire sites, or branches of sites, it doesn’t have many tools for that.
I have used Logictran’s R2Net (RTF to XHTML convertor) for over a decade: I use it from five to twenty times a day. It does what you want, and it is not expensive. Here’s some text from a table on their “Guide” page at
\http://www.logictran.net/support/r2net/guide.html#Heading153
File Splitting, Table of Contents and Indexes
String
Default Value
Description
SplitDepth
0
Setting this to a value from ‘1’ to ‘6’ will cause your RTF document to be split at that corresponding heading level. For example, with a SplitDepth of ‘2’, “Heading 1” and “Heading 2” paragraphs will start new HTML files. Splitting large documents will improve download times and reduce memory requirements for browsers. See The Customization Reference Manual. for details of using End Paragraph (EndPar) processing to allow splitting of files at any paragraph.
GenContents
0
If set to ‘1’, an external table of contents will be generated. The table of contents will show the hierarchy of all headings in the document, and provide hypertext links from the table of contents to the corresponding headings.
GenFigureList
0
If set to ‘1’, a list of figures will be created in the string FigureList and output as part of the external table of contents.
GenTableList
0
If set to ‘1’, a list of tables will be created in the string TableList and output as part of the external table of contents.
SkipTrailingToc
1
If set to ‘0’ a table of contents will be generated at the start of each file. The table of contents will show the hierarchy of all headings included within the current document, and provide hypertext links from the table of contents to the corresponding headings.
best
John Tranter
Thanks for this information, John. It sounds like it would do what I need. However I’m concerned that the latest version was released in 2005, and that there is no user forum.
Is Logictran supporting still supporting it?
Re: Seeking a way to “chunk” HTML output
Postby kaybaird on Sun Jan 02, 2011 6:38 pm
Thanks for this information, John. It sounds like it would do what I need. However I’m concerned that the latest version was released in 2005, and that there is no user forum.
Hi, Kay. I don’t think they need to upgrade or improve the program: it’s pretty much right the way it is. As for support, I sent a complicated query to them a year or so ago and received helpful replies from a knowledgeable person.
Fine-tuning it to do what you need can be a bit fussy, but as long as you can do a little bit of code you’re okay. I can send you my version with its basic code settings if you wish,which I have set up to give very vanilla XHTML that I then touch up with CSS. I’ve used it on Windows, then transferred it to Linux, then to Mac OS X. I use it every day (except when I’m travelling in the US, as I am right now) and it always works.
My sites: jacketmagazine.com/
and
best and happy new year
JT