If as I understand some (all?) formatting is contained in or associated with paragraph marks, is there a way to "read" what formatting is present in a particular mark?



I working on editing a 100+ chapter story that has been converted from a PDF to .docx. After editing I use Calibre to covert the .docx to .awz3 for reading on my Kindle Paperwhite. During conversion a Table of Contents (TOC) is generated from the chapter headings. Of the 100+ chapters some show in the TOC and some don't. If I then edit the .docx to copy a working chapter header and paste it over a non-working header (and renumber it), the former non-working chapter header will now show in the TOC upon reconversion. This is not really practicable for 100+ chapters so I'm hoping to "read" the formating and figure out the difference between working and non-working chapters.

Learn to use Styles, especially for headings.

• Why use Microsoft Word’s built-in heading styles? by Shauna Kelly
• Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word

Do it now, before you make matters worse. The time you spend learning this, you will save in trying to fix your document.

In answer to your question about whether you can check formatting for individual paragraphs, the answer is yes, but that is the hard way to accomplish what you want.

Post a sample document that contains a few of each heading so we can see the difference between them. If you don't want to post the whole book, make a copy and delete all except the TOC and some of the headings.

The problem is going to be quite simple but we need to see what you have done before we can suggest the fix that will work.

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Ok. reading....

If I can't get my head around styles I will post samples.

Making progress with styles. So far enough to do what I wanted as far as chapter headings go - still a lot to learn. I bookmarked the references you provided. Thanks.

Glad to have helped.

I replied to your related post advising using Calibre, but I see you already are.
But you should do all your editing in Calibre, not going back and forth to Word adding layers of cruft each time

Under the "Tools" menu in Calibre you can edit the TOC to add or delete entries, but better to format the headings consistently first.

Calibre makes TOC from headings, which are styled in HTML as <H1>, <H2> etc. Those are probably being converted from Word styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.) You can apply the HTML styles in Calibre using the <> button and choosing the heading level.

I normally do h1 for title page, h2 for chapter heads.
If you have "part" divisions, make those h2 and the chapters h3.

I don't think I could do all the editing I need to do in calibre. The conversion of stories in PDF format to .docx by Adobe.com kinda mangles them - it insets section break scattered through the document, sticks extraneous paragraph marks in the middle of some paragraphs and puts multiple spaces between some words (just to name a few things). I've worked out a multistep procedure to clean them up. Calibre converts the .docx to .azw3 and they display properly on the Paperwhite (TOC and all).

I've been using Calibre (and Sigil) for a while to make ebooks and I think it can do it pretty efficiently. Adding conversions to and from Word adds complications, I think.

But maybe my confidence is misplaced.

If it's a basic PDF, often these are print-to-PDF from a webpage; and since ebooks are basically HTML, if you can find the source web page that is a better place to start.

Could you give me link to the original PDF and website (send a PM if you'd rather not reveal your reading preferences)?

I'll butt out if you're happy with your method.

I went to the author's site to get the links but when I clicked on a link there I got "Not Found" error for each story. I left a note for the author to let her know and asked if she was going to make the stories available again.

No reply from the author. I'll stick with conversion to .docx as I've worked out a fairly easy clean up of the converted documents. Sometime I may try using Calibre for more then conversions and sending to the e-reader. Thanks for your offer.

If you're still interested:
I didn't get a reply from the author, but the links on her web page are working again. Web site: http://www.pilmore.com/PubOther.htm (The Clan is the shortest of the stories).

Shauna died a couple of years ago. She is not likely to respond to emails. Sometimes her site goes down.
The links were active when I gave them.

There is a web archive. You should learn to use it.
Archive Why use Microsoft Word’s built-in heading styles?

Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word is on my site and it works.
Here is Shauna's page, though: Archive - Understanding styles

Some links on some of my pages are not working, I am sure. I have over 100 pages about Word on my site with thousands of links. This is a volunteer effort. If there are links that are not working, please let me know which links and I will either fix or remove them as time allows. I am a practicing trial lawyer and spend about 8 volunteer hours a week maintaining the Word site as well as answering questions on forums like this.

If necessary, get a book. Learn to use styles. The longer you delay, the longer you will suffer.
Microsoft Word 2010 Bible by Herb Tyson

The links I was referring Gweilo to are the links to the author of the PDF format stories I was editing.

I have been reading and learning to use styles.