There’s some good news and bad news about the Photics Web Guide. Here’s the bad news first. The printed version is no longer available. Here’s the good news. The digital version of the Photics Web Guide is now available. The decision was economic. The printed book was $50 plus shipping. That’s too expensive! And while the printed version of the textbook does look impressive, it’s kinda heavy. It’s not really so comfortable for quickly referencing practical and important information about web design and web development.
It was a surprising amount of work to convert the book from Apple Pages to ePub. The standard export option was simply insufficient. For the past month, hundreds of images — and over 120,000 words — were moved to this new digital version.
This seems more appropriate too. It’s a book about web development and web design. The book itself can be a web project. I used Calibre to open up the book and edit the source. Wow, such an intense project. Even though I’ve created many websites, at some prestigious organizations, this project hit harder.
Here’s an example of why the manual work mattered. When exporting from Apple Pages, the resulting file was 117.5 MB in size. But by applying essential web design and web development knowledge, many of the same topics covered in the book, the improved file is only 16 MB. That’s an 86% reduction. And even though it’s a smaller file, I think it looks better too.
Even though we’re living in the era of advanced AI, I didn’t trust the technology to do the job right. It’s not about being pro or anti-AI either. It’s simply straight facts. Go ask an AI. It will tell you. Who would do a better job converting a textbook to ePub — AI or a web developer?
Google — “For converting and formatting a 100,000-word book into a flawless EPUB, a professional web developer (or digital book formatter) will do a significantly better job than an AI.”
DuckDuckGo — “For a textbook that requires detailed formatting and customization, a Web Developer would likely do a better job than AI tools. While AI can assist in simpler tasks, the nuanced control and technical skills of a developer are invaluable for complex documents.”
Brave — “Web Developers would generally do a better job converting a textbook to EPUB than AI or automated tools, particularly for complex layouts.”
Using a hybrid approach seems to be a common recommendation. A lot of technology was used to speed things up. In particular, regex powered find-and-replace searches were used in Calibre. The “Beautify all files”, “Fix HTML — all files”, and “Run check” options were used excessively. There was also a bit of AI used in the process. Apple’s AI powered “Shortcuts” app was used to make a “Clean HTML from Clipboard” shortcut. I also used Visual Studio Code to manually edit multiple lines at once.
Even with all of these tools, and it was still a struggle. While the ePub format is convenient, such as being able to read a book on a smartphone, a flexible layout is simply not as precise as a printed page layout. There are differences in ePub readers too, making it more difficult to add styling to the e-book.
This project showed that these skills still matter. So, hopefully the Photics Web Guide serves as a tremendous resource for the next generation of web developers and web designers. It was written so that you could get a boost in complex profession.