Have a Good Life

In writing my book, I used Markdown as I was writing it to force me to focus on the content, or else I would never get it done. I didn’t start playing around with fonts, and colors, and design until the actual writing was in to be reviewed by a trusted friend.

I had a really hard time getting the Markdown text out of Scrivener into a readable format with the pictures that I had linked in. I needed the format to go to Word so that I could insert chapters into iBooks Author.

When I compiled from Scrivener to Word, I got markdown formatted text, not RTF (and no pictures)

When I compiled from Scrivener to RTF, I got rich text, formatted how I wanted, but without pictures.

When I compiled from Scrivener to PDF, I got rich text, formatted how I wanted, with pictures, but when I copied and pasted it, the pictures all went to the last ten pages, which would have required more work than I wanted.

When I compiled from Scrivener to TXT, it gave me just what I had written in Scrivener.

When I exported to OPML, I got a really cool Mind Map of my whole book!

To get what I needed, I had to go to and download the Drag and Drop apps (all the way at the bottom) from Fletcher Penney’s github site. When I did that, I dragged my Scrivener-exported .txt file onto the HTML app, and it converted it to HTML for me. I opened that up and copied the styled text from the web browser, and pasted it into a Word doc. It got all the formatting how I set it up in Markdown, and made it easy for me to get it out into chapters to be imported into iBooks Author.

I realize now that I could have compiled from Scrivener to HTML and been totally fine with what I needed. Live and learn, right?

As a side note, I really like iBooks Author. It makes even what I am doing look fairly decent!

Have a Good Life.

For a long time, I have wanted to write a book. I didn't know if one would ever get published or not, but I have wanted to write a book. I didn't care if it was fiction or nonfiction, but I knew that I wanted to a have a book with my name as the author. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you're probably crazy! But, you may also be my parents.

In 2008, I even started blogging about my experiences as an intern with the intent to turn that into a small book (really a journal). My cooperating principal didn't think that was a good idea, so I scrapped that idea (though I still have 30 blog post drafts waiting to be published).

In 2002, I came up with the opening line for the fictional work that I will someday write. It is....Well, I'll save it for later. I haven't forgotten it, and I don't think I will.

It has finally happened. I am finalizing a book. I have been staying up late at night for the last few weeks trying to get it done in time. Some days it is easier than others to write, but every day it is rewarding.

The book is called "Paperless Principal" and you can preorder it here: http://paperlessprincipal.com.

It was inspired by David Sparks' Paperless, which I bought earlier this year. Since I bought that book, I have been staying up late at night organizing a paperless system for our office at work. I spent hours creating those workflows, and realized that I was making it a lot harder than it needed to be. Since we are still so reliant on paper, the goal of a paperless office eludes many of us. It is possible however, to have a mostly paperless office. And I show principals how to do that in my book.

It includes screenshots, screencasts, and a lot of instructions. In the preorder, I include the automation tools that I have talked about in the Paperless Principals posts on this blog. I am also offering a 30 minute Skype/FaceTime/Phone consult to help get people started.

I think it is pretty good. I think you might, too, especially if you are a principal interested in a paperless office. Go support your indie author and buy it.

Have a Good Life.