Parsing and Extracting Text from ePub XHTML

[Brahmanathaswami]

We do a lot of work with the contents of ePubs. For those who don't know 
the spec:

"someBook.epub" is just "someBook.zip"

which when inflated has a mini-portable web site based on responsive CSS 
(all percentages). You get

someBook
/ops # "Open Package Structure"
/ fonts
/ images
/ styles
/ xhtml
toc.ncx

The xhtml folder then has all the these files:
ch09_05_b.html
ch09_05_c.html
ch09_06.html

etc.

The text is pretty advanced in the sense that it uses unicode... (I 
think) for rendering diacritical fonts. mdash's etc.

If I simply import the raw file unprocessed into a LC field (7.0.5)... I 
get the usual, expected text:

<h3 class="h3s"><samp>Is Monistic Theism Found in the <span 
class="cmitalic"><samp>Vedas?</samp></span></samp></h3>
<h4 class="h4"><samp><span class="smallcap"><samp>ŚLOKA 
145</samp></span></samp></h4>
<p class="noindent"><samp><span class="cmbold"><samp>Again and again in 
the <em>Vedas </em>and from <em>satgurus </em>we hear ‚ÄúAhaṁ 
Brahm&#x101;smi,” “I am God,” and that God is both immanent and 
transcendent. Taken together, these are clear statements of monistic 
theism. Aum Nama&#x1e25; &#x15a;iv&#x101;ya.</samp></span></samp></p>
<h4 class="h4"><samp><span 
class="smallcap"><samp>BHĀSHYA</samp></span></samp></h4>
<p class="noindent"><samp>Monistic theism is the philosophy of the <span 
class="cmitalic"><samp>Vedas</samp></span>. Scholars have long noted 
that the Hindu scriptures are alternately monistic, describing the 
oneness of the individual soul and God, and theistic, describing the 
reality of the Personal God. One cannot read the <span 
class="cmitalic"><samp>Vedas</samp></span>, <span 
class="cmitalic"><samp>&#x15a;aiva Āgamas</samp></span> and hymns 
of the saints without being overwhelmed with theism as well as monism. 
Monistic theism is the essential teaching of Hinduism, of &#x15a;aivism. 
It is the conclusion of Tirumular, Vasugupta, Gorakshanatha, Bhaskara, 
Srikantha, Basavanna, Vallabha, Ramakrishna, Yogaswami, Nityananda, 
Radhakrishnan and thousands of others. It encompasses both 
Siddh&#x101;nta and Ved&#x101;nta. It says, God is and is in all things. 
It propounds the hopeful, glorious, exultant concept that every soul 
will finally merge with &#x15a;iva in undifferentiated oneness, none 
left to suffer forever because of human transgression. The <span 
class="cmitalic"><samp>Vedas</samp></span> wisely proclaim, “Higher 
and other than the world-tree, time and forms is He from whom this 
expanse proceeds—the bringer of <span 
class="cmitalic"><samp>dharma,</samp></span> the remover of evil, the 
lord of prosperity. Know Him as in one’s own Self, as the immortal 
abode of all.” Aum Nama&#x1e25; &#x15a;iv&#x101;ya.</samp></p>

Goal is to create a tool for volunteers to go in and extract quotes to 
allow them to grab a few sentences, which we will them push to an online 
database.

So: What is the best way to get this text rendered? Do I go the path of 
setting the field's Unicode? But then what about the html mark up? if we 
create a browser object... can users select text and does LC know that 
there is a selected chunk if it is inside a browser object?

Before I start wading into this I though to see if anyone else has some 
good guidance in advance,


Swasti Astu, Be Well!
Brahmanathaswami

Kauai's Hindu Monastery
www.HimalayanAcademy.com