I want to improve the way I make .imp ebooks from (rich) .html and up to now my MO has been to perfect what I would like displayed on my hardware reader ebook-wise (pardon the pun) and then make other ebook formats for uploading here. Other formats include .prc/.mobi (Mobipocket) and .lrf/.epub (Sony).
Currently, if I want to produce a .imp, .prc and .lrf (
and in the future .epub) ebook for uploading here, then I will "nail it" using eBook Publisher for the .imp ebook, then use a copy of the .opf with Mobipocket Creator and finally a command-line Calibre program, either html2lrf.exe or opf2html.exe.
However, I see from using the (software) Mobipocket Reader and Calibre lrfviewer/ebook-viewer that my other ebook formats suffer from shortcomings of my .html source files used.
As an example, I converted a PG offering entitled
Little Stories for Little Children by Anonymous using the HTML .zip (22896-h.zip). I produced a .imp/.epub (using a beta eBook Publisher), .prc (using Mobipocket Creator) and .lrf/.epub (using Calibre v0.4.121). I attach as
Little Stories for Little Children.zip my source files as revised by me including the original 22896-h.htm as well as a simple "diffs" .txt file to see what I changed.
Now to the problems:
- what appears centered in a .imp ebook is right-aligned sometimes when using Mobipocket Reader,
- the <pre> tag is not well supported in Mobipocket ebooks,
- fonts sizes seem larger in Sony ebooks (though I think the user can control this; just the software viewer doesn't)
- <hr>/paragraph breaks/<h1> are exaggerated, etc...
- Conversely, when I want to signify a page-break, my .imp reader doesn't understand <p style="page-break-after: always"> (which is theorectically better) and only recognizes <p style="page-break-before: always">.
- Yuk!
What I would like to find out is what works best for ALL ebook formats. A basic "
hit list" of html constructs to use and/or avoid.
I would appreciate any comments from those that prepare .prc/.mobi ebooks from .html on how they would change my source .html files to better make a Mobipocket ebook. The same goes for those who make Sony ebooks from .html.
In the end, I hope we can standardize the creation of ebooks from .html so that the best possible ebooks can be created from a single (multi-purpose) source.
Please upload any better Mobipocket or Sony (or eBookwise) ebook you can make using my source below (please upload source/diffs as well).
Any thoughts in this regard?