Quotes and question marks

[VelvetElvis]

Converted a .mobi format book to .epub and loaded it to my Sony PRS-300.
Noticed that all apostrophes and quotes have been replaced by question marks.

Take the word "I've"
On the Sony, it's "I?ve". In the Calibre reader, it's "Ive" (no question mark, nor apostrophe)

Downloaded Sigil (which I've never seen before) and looked at the source code. It also shows "Ive"

Tried to read what I could in the help and various forums. Tried re-converting, using various different Input Character Coding options in Calibre. No joy.

My questions are:
- Why does the Sony show question marks while Calibre's reader doesn't?
- How can I fix this?

Sorry if I've missing something obvious, but I've looked all over and can't find the solution on my own.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

Converted a .mobi format book to .epub and loaded it to my Sony PRS-300.
Noticed that all apostrophes and quotes have been replaced by question marks.

Take the word "I've"
On the Sony, it's "I?ve". In the Calibre reader, it's "Ive" (no question mark, nor apostrophe)

Downloaded Sigil (which I've never seen before) and looked at the source code. It also shows "Ive"

Tried to read what I could in the help and various forums. Tried re-converting, using various different Input Character Coding options in Calibre. No joy.

My questions are:
- Why does the Sony show question marks while Calibre's reader doesn't?
- How can I fix this?

Sorry if I've missing something obvious, but I've looked all over and can't find the solution on my own.

You typed the quote and Apostrophe found on the keyboard (straight quote).
Those are probably "curly quotes" that are from a different code page.
try setting a code page (AKA input character encoding) when converting:cp1252 is a good start. the box is under Look and feel section on the conversion options that displays when you click "convert"

[slantybard]

Your original source material may have more than one text encoding that is the result of very poor editing and formatting from the publishing purchase. One way of fixing this is opening your file in a text editor and copy the whole text into a new document window, saving it, and taking a look for any find+replace fixes.

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by theducks

You typed the quote and Apostrophe found on the keyboard (straight quote).
Those are probably "curly quotes" that are from a different code page.
try setting a code page (AKA input character encoding) when converting:cp1252 is a good start. the box is under Look and feel section on the conversion options that displays when you click "convert"

Thank you. I will try a few more. Tried that one already. :-/

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by slantybard

Your original source material may have more than one text encoding that is the result of very poor editing and formatting from the publishing purchase. One way of fixing this is opening your file in a text editor and copy the whole text into a new document window, saving it, and taking a look for any find+replace fixes.

The frustrating part is that when viewing the source, there's no characters showing that I can replace. As mentioned, "I've" becomes "Ive" when viewing the source. The Sony is the only thing that knows there's an apostrophe there. Unfortunately, it shows it as a question mark.

[HarryT]

You'll probably need to convert the original Mobi book to HTML, edit that, and then convert it to ePub.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

The frustrating part is that when viewing the source, there's no characters showing that I can replace. As mentioned, "I've" becomes "Ive" when viewing the source. The Sony is the only thing that knows there's an apostrophe there. Unfortunately, it shows it as a question mark.

An ePub file is just a zipped HTML book with some special control files added. Since the Sony knows there is a character there it must be present in the ePub file at that point. You could therefore use the 'Tweak Epub facility in Calibre to get at the HTML inside the ePub to examine (and possibly correct) the issue.

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by itimpi

An ePub file is just a zipped HTML book with some special control files added. Since the Sony knows there is a character there it must be present in the ePub file at that point. You could therefore use the 'Tweak Epub facility in Calibre to get at the HTML inside the ePub to examine (and possibly correct) the issue.

Thanks for replying.

You and HarryT both mentioned the HTML.
I have this book in HTML format as well. The .rar archive contained only 3 files:
book.html
book.ncx
book.opf

I have looked at the .html file, and the example word I keep using ("I've")
appears right in the raw html as "Ive". There's _no_ characters at all between the "I" and the "v".
It appears the problem lies either in a tag somewhere in the .html file, or with the .ncx or .opf file, neither of which I am familiar with.
I'd love to be able to edit this, but I'm at a loss what to look for.

[VelvetElvis]

Well I've finally made some progress.

I took the suggestion to try different code pages. CP1252 replaced the missing apostrophe/single quotes, but prefixed them all with An "A" with a caret on top.

I then used the Calibre "tweak ePub" function to open the source files, then did a search & replace on all the unneeded characters. A bit of hassle, but I seem to have a serviceable novel.

Thank you to all who posted suggestions! I'd be lost without your help.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

Well I've finally made some progress.

I took the suggestion to try different code pages. CP1252 replaced the missing apostrophe/single quotes, but prefixed them all with An "A" with a caret on top.

I then used the Calibre "tweak ePub" function to open the source files, then did a search & replace on all the unneeded characters. A bit of hassle, but I seem to have a serviceable novel.
Thank you to all who posted suggestions! I'd be lost without your help.

Try another code page:
That one was not the right one if that was what you saw. (closer )

Give this help section a look over.
http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual/conversion.html

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by theducks

Try another code page:
That one was not the right one if that was what you saw. (closer )

Give this help section a look over.
http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual/conversion.html

I tried CP1250, CP1251, CP1252, Latin, and UTF8.
Oddly, CP1250 and CP1252 seemed to give the same, closest results. I will play around later and see if one of the others works 100%.

Thank you for the conversion link. On the top of my reading list.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

I have this book in HTML format as well. The .rar archive contained only 3 files:
book.html
book.ncx
book.opf

I have looked at the .html file, and the example word I keep using ("I've")
appears right in the raw html as "Ive".

Was this html file already added to calibre when you were viewing it. Part of adding a html book to calibre causes it to be converted on adding the book. With html files the character encoding has to be set in the html2zip file plugin prior to adding the book. Check #2 of this section of the FAQ.

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Was this html file already added to calibre when you were viewing it. Part of adding a html book to calibre causes it to be converted on adding the book. With html files the character encoding has to be set in the html2zip file plugin prior to adding the book. Check #2 of this section of the FAQ.

I had 3 versions of the same book: .epub, .mobi, and .html. All gave the same results when converted and loaded on my Sony.

I'm a fairly new user of Calibre, and I didn't realize what a minefield converting ebooks can be.

Thanks for the faq link. More must-read material!

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

I had 3 versions of the same book: .epub, .mobi, and .html. All gave the same results when converted and loaded on my Sony.

Remember if a html file gives you this error on conversion you have to remove the html from calibre, add the character encoding in the html2zip plugin, then add the html fresh to calibre.

Good Luck.

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Remember if a html file gives you this error on conversion you have to remove the html from calibre, add the character encoding in the html2zip plugin, then add the html fresh to calibre.

Good Luck.

Hmm... never received an "error on conversion", per se. No warning or anything.
The only thing amiss in Calibre was the loss of apostrophe's (which were also used for quotes.). I only noticed it when using the Sony reader.
I still don't understand why the Calibre built-in reader didn't show the question marks.

Thanks for the info. It's been added to my own FAQ file.