[Old Thread] Convert epub to mobi with wide left margin on Kindle

[manwithamission]

I tried that but i lost all the paragraphs on some mobi files and and table of contents on them all!

[sofauxboho]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

It's on the todo list. However, it will only dump the left margin if > 90% of paragraphs have the same left margin.

I'm still struggling with this problem. Any idea what the ETA for a built in fix might be?

Thank you so much for all your work, Kovid.

[kovidgoyal]

Sorry I don't do ETAs. It will get implemented when it gets implemented.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by sofauxboho

I'm still struggling with this problem. Any idea what the ETA for a built in fix might be?

Until an alternate solution exists use the tweak epub feature in calibre to edit the margins in the css file. If a css file doesn't seem to exist do a epub to epub conversion first then use the tweak epub feature to reduce or remove margins in the css file.

Or complain to the store you bought them from.

[kt1]

This worked for all the epubs I've tried so far without the need to tweak or jump through any extra hoops:

In the calibre conversion preferences, under "Look & Feel", add the following to the "Extra CSS" box:

body, p, div, .calibre1, .calibre2, .calibre3, .calibre4, .calibre5, .calibre6, .calibre7 {
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
}

That should eliminate the left margin.

If you guys find that there are more tags or classes that commonly show up in your epubs that have "margin-left" set to something other than 0 , please let me know so we can add it to the list.

Hope this helps! I was relieved.

[ebookrights]

Originally Posted by kt1

This worked for all the epubs I've tried so far without the need to tweak or jump through any extra hoops:

In the calibre conversion preferences, under "Look & Feel", add the following to the "Extra CSS" box:

body, p, div, .calibre1, .calibre2, .calibre3, .calibre4, .calibre5, .calibre6, .calibre7 {
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
}

That should eliminate the left margin.

If you guys find that there are more tags or classes that commonly show up in your epubs that have "margin-left" set to something other than 0 , please let me know so we can add it to the list.

Hope this helps! I was relieved.

This has been working great for me! Almost every conversion I did using Calibre had this problem. I used this CSS and everything seems to be working fine. Is there any reason to not just apply this CSS 100% of the time? I mean do certain books need to not have the margins set like this?

[JohnLees]

This is a brilliant fix! - I have literally been struggling with removing the wide left margin for days and your Extra CSS does the job - thank you!

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by JohnLees

This is a brilliant fix! - I have literally been struggling with removing the wide left margin for days and your Extra CSS does the job - thank you!

I'm curious, in 0.7.34 Ignore margins was added to the Mobi ouput (see attached). Have you tried this option?

[JPWdAe]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

I'm curious, in 0.7.34 Ignore margins was added to the Mobi ouput (see attached). Have you tried this option?

Hi dwanthny,

just tried this one and it works just great! Thanks a lot!

[pconwell]

I just tried the 'ignore margins' option and I can confirm that this fixed the issue for me.

Look under output settings > mobi format > ignore margins.

[JohnLees]

Hi dwanthny, sorry for my delayed reply (holidays). I was unaware of this option, but now I have tried it I can confirm ticking "Ignore margins" under MOBI Output tab works a treat and is simpler to use than adding the custom CSS code.

Thanks for pointing this out.

[allowingtoo]

Originally Posted by dogbreath999

Fixing this problem for Dummies:

If anyone wanted to know the quick step by step I am doing to solve the problem I'll describe it below.

-First go to Calibre and convert Epub to Epub (yes the same format), making sure to go to "Page Setup" and change the left margin to 0.

-Then go into Sigil and open the new Epub file (it should automatically update or save in a new location). If it doesn't open or has an error it might be the old file you are opening, not the new one.

-Go under the folder "Styles" under the Book Browser, and open the Stylesheet.css

-In the style sheet, all I do is look for every single thing that says marginleft OR marginright and make sure the value is 0 for everything. If it says 1em I change it to 0em. If it says 5pt, I change it to 0pt. If its 0 I leave it at 0. If it says auto I leave it saying auto.

-Control S (Command S for mac) to save. Then exit Sigil

-Back in Calibre all I do is click convert to Mobi this time to make a Kindle compatible file format. Again make sure under "Page setup" it has 0 for the left margin value (it should if you did this before).

-Now when you put the file on the device it should be in a nice normal format. Everytime i've followed this procedure it has worked very nicely. I DO wish that Calibre could do this by itself, as it takes like a minute per book conversion, but its not the worst thing in the world.

Since I'm somewhat computer illiterate this HOWTO would have at least saved ME a ton of time figuring out how to fix this problem when I first had it.

OMG thank you! Now if only I hadn't started a new thread on this. But you saved my sanity. It worked.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Ignore margins was added to the Mobi ouput. Have you tried checking this option when converting from ePub to Mobi?

See image attached to this post.

[allowingtoo]

Did not work. The author in question added some custom CSS code and some double block quotes to top it off. There was nothing in her books in a block quote so I have no idea why the block quote code other than it was for the Mobi format. She has so much custom CSS code in there it is unbelievable. I guess she thinks it makes for a better looking book. I think it was just beyond Calibre.

[Manichean]

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