Some Conversions Take Unreasonably Long

[nkormanik]

I decided to convert my entire collection of epubs using Calibre just to be sure they are in "good form."

Certain of the epubs take FOREVER to convert, however. One conversion -- a 500 kb epub -- has been chugging along for HOURS. I'm doing it using command line, and can see that progress seems to be happening. But..., why so long???

Are certain epubs so ill-formatted, or complex, that a conversion takes longer?

Any thoughts appreciated.

Nicholas Kormanik

[ldolse]

Originally Posted by nkormanik

Are certain epubs so ill-formatted, or complex, that a conversion takes longer?

Yes... In particular any files where Microsoft Word generated the original code.

[nkormanik]

Well..., HOLY SMOKES!!! Some are taking FOREVER....

After Calibre converts them, will they be in better shape, ya think??

That's precisely my hope, that Calibre will put them into better form than they were to begin with.

[ldolse]

Usually once Calibre normalizes the css things are better. But certain types of styles may cause every conversion to be slow.

[nkormanik]

I'm seeing a pattern to the conversion bottlenecks:

C S S

Whatever the hell that means or implies.

[Manichean]

CSS is a style sheet for HTML type files. See the Wikipedia entry for details. It implies that Idolse is right, and that the original CSS in those epubs is seriously messed up.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Manichean

and that the original CSS in those epubs is seriously messed up.

The css isn't messed up but it is needlessly complex. This is what happens when you save a Word doc as a web page.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

The css isn't messed up but it is needlessly complex. This is what happens when you save a Word doc as a web page.

Doesn't that count as "seriously messed up"?

[Ortep]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

The css isn't messed up but it is needlessly complex. This is what happens when you save a Word doc as a web page.

No, there is no CSS as you save a Word doc as HTML, I do it all the time.

CSS is a hobby of some people to make things complex, you don't need it when you use Word as a WYSIWYG tool and save as Filtered HTML.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Ortep

No, there is no CSS as you save a Word doc as HTML, I do it all the time.

CSS is a hobby of some people to make things complex, you don't need it when you use Word as a WYSIWYG tool and save as Filtered HTML.

Once that file is converted to a epub all of the WYSIWYG styling (sometimes 1000s of line) is moved to a css file.

Filtered is quite a bit smaller but the resultant css is still

[Ortep]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Once that file is converted to a epub all of the WYSIWYG styling (sometimes 1000s of line) is moved to a css file.

Filtered is quite a bit smaller but the resultant css is still

But Word does not create a CSS document, It is something Calibre does. And only for ePub. That is one of the reasons I stay away from ePub...it is a big bowl of spaghetti.

When I have an ePub half the time I use Winrar to open it and simply delete the CSS. It often improves the book. Epub works fine without a CSS

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Ortep

But Word does not create a CSS document, It is something Calibre does.

You're right, but calibre doesn't make the stuff up it acquires all that junk from the WYSIWYG styling all throughout the Word html. Word is directly responsible for all the crap.

Originally Posted by Ortep

And only for ePub. That is one of the reasons I stay away from ePub...it is a big bowl of spaghetti.

Using CSS is industry standard for any html not just epub. The css makes a web document much easier to manage.

Originally Posted by Ortep

When I have an ePub half the time I use Winrar to open it and simply delete the CSS. It often improves the book. Epub works fine without a CSS

Since this is a calibre forum you can now just right click on the book and use calibre's tweak epub feature instead of winrar.

CSS is used to define many things in a document, removing the css will often cause you to lose most or all styling and formatting. What you end up with is a lump of text wrapped in a epub. But if you have one of those epubs created from a Word source file then it might be a good idea before you process it with calibre.

[ldolse]

The css from Word (and similar) sources is inline, it doesn't create a separate file. If you want to delete it beforehand from a source originating from Word you need to learn enough html to delete an inline css.

[Ortep]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Since this is a calibre forum you can now just right click on the book and use calibre's tweak epub feature instead of winrar.

You are right, I keep forgetting that new option. I was using Winrar for a long time now.

I know that CSS is a standard but in my experience it is not 'helping' me but complicating things. It feels like going back to the 80s with my old Unix systems. Everything separate in a file and everything pointing or linking to something else, arcane commands and horrible things like VI.

The fun part of Calibre is that I not have to think about what were and how.

[nkormanik]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Since this is a calibre forum you can now just right click on the book and use calibre's tweak epub feature instead of winrar.

Are you perhaps suggesting that it would be a good idea to do a Calibre "tweak" on all our epubs?

Is there a command-line for tweaking??

If so, I should have been doing this as part of the command-line conversion process. But I'll gladly send them all through a second time around for a final "CALIBRE TWEAK"!!