Conversion to mobi changes in text size after italics

[JD-Kaplan]

I've got this input (the entire file is copyright protected):

“It is Friday, Col. Are you okay?”

My issue is that all of the text before the italics is one font size (.75em) and then everything after the italics is another font size (1.25em). I tried going to AZW3 instead but get the same output. When I examine the output of the AZW3 file in the calibre book editor, I see this:

<p class="calibre2"><span class="none2">“It </span><span class="none3">is</span> Friday, Col. Are you okay?”</p>

I can fix this manually by changing the css rule for 'none2' via the editor. it's an easy enough fix but I'd really prefer if I could find some setting in the conversion process to go to the .mobi output. The challenge is that for a .mobi I don't think I can alter the .css rules. I tried overriding them (span tag & .none2 class) but that didn't change anything.

Another awesome (preferable solution) would be if there was a way to flat out remove any span tags with none2 as the class.

Any suggestions?

[pdurrant]

I suggest looking at the book coding before conversion.

[JD-Kaplan]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I suggest looking at the book coding before conversion.

Oops, I totally forgot to mention that the input is RTF that I'm exporting from Pages '09

When I crack that file open I see this content:

\'93It
\i \expnd0\expndtw0\kerning0
is
\i0 \expnd0\expndtw0\kerning0
Friday, Col. Are you okay?\'94\

I will look into exporting to a different format, but it sure would be cool if I could get this working in calibre with these input and output formats.

[pdurrant]

Ah. No idea about RTF coding. Perhaps look at how it's styled in Pages? It seems unlikely that this change would happen without some difference in the styles in Pages.

Unless it's a difference of opinion in how RTF should be generated/interpreted.

Perhaps try exporting at HTML instead?

[JD-Kaplan]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Ah. No idea about RTF coding. Perhaps look at how it's styled in Pages? It seems unlikely that this change would happen without some difference in the styles in Pages.

Unless it's a difference of opinion in how RTF should be generated/interpreted.

Perhaps try exporting at HTML instead?

Yeah, I've tried exporting to doc and it results in some funkiness. Next I'm trying html. The styles in the document appear to be the same. I'm not adept at pulling apart a Pages file to see what's going on under the covers.

I appreciate your answers

[pdurrant]

I wouldn't suggest delving into Pages file format. But a careful inspection of the text attributes in the Pages Inspector Palette might reveal some differences.

[JSWolf]

I've seen output from Pages. STAY AWAY FROM PAGES! The code is generates is nasty.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by JD-Kaplan

Yeah, I've tried exporting to doc and it results in some funkiness. Next I'm trying html. The styles in the document

You might do better if you can export the PAGES document to DOCX rather than DOC and converting that to EPUB via calibre. DOCX ranks higher than HTML and RTF in Kovid Goyal's list of 'best' formats to convert (its in the User Manual FAQ). You probably need a fairly recent version of PAGES to get DOCX export, otherwise HTML is probably best. RTF is pretty low down in Kovid's list.

If you can get DOCX you might also want to try importing the DOCX into the calibre book editor, rather than converting. Supposedly it will preserve Word's Style Names in the CSS names. I'm not sure how relevant that is in a PAGES->DOCX->EPUB scenario.

BR