epub to epub ?

[IGraham]

hi
Just a quick question
I was reading another thread and 'epub to epub' was mentioned apparently some people do this and apparently its 'evil' ?
Could someone tell me why this 'epub to epub' is done are there advantages

[mrmikel]

This is generally a reference to Calibre.

If you have a document which does not any extra code in it, running it through Calibre will cause it to pick up what some consider extra unnecessary code. This is because Calibre does things in a certain way that produces workable code from almost anything and from nearly any source.

If a document is unusable in an e-reader because of errors, sometimes converting from epub to epub will clean up those errors and create a useable document.

If you have ever spent time trying to fix what seems unfixable, this can be a godsend.

It is evil only to the extent that Calibre may turn what some consider to be a sleek sports car of a document to much less elegant, but highly useful family car. Really more a matter of taste, as both can work, but a calibre product can be a probably unmeasurable bit slower and harder to understand for someone who wants to fine tune it.

[IGraham]

Thanks for that explanation Appreciated

[slm]

I sometimes use it to deliberately add code--in my case to make most of the text bold, so I can read it on an ereader more easily.

[JSWolf]

And what can very easily happen is that it can take code that it rather easy to hand tweak to fix what you want into something that's a log more difficult to fix.

[huebi]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

If a document is unusable in an e-reader because of errors, sometimes converting from epub to epub will clean up those errors and create a useable document.

In 100% this is just cause some files are bigger then 300k and calibre will split these. Theres no need to use calibre for this, can be easily done with sigil without having calibre dafacing the ebook.

[pholy]

Originally Posted by huebi

In 100% this is just cause some files are bigger then 300k and calibre will split these. Theres no need to use calibre for this, can be easily done with sigil without having calibre dafacing the ebook.

Of course the early versions of Sigil would to its own thing to your file too, running tidy with unknown options. Not that it used bad options, I just didn't know what was being used. I haven't been back to check what it does now. I'm pretty happy with a simple-minded text editor like vim or gedit.

[Toxaris]

In some cases conversion within Calibre will break things that are perfectly fine to begin with. So, it adds unnecessary code and potentially breaks things. If your ePUB is not working, you should solve it in the source instead on relying on a Calibre conversion.

[huebi]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

In some cases conversion within Calibre will break things that are perfectly fine to begin with.

s/some/many/

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pholy

Of course the early versions of Sigil would to its own thing to your file too, running tidy with unknown options. Not that it used bad options, I just didn't know what was being used. I haven't been back to check what it does now. I'm pretty happy with a simple-minded text editor like vim or gedit.

The solution to Tidy in Sigil is to run Sigil, turn off Tidy, close Sigil and then load your ePub into Sigil. Tidy will be off until you turn it on. So Tidy won't be messing with the styles.