Some ebook creators just can't be helped...

[sherman]

So I'm not really sure if this is the most appropriate place to put this. Anyway...

So, I got a book from amazon, imported into Calibre, then converted to epub as you do. The first sign that something was amiss was that it took calibre over two and a half minutes to convert the book. Normal conversions only take around 10s or so. Naturally I wanted to see what the problem was, so I opened the book in the Editor.

I let loose a string of expletives.

Then I let loose a few more for good measure.

I have then gone and opened the original azw3 in the ebook editor.

The editor reports that the size of the HTML file is 6.5 Megabytes . This is not the bible mind you, just a run of the mill length novel.

So, what does the body of the text look like? Here is a very small sample:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:0.92rem">&quot;<span style="letter-spacing:-.05pt">W</span>h<span style="letter-spacing:-.05pt">a</span>t<span style="letter-spacing:1.4pt"> </span><span style="letter-spacing:-.1pt">s</span><span style="letter-spacing:.05pt">a</span>y<span style="letter-spacing:1.25pt"> </span><span style="letter-spacing:-.3pt">y</span><span style="letter-spacing:.05pt">o</span>u<span style="letter-spacing:.05pt">?</span>&quot;<span style="letter-spacing:1.5pt"> </span>

That's just a small portion of a paragraph.

This happens throughout the entire book.


Sorry about the rant, I just felt I had to get it out.


EDIT: This bit of regex solved the problem...

<span style="letter-spacing[^>]+>([^<]+)</span>

[Gudy]

OK, that is... special. Even for MS Word's atrocious HTML export.

[sherman]

Originally Posted by Gudy

OK, that is... special. Even for MS Word's atrocious HTML export.

Yeah...

I've never come across this one before.

Running that regex brought the file size to ~600kb

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by sherman

Yeah...

I've never come across this one before.

Running that regex brought the file size to ~600kb

That's not merely Word. There's something else afoot in there. You won't get styling like that just from Word--I suspect Abbyy's fine hand in there somewhere, OR, more likely, that's a "faux-Word file," a "word" file made by something like Acrobat Pro (or one of those self-congratulatory websites--"convert your PDF to Word for FREE!" sites), exporting to "Save as..Word."

That's usually the only time you'll see that much cruft, coupled with the MSoNormal body style. I'm not a bettor, but that's my best (and fairly educated) guess--Adobe is in the mix, that, or another faux-convert-a-book type thing, exporting a print-layout PDF into "Word."

FWIW.
Hitch

[sherman]

Wherever the original source came from, this was definitely an eye-opener for me.

As an aside, I have found that word can output acceptable (filtered) html. However, that relies on the author knowing how to use styles...

[sherman]

Grrr... Another small rant.

One would think that in this day and age, Authors should know what a page-break is.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by sherman

Wherever the original source came from, this was definitely an eye-opener for me.

As an aside, I have found that word can output acceptable (filtered) html. However, that relies on the author knowing how to use styles...

Of course it does. But, to be fair, it relies on that no matter WHAT the source. I don't care if it's OO, LO, Scrivener, Jutoh, you-name-it, no command of styles, you get garbage. Ad-hoc styling is the bane of ebook-makers everywhere. It's really no different in Sigil or Calibre, for that matter; it's all GIGO. You put in ad hoc styles, or try to "style" things in Sigil BookView,and the other side looks like the dog's breakfast.

There is simply no way of getting around it--someone, somewhere, has to apply styles. Whether the author does it initially (in wich case, they mostly don't need bookmakers), or the bookmaker cleans it all up, and applies them, either in Word or ??? or in HTML via CSS...it's all the same thing. It's even thus in print layout. There's no alternative.

IME, which is not small, Word frankly does a better job of outputting reasonably decent styles in filtered HTML than anything else, period. It's faster to clean up than almost anything else; more tools, more macros, etc., out there to assist. {shrug}. Lots of folks will argue that "markup is better," and of course, in some ideal parallel universe, that's true...but no author is going to write in MARKUP, it's just daft. Of the remaining choices, programs, etc., Word is the best option, all told.

Hitch

[Ghitulescu]

I believe the word processing software did that during conversion through an integrated whatever_my_format 2 ePub (AZW). I haven't used so many word processors/editors to recognize a "style", but it looks like a pro system, I mean a typesetting one (DTP) like PageMaker, QuarkXpress and stuff. Why not (La)Tex?

[pdurrant]

IIRC, Amazon charges the author data fees for the size of the book when on the 70% option. So the author is probably losing some income because of the large size of the ebook. It might be a kindness to mention this to the author.

[Toxaris]

Like Hitch said, Word in itself is acceptable if used correctly. However, the myriad of 'free automated conversion tools' are not helping. They are all labeled as 'wonderful', but are in reality a nightmare. It may look alright from afar, it is actually atrocious.
For documents in general the credo 'keep it clean, keep it simple' does do wonders. If you really want to knock yourself out in styling and alike, it must be done as final step, not as intermediate.

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

IIRC, Amazon charges the author data fees for the size of the book when on the 70% option. So the author is probably losing some income because of the large size of the ebook. It might be a kindness to mention this to the author.

Good to know, fits well into the topic I'm currently digging around in.
(size optimisation of ebooks) If you are right, then it'd be more than a pet peeve problem solution but really useful to find as much opportunities as I can. I'll try to do my best .

[Jellby]

This looks like one these "amazing PDF to HTML conversion" results

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

Good to know, fits well into the topic I'm currently digging around in.
(size optimisation of ebooks) If you are right, then it'd be more than a pet peeve problem solution but really useful to find as much opportunities as I can. I'll try to do my best .

He's right. Delivery fees are real: http://www.booknook.biz/bk_resources..._delivery_fees

We are, in fact, dealing with an illustrated story (not a comic) right now, with this issue; it's coming out at 78MB. Obviously, first, we have to get it down to the 50MB size (Amazon's filesize limit for self-pubs through the KDP) and secondly, the delivery-fee issue.

Hitch

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Hitch

We are, in fact, dealing with an illustrated story (not a comic) right now, with this issue; it's coming out at 78MB. Obviously, first, we have to get it down to the 50MB size (Amazon's filesize limit for self-pubs through the KDP) and secondly, the delivery-fee issue.

At 50MB it might be worth considering opting for the straight 35% of retail option, where there is no delivery fee.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

At 50MB it might be worth considering opting for the straight 35% of retail option, where there is no delivery fee.

Yes. We even suggest that in the last paragraph of our FAQ article.

Hitch