12-06-2013, 12:43 AM | #1 |
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Character Encoding: How to fix it?
I have Sony PRS-950 and PRS-350 devices.
In the last year, I've been getting books with odd characters instead of punctuation, which make the books/chapters difficult to read. In playing around with my browsers and View -> Encoding menus, I have figured out that it has something to do with the Character Encoding within the epub files. Example: I’ve is printed instead of I've. ’ for apostrophe “ the opening of a quotation, � for closing the quotation, and I think — is for a hyphen. When a sentence had “’m for " 'm at the beginning of a speech (when the character was slurring his words) it took me a while to figure out how it was supposed to read. This was in one recent book: “’Sides, ’tis only for a moon. That ain’t long.� Translation: " 'Sides, 'tis only for a moon. That ain't long." See what I mean about it being really hard to read? I buy books from several ebook stores and I borrow from the library. The problem may be the entire book, but it is usually restricted to a few chapters, with rare occasion where the encoding changes within a chapter. Usually it is for a whole chapter, not part, and it can be seen in chapters not consecutive to each other. It occurs whether the book is downloaded directly to my 950 reader or if I load it to either reader from my computer(s), which are all Mac OS X of several versions from 10.4 to Mountain Lion. Since it happens when the book is downloaded directly, I figure the operating system of my computer is not relevant. There are several publishers involved, though http://www.baenebooks.com/ (no DRM!) has not so far been one of them, IIRC. I haven't actually purchased Baen ebooks from any source except the publisher, so there is a slight possibility that the problem is dependent on the store/source and not the epub file as originally published. I know I get this in books from the Sony Reader store and from Kobo Books. I haven't purchased enough books from other vendors in the last few months to have a large enough sample to say anything about other stores. However, if I view the books with any viewer on my computer, the encoding is the same. I've read them in Calibre (after stripping DRM -- for my personal use only! -- so that I can actually look at the books in the viewer), in the Sony Reader App, and in Adobe Digital Editions 2.0. It's always the same. I believe the encoding is inherent to the files. I would like to fix this if I can to make the books I've purchased more enjoyable to read on my ereaders. Any ideas? BTW, to paraphrase Bones McCoy, "I'm a doctor, not a software engineer!". It would be really helpful if any suggestions don't assume that I know what you are talking about. Links or specific steps would be very helpful. I have Calibre on my computer, but I am very much a beginner to using it. I can add books and change some of the obvious metadata, but that's about it. I looked a bit at the online user manual and it has stuff about converting books, but it's not clear to me if that's what I should try to do. |
01-05-2014, 09:53 AM | #2 |
Almost legible
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It's a problem that plagues all of us at one point or another.
Fixing it can be difficult, depending on formats and tools available, and time-consuming. I often use Calibre to convert books from one format to another, with decidedly mixed results. If I can get away with it, I prefer my book in rich text format (.rtf), which I can then open with a simple text editor like gedit (I use it in Linux; it is a bit more powerful than Microsoft's Notepad) and do search and replace routines. Calibre does have some of this functionality built-in, I believe, but frankly I use it only as a conversion tool and am not versed with all of its functionality. |
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01-06-2014, 06:09 AM | #3 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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Quote:
Then transfer the file to your Sony to see if the text is being displayed correctly. |
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01-13-2014, 01:25 PM | #4 |
Well trained by Cats
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Your problem was that the codepage was not declared (or done incorrectly).
Calibre has a conversion setting (Look and Feel) where YOU can declare which to use when converting the book . I suggest using this setting from the individual book conversion screen (defaults override) and NOT set it in Preferences (defaults) CP1252 is a good first shot at this problem |
01-13-2014, 07:31 PM | #5 |
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You can also edit the book directly from calibre, as of version 1.15, using the new Edit Book tool (shortcut key is "T") -- no need to install Sigil. It includes a Check Book tool to find problems, and a preview. The Check Book tool gives you the option to fix structural problems automatically, and one of the things it does is fix the encoding.
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05-06-2022, 10:21 AM | #6 |
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It's been about 8 years since this thread started, but I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone involved as it helped me resolve the same issue on a file that I was struggling with. I used Doitsu's method and the book is finally readable :')
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08-13-2022, 07:07 PM | #7 |
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Thanks for the help - this solution works!
Thanks for helping me solve this encoding problem - when I email epub files to my Kindle Paperwhite 4 (10th generation) I would see special corruption-like characters appear in the text. Apparently epub file encoding is very sensitive - at least on the Kindle readers. Using Calibre's "edit," and "check" feature fixed it. Also did a Calibre convert to epub just for fun.
Sigil also has a check epub/code feature that would probably help. Very helpful tip, thanks. JH |
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