Badly formatted eBooks

[Katsunami]

While I enjoy using my Kindle much more than my previous eReader, because it has a touch screen, and many more books are available, one pet peeve remains:

Many (most?) free eBooks are very badly formatted.

While I am not someone to often complain about free stuff, I can't help myself this time. Many eBooks contain spaces in places where they should not be (especially Gutenberg versions), so the text starts
to look
like this
which is of course
not very
readable,
the cover image is very bad or missing (Amazon), there often is no Table of Contents where there should have been one (Amazon, Gutenberg), or chapter headings look like normal text instead of being bold or larger (Amazon).

While not always perfect, the books from MobileRead are often the best of the bunch.

I ripped all of my MP3 files myself from my original CD's, tagged them myself, and put the cover image into them myself, and with regard to freely available eBooks, I wonder if I should start doing so myself, starting out with Gutenberg's TXT or HTML files... but I know I will never have the time for that -and- properly read the books too.

Sorry to complain, but I had to vent a moment there. I just hope that bought eBooks, especially the more expensive ones, will be better...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

While I enjoy using my Kindle much more than my previous eReader, because it has a touch screen, and many more books are available, one pet peeve remains:

Many (most?) free eBooks are very badly formatted, even the ones I get from Amazon.

While I am not someone to often complain about free stuff, I can't help myself this time. Many eBooks contain spaces in places where they should not be, so the text starts
to look
like this
which is of course
not very
readable,
the cover image is very bad or missing, there often is no Table of Contents where there should have been one, or chapter headings look like normal text instead of being bold or larger.

This is true for books gotten from Gutenberg, Amazon, and to some extend, also for books (sorry to say so) from the MobileRead library, although the ones from MobileRead are often the best by far.

Sorry to complain, but I had to vent a moment there. I just hope that bought eBooks, especially the more expensive ones, will be better...

The books from Project Gutenberg don't count. They are just run through a program to convert the text or HTML version of the book to other formats and this program does a very poor job. If you want Gutenberg books, look in the MR library. A lot are here and are well made and if your format is not here, there's usually a format that can be converted from.

As for the eBooks with the split lines, that's usually an indication that the publisher used a PDF file as the source for the other eBook formats.

A lot of eBooks don't have the proper cover and instead have a generic cover. As for the ToC, could be the ePub converted using Kindlegen and with no internal ToC in the ePub, no ToC in the Mobipocket. I've noticed that the poorly formatted headers is more often found in Mobipocket eBooks then ePub.

[Katsunami]

Thanks for the explanation.

How do MobileRead members create the eBooks they upload; do they start by hand, using the Gutenberg TXT-files? I can't really believe that, because adding all the tags for paragraphs and such would be a horrendous job. Some of the ePub / Mobi files from Gutenburg that I have encountered are very well formatted though, and would just need to be fine tuned.

I remember using Mobipocket Creator, back in 2008. The program still is on Mobipocket.com, but the library on the website seems to be empty. Is Mobipocket Creator still relevant nowadays?

I imagine that it is not possible to directly edit a PRC, Mobi or EPUB file.

At the moment, I tend to go with the plain TXT files from Gutenberg with regard to the free books...

[JSWolf]

They are from the TXT or HTML files.

Most were formatted using Bookdesigner. Calibre can do it when converting. Convert to ePub, toss the ePub into Sigil, edit and get it right, convert to other formats with Calbre. Done.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

At the moment, I tend to go with the plain TXT files from Gutenberg with regard to the free books...

If there is HTML available, go with that instead of the TXT version. The HTML will be the most updated version with less errors and/or better formatting.

[Katsunami]

I'll see what I'm going to do. Maybe I'm going to check out Sigil, and then edit the free books as I see fit after downloading or converting to the EPUB file, and then creating a mobi again for the Kindle.

I'm just wondering why many of the free books downloaded from Amazon are so very bad. I did not expect that, and hope that paid books wil be -way- better.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I'll see what I'm going to do. Maybe I'm going to check out Sigil, and then edit the free books as I see fit after downloading or converting to the EPUB file, and then creating a mobi again for the Kindle.

I'm just wondering why many of the free books downloaded from Amazon are so very bad. I did not expect that, and hope that paid books wil be -way- better.

Maybe some came from Smashwords. The meatgrinder there is atrocious. Maybe some came from PDF. PDF is really poor for a source format.
Maybe some were converted from a Word document. That can make some poorly formatted eBooks. and given that you can't edit Mobipocket after it is created, they just let it be.

There are my guesses.

[Katsunami]

Hm, OK. Never knew that Amazon would just convert a book and put it up on their website, if it's a free one. I'd expect it to be proofed and checked over (even for a free one) as a matter of pride, to be honest.

Some of the Project Gutenberg ePubs are quite good to look at, but difficult to make heads or tails of in Sigil because of the many strange codes. I just saw that EPUB basically is HTML, which I did not know before, and Sigil an HTML-editor for books instead of websites. Being a software engineer in "real life", it seems that Sigil will be easy to work with for me.

Maybe I'll reformat some books when I stumble upon a badly formatted one that I want to read. Is it allowed to upload a book to the MobileRead library in a certain format, if that format is already there?

Also, I don't really know if it's allowed to strip all the "Project Gutenberg" stuff and the entire license out of the book, replacing it with some links to the website and aknowledgement that it was the starting version, before re-distribution... the pages and pages of legal stuff and the end of those books really vexes me.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Also, I don't really know if it's allowed to strip all the "Project Gutenberg" stuff and the entire license out of the book, replacing it with some links to the website and aknowledgement that it was the starting version, before re-distribution... the pages and pages of legal stuff and the end of those books really vexes me.

According to Gutenberg's licence you may strip all of Gutenberg's stuff out of the book. You probably should remove all of it, and put your own credits in thanking Project Gutenberg and naming them the source. Why should you remove all of it? Because this way you end up with a public domain book. But careful, you need to make sure that you do not violate copyright laws by downloading or modifying or redistributing Gutenberg's files if you live outside the U.S.

A Project Gutenberg ebook is made out of two parts: the public domain book and the non public domain Project Gutenberg trademark and license. If you strip the Project Gutenberg license and all references to Project Gutenberg from the ebook, you are left with a public domain ebook. You can do anything you want with that.

Edit: Ohh oops, I do hope that legally you can thank Project Gutenberg and name them as the source. Unfortunately not without jumping through hoops, see post #15. Thanks Harry.

[Katsunami]

Yes, without the Gutenberg license stuff inside, it should be a PD book, logicslly. I assume that its perfectly legal to get a book from them, strip all Gutenberg info from it, and add a "Thank you" in the beginning, stating that the formatting of the new version is based on the work that they did before. Credit where credit is due. They do it themselves, by stating which version of the text they have used.

Some of their html and epub-versions that I've seen are quite ok, and just need some fixes. Same goes for some Mobileread books. Maybe I will format some books that I'll be reading, starting from the Mobileread or Gutenberg epub, if I think that I can do better.

Edit: I really should watch out for typos more when using my tablet to post.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Maybe I will format some books that I'll be reading, starting from the Mobilread or Gutenberg epub, if I think that I cab do better.

Great. If you plan to upload them here, then you probably seen Book Uploads Posting Guidelines already, if not here is the most important (in my opinion) quote out of that post: (I made it bold which is not in the original in bold):

Originally Posted by HarryT

This post summarises the guidelines for posting to this forum section. If we all follow them, it'll make life a lot easier.
[..]
6. Uploads here should add some notable "value" to a PG (or whatever) original (for example: nice reformatting, artwork, a TOC, footnotes, etc etc). There's really no point in posting here something which which a poster can get from the original source in two minutes.

Thanks!

[Katsunami]

Of course my version would be better than the one I start out from, or there wouldn't be a point in posting it

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I imagine that it is not possible to directly edit a PRC, Mobi or EPUB file.

This is simply not true for ePub books. In fact it's the main attraction of ePub books. Just for one example, my work plan when designing ePub format ebooks is to do an initial layout version with the text consisting only of lorem ipsum pig latin. When the layout is right, then I edit it to enter the text. And then I proof read it, and edit it to correct any typos etc.

And for another example I've often edited ePub books designed by others to correct typos and other mistakes.

If one has a basic knowledge of HTML and stylesheets it is easy to edit ePub ebooks.

[murg]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Also, I don't really know if it's allowed to strip all the "Project Gutenberg" stuff and the entire license out of the book, replacing it with some links to the website and aknowledgement that it was the starting version, before re-distribution... the pages and pages of legal stuff and the end of those books really vexes me.

My read of the Project Gutenberg license a week ago left me with the impression that you can completely strip any mention of Project Gutenberg and redistribute the book.

However, you are not allowed to use the phrase 'Project Gutenberg' anywhere without including the entire license.

I think that it is ok to say something like 'thanks to PG' as that is not trademarked.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by murg

My read of the Project Gutenberg license a week ago left me with the impression that you can completely strip any mention of Project Gutenberg and redistribute the book.

However, you are not allowed to use the phrase 'Project Gutenberg' anywhere without including the entire license.

I think that it is ok to say something like 'thanks to PG' as that is not trademarked.

Yes, that's absolutely right. You cannot mention "Project Gutenberg" AT ALL in the book unless you leave all their legal stuff intact. Of course, you could say "this book came from Project Gutenberg" in your external description of the book.