Problem with calibre ignoring font styles

[ndr]

Hi, I'm having issues converting mobi file to another format. I can't make calibre to retain font styles.
I've enabled the debug mode, and the input file looks like this:

<p class="calibre_53"><font face="Times New Roman" color="gray"><span class="bold">Text1</span></font></p>
<p class="calibre_137"><font face="sans-serif">Text2</font></p>

but after conversion (to htmlz, inline) it becomes:

<p style="display: block; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 15%; text-indent: 1em"><span style="color: gray"><span style="font-weight: bold">Text1</span>
</span></p>
<p style="display: block; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 1%; text-align: center; text-indent: 0"><span>Text2</span></p>

Why the "font face" is ignored? How can I prevent this?

Thanks in advance.
ndr

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ndr

Hi, I'm having issues converting mobi file to another format. I can't make calibre to retain font styles.
I've enabled the debug mode, and the input file looks like this:

<p class="calibre_53"><font face="Times New Roman" color="gray"><span class="bold">Text1</span></font></p>
<p class="calibre_137"><font face="sans-serif">Text2</font></p>

but after conversion (to htmlz, inline) it becomes:

<p style="display: block; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 15%; text-indent: 1em"><span style="color: gray"><span style="font-weight: bold">Text1</span>
</span></p>
<p style="display: block; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 1%; text-align: center; text-indent: 0"><span>Text2</span></p>

Why the "font face" is ignored? How can I prevent this?

Thanks in advance.
ndr

I don't think it is correct usage .You have 2 words font and face
Example from W3Schools
<p style="font-family:arial;color:red;font-size:20px;">A paragraph.</p>

[ndr]

No, the <font/> tag is actually a legal element of HTML spec.
Besides it's not the original file but the result of parsing of the mobi file by calibre (saved in the input folder when in debug mode).
The problem is that while the "color" attribute is recognized and converted to its css equivalent (<span style="color: gray">) the "face" attribute is skipped.
My question is, why it's not converted as well (to <span style="font-family:sans-serif"> or similar)?

ndr

[kovidgoyal]

MOBI does not support font embedding and as such using font-family (or <font face> is extremely fragile since what effects it has depends on what fonts are installed on the users system and what reading application the user is using. As such, I have never felt the need (nor has anyone before you requested) support for <font face>.

But it should be a trivial feature to add, open a bug report for it, so i dont forget (I am currently traveling)

[ndr]

Thanks a lot! I'll do that.
As for the reason, having a book in which different parts of text are distinguished using typeface (instead of bold or italic), it would be desirable to maintain such formatting style during conversion.
I can always replace "Times New Roman" with a more generic class (or embed that specific font in case of epub output), as long as such information is preserved. But it would be very hard to recreate it if it's lost after conversion.

ndr