Incorrect characters in ebook viewer

mlcja · 03-04-2012, 07:46 AM

Hello Calibre,
I've noticed that the book viewer in Calibre sometimes shows incorrect font characters. I've seen this on some Epub format books. When I convert to mobi and view on my Kindle, the fonts are ok. So, I assume the problem is with the Calibre viewer, as the original epub file displays ok in Digital Editions Reader. Any ideas? The problem seems be related to certain meta characters not displaying correctly.

Divingduck · 03-04-2012, 08:06 AM

May be the font you are using in the viewer haven’t the character. Try to change to another front and check if this will solve your problem.

kiwidude · 03-04-2012, 08:11 AM

My guess is that it is just a simple character encoding issue. Is it the case that you are seeing some "weird" A type characters for instance?

If so just do an epub->epub conversion with a windows encoding of cp-1252. It is the calibre ebook viewer that is not detecting the encoding and why they show up correctly in ADE.

mlcja · 03-04-2012, 08:51 AM

I will try your suggestion.
However, I hope Calibre will fix this in a future release.
Thanks again.

mlcja · 03-04-2012, 09:10 AM

Kiwidude, that did the trick.
thanks!

theducks · 03-04-2012, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlcja

I will try your suggestion.
However, I hope Calibre will fix this in a future release.
Thanks again.

FWIW Calibre is not broken.
The book failed to properly declare the encoding. You had to help Calibre 'guess' what to use.

mlcja · 03-05-2012, 09:05 AM

>>>FWIW Calibre is not broken.
The book failed to properly declare the encoding. You had to help Calibre 'guess' what to use.<<<

Perhaps I should not have used the word "fix". I'm wondering if Calibre could make a better "guess" to start with, so I don't have to specify the encoding? Maybe there is a way to configure Calibre to do this? I've yet to come across a Epub book that Adobe Digital Editions reader exhibits the same issue. Excuse my ignorance, but why does the Calibre reader guess wrong and ADE guesses right? Just trying to understand better, I can certainly live with the solution that has been provided.

theducks · 03-05-2012, 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlcja

>>>FWIW Calibre is not broken.
The book failed to properly declare the encoding. You had to help Calibre 'guess' what to use.<<<

Perhaps I should not have used the word "fix". I'm wondering if Calibre could make a better "guess" to start with, so I don't have to specify the encoding? Maybe there is a way to configure Calibre to do this? I've yet to come across a Epub book that Adobe Digital Editions reader exhibits the same issue. Excuse my ignorance, but why does the Calibre reader guess wrong and ADE guesses right? Just trying to understand better, I can certainly live with the solution that has been provided.

Now that is just plain odd.

100's of books that Calibre renders correctly and ADE had problems with.
Some with minor errors even caused ADE to crash, while Calibre rendered the file as intended

I have dozens of books tht ADE (on my device) has no suitable font and renders as '?' or just as a blank.
Not once, can I sat that ADE did a better job. Different, but acceptable. Failed, and butt ugly

. and the wort f all, Crashed.

tilia · 03-05-2012, 03:24 PM

I've had a few books like that to. ADE, and also FBReader shows the right punctuation, but calibre (and Sigil) shows a funny A.

For one of them I had to set character encoding to cp1052 when converting, but for the others, I just used defaults.

mlcja · 03-05-2012, 04:18 PM

Well, since I'm only seeing the problem on a very few books, and don't read books on my PC very often, I guess I'm all set.
If I wanted to read on a LCD backlit display all the time, I'd buy a Kindle Fire.

Thanks to all that responded!

FizzyWater · 03-05-2012, 07:39 PM

I actually noticed this on an ebook recently - one I hadn't done any conversion on yet. However, once I made my tweaks (updated metadata, changes to font settings), my conversion cleaned up the issue. I've only noticed it once, though.

03-04-2012, 07:46 AM	#1
mlcja Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 20000 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: kindle	Incorrect characters in ebook viewer Hello Calibre, I've noticed that the book viewer in Calibre sometimes shows incorrect font characters. I've seen this on some Epub format books. When I convert to mobi and view on my Kindle, the fonts are ok. So, I assume the problem is with the Calibre viewer, as the original epub file displays ok in Digital Editions Reader. Any ideas? The problem seems be related to certain meta characters not displaying correctly.

03-04-2012, 08:51 AM	#4
mlcja Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 20000 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: kindle	Thanks kiwidude I will try your suggestion. However, I hope Calibre will fix this in a future release. Thanks again.

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03-04-2012, 08:06 AM	#2
Divingduck Wizard Posts: 1,161 Karma: 1404241 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Germany Device: Sony PRS-650	May be the font you are using in the viewer haven’t the character. Try to change to another front and check if this will solve your problem.

03-04-2012, 08:11 AM	#3
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,636 Karma: 2162064 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	My guess is that it is just a simple character encoding issue. Is it the case that you are seeing some "weird" A type characters for instance? If so just do an epub->epub conversion with a windows encoding of cp-1252. It is the calibre ebook viewer that is not detecting the encoding and why they show up correctly in ADE.

03-04-2012, 09:10 AM	#5
mlcja Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 20000 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: kindle	Kiwidude, that did the trick. thanks!

03-05-2012, 09:05 AM	#7
mlcja Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 20000 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: kindle	>>>FWIW Calibre is not broken. The book failed to properly declare the encoding. You had to help Calibre 'guess' what to use.<<< Perhaps I should not have used the word "fix". I'm wondering if Calibre could make a better "guess" to start with, so I don't have to specify the encoding? Maybe there is a way to configure Calibre to do this? I've yet to come across a Epub book that Adobe Digital Editions reader exhibits the same issue. Excuse my ignorance, but why does the Calibre reader guess wrong and ADE guesses right? Just trying to understand better, I can certainly live with the solution that has been provided.

03-05-2012, 03:24 PM	#9
tilia Evangelist Posts: 432 Karma: 1720909 Join Date: Mar 2011 Device: Voyage, K3	I've had a few books like that to. ADE, and also FBReader shows the right punctuation, but calibre (and Sigil) shows a funny A. For one of them I had to set character encoding to cp1052 when converting, but for the others, I just used defaults.

03-05-2012, 04:18 PM	#10
mlcja Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 20000 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: kindle	Well, since I'm only seeing the problem on a very few books, and don't read books on my PC very often, I guess I'm all set. If I wanted to read on a LCD backlit display all the time, I'd buy a Kindle Fire. Thanks to all that responded!

03-05-2012, 07:39 PM	#11
FizzyWater You kids get off my lawn! Posts: 4,220 Karma: 73492664 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Columbus, Ohio Device: Oasis 2 and Libra H2O and half a dozen older models I can't let go of	I actually noticed this on an ebook recently - one I hadn't done any conversion on yet. However, once I made my tweaks (updated metadata, changes to font settings), my conversion cleaned up the issue. I've only noticed it once, though.

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