After conversion: pagebreaks after chapter headings

droid3p0 · 06-13-2012, 12:13 PM

Gang,

I have a quick question (and this is my first post here, so go easy on me if I've done something wrong):

I tried converting several books with calibre, and each time the new version has a page break after the chapter heading. So, for example, the original copy of one of my ebooks has the chapter title, a small illustration, and the beginning of the chapter all on the same page, but the new version has the title and illustration on one page and the text on the next. It's not a huge deal, but I'm wondering if there's some way to fix this in calibre. To my knowledge, I have not fiddled with any of the default settings.

Thanks!

kiwidude · 06-13-2012, 12:43 PM

I could be wrong but this sounds to me like one of the "flaws" in calibre's splitting logic during a conversion that I too have seen in virtually identical circumstances. I've never explicitly looked into it but it is my belief that calibre chooses to split when it sees an image before a heading tag, *regardless* of the fact that I have every split option turned off that I could find.

All I've been able to do in this circumstance is go back to the original and choose not to convert it in calibre, or else repair the damage in Sigil by merging each pair of pages together again (something that is dreadfully repetitive to do on a many chaptered book!).

Perhaps there is a secret setting I haven't found yet, or maybe it is just one of those hard-coded rules in the conversion pipeline. I'm sure Kovid or one of the other conversion gurus can comment...

kovidgoyal · 06-13-2012, 01:38 PM

Simply set the following three options and calibre will never insert page breaks:

1) Insert page breaks before under structure detection: /
2) Chapter mark: none
3) Make sure heuristics is off (off by default)

There are no hard coded page breaks in the conversion pipeline.

kiwidude · 06-13-2012, 01:47 PM

Ahhh chapter mark: None was the one I didn't have set, I shall try that, thanks.

droid3p0 · 06-13-2012, 02:52 PM

Thank you for taking a look at this, Mr. Goyal. Unfortunately, none of the solutions you presented solved the problem. I will take a look at Sigil method, whatever that might be.

kiwidude · 06-13-2012, 04:09 PM

@droid3po - you could try posting a bug report with the unconverted book as an attachment (mark the bug as private if commercial) and perhaps Kovid might be able to replicate the issue. I have intentions of doing the same the next time I see this happening but I don't happen to have an example of it to hand.

ldolse · 06-14-2012, 01:00 AM

I see this happen now and then, and assuming you haven't enabled any of the functions that Kovid mentioned there is usually something in the CSS or book styles that cause Calibre to split the file at those breaks - i.e. the breaks were already there, but whatever source format you were using didn't render the breaks (most computer based viewers ignore them).

The simplest solution is to fix the source before converting in Calibre - it's a real pain to re-merge the chapters manually in Sigil. If the issue in source is in CSS then just fix the css beforehand - remove the page-break rule on the offending class. If it's actually embedded in the book source as an inline style you can use search/replace to remove the style.

droid3p0 · 06-14-2012, 10:35 AM

In Sigil, how do I find and remove the page breaks (or, for that matter, put one in if I wanted to)?

kiwidude · 06-14-2012, 10:50 AM

@Idolse - I agree it may well have been a style at fault, it was one of those things that I only see happening maybe 1 in 100 books and have just got on with working around it rather than figuring out exactly the root cause was. Which was why if droid3p0 happened to have the original to hand we could perhaps confirm what happened in their case at least.

@droid3p0 - there is a forum dedicated to Sigil here on MobileRead. But the short answer is hit ctrl+enter to create a page break. And to join two pages back together you select the "following" page in the book browser on the left, right-click and choose "Merge" which will join it with the page above it. You can usually easily identify calibre created splits because they will stick out as _000 and _001 type of suffixes - in this case select the _001 file and right-click to merge it so it will be appended within the _000 file above it.

06-13-2012, 12:13 PM	#1
droid3p0 Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2012 Device: iPad	After conversion: pagebreaks after chapter headings Gang, I have a quick question (and this is my first post here, so go easy on me if I've done something wrong): I tried converting several books with calibre, and each time the new version has a page break after the chapter heading. So, for example, the original copy of one of my ebooks has the chapter title, a small illustration, and the beginning of the chapter all on the same page, but the new version has the title and illustration on one page and the text on the next. It's not a huge deal, but I'm wondering if there's some way to fix this in calibre. To my knowledge, I have not fiddled with any of the default settings. Thanks! Last edited by droid3p0; 06-13-2012 at 12:16 PM. Reason: accidentally posted before I was finished typing my full post

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Calibre: Chapter Headings	Paxman53	Introduce Yourself	5	10-22-2011 09:13 AM
Chapter Headings	Paxman53	Conversion	3	10-12-2011 12:31 PM
Why H1 and H2 Chapter Headings?	Ransom	Calibre	11	08-10-2011 04:29 PM
Help converting chapter headings	p3aul	Conversion	6	04-03-2011 12:56 PM
Losing Chapter PageBreaks in .MOBI on Kindle	XRaySpeX	Calibre	7	12-10-2010 05:29 AM

06-13-2012, 12:43 PM	#2
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,637 Karma: 2162064 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	I could be wrong but this sounds to me like one of the "flaws" in calibre's splitting logic during a conversion that I too have seen in virtually identical circumstances. I've never explicitly looked into it but it is my belief that calibre chooses to split when it sees an image before a heading tag, regardless of the fact that I have every split option turned off that I could find. All I've been able to do in this circumstance is go back to the original and choose not to convert it in calibre, or else repair the damage in Sigil by merging each pair of pages together again (something that is dreadfully repetitive to do on a many chaptered book!). Perhaps there is a secret setting I haven't found yet, or maybe it is just one of those hard-coded rules in the conversion pipeline. I'm sure Kovid or one of the other conversion gurus can comment...

06-13-2012, 01:38 PM	#3
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,860 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Simply set the following three options and calibre will never insert page breaks: 1) Insert page breaks before under structure detection: / 2) Chapter mark: none 3) Make sure heuristics is off (off by default) There are no hard coded page breaks in the conversion pipeline.

06-13-2012, 01:47 PM	#4
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,637 Karma: 2162064 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	Ahhh chapter mark: None was the one I didn't have set, I shall try that, thanks.

06-13-2012, 02:52 PM	#5
droid3p0 Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2012 Device: iPad	Thank you for taking a look at this, Mr. Goyal. Unfortunately, none of the solutions you presented solved the problem. I will take a look at Sigil method, whatever that might be.

06-13-2012, 04:09 PM	#6
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,637 Karma: 2162064 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	@droid3po - you could try posting a bug report with the unconverted book as an attachment (mark the bug as private if commercial) and perhaps Kovid might be able to replicate the issue. I have intentions of doing the same the next time I see this happening but I don't happen to have an example of it to hand.

06-14-2012, 01:00 AM	#7
ldolse Wizard Posts: 1,337 Karma: 123455 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Malaysia Device: PRS-650, iPhone	I see this happen now and then, and assuming you haven't enabled any of the functions that Kovid mentioned there is usually something in the CSS or book styles that cause Calibre to split the file at those breaks - i.e. the breaks were already there, but whatever source format you were using didn't render the breaks (most computer based viewers ignore them). The simplest solution is to fix the source before converting in Calibre - it's a real pain to re-merge the chapters manually in Sigil. If the issue in source is in CSS then just fix the css beforehand - remove the page-break rule on the offending class. If it's actually embedded in the book source as an inline style you can use search/replace to remove the style.

06-14-2012, 10:35 AM	#8
droid3p0 Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2012 Device: iPad	In Sigil, how do I find and remove the page breaks (or, for that matter, put one in if I wanted to)?

06-14-2012, 10:50 AM	#9
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,637 Karma: 2162064 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	@Idolse - I agree it may well have been a style at fault, it was one of those things that I only see happening maybe 1 in 100 books and have just got on with working around it rather than figuring out exactly the root cause was. Which was why if droid3p0 happened to have the original to hand we could perhaps confirm what happened in their case at least. @droid3p0 - there is a forum dedicated to Sigil here on MobileRead. But the short answer is hit ctrl+enter to create a page break. And to join two pages back together you select the "following" page in the book browser on the left, right-click and choose "Merge" which will join it with the page above it. You can usually easily identify calibre created splits because they will stick out as _000 and _001 type of suffixes - in this case select the _001 file and right-click to merge it so it will be appended within the _000 file above it.

Advert

Advert