No HTML tags in description metadata?

[RobinD42]

Is there a way to prevent the comments/description editor in the metadata dialog from using html tags? Even if I go to the "HTML Source" tab and delete them the editor still wraps the text with <p>...</p> tags. The ebook reader app I'm using gets confused by this and displays just the first "<" and although other ebook readers don't get as confused, they also don't render the text as html so they display the tags as-is. Highly annoying.

Having an option to use only a plain-text editor widget there would be very welcome.

Robin

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by RobinD42

Is there a way to prevent the comments/description editor in the metadata dialog from using html tags?

Yes, but first you can easily remove formatting in the edit metadata window by clicking in the comment section, select all (ctrl a), click on the recycling symbol to remove all formatting.

To prevent comments from starting as html go to Preferences - Plugins - Metadata download plugins customize the Amazon plugin and check the Convert comments downloaded from Amazon to plain text box.

[RobinD42]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Yes, but first you can easily remove formatting in the edit metadata window by clicking in the comment section, select all (ctrl a), click on the recycling symbol to remove all formatting.

Yes, I had tried that before. It still wraps the text in paragraph tags no matter what I do. And if there are hard-returns in the text then they are saved as <br> tags, not an actual newline character. So although it may look like plain text with the formatting tags removed, it is still an HTML fragment. I'm on a Mac if that makes a difference.

Originally Posted by dwanthny

To prevent comments from starting as html go to Preferences - Plugins - Metadata download plugins customize the Amazon plugin and check the Convert comments downloaded from Amazon to plain text box.

Thanks I hadn't seen that option, but it still doesn't remove all html tags. True there aren't any text formatting tags in the downloaded text, but there are still some <p> and <div> tags in the text that gets saved to the metadata file.

[RobinD42]

Originally Posted by RobinD42

I'm on a Mac if that makes a difference.

Nope, the Windows version of Calibre has the same issues.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by RobinD42

Thanks I hadn't seen that option, but it still doesn't remove all html tags. True there aren't any text formatting tags in the downloaded text, but there are still some <p> and <div> tags in the text that gets saved to the metadata file.

I'm curious, what format are the books you're creating? What reader are you using?

[RobinD42]

EPUB and Moon+ Reader on Android.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by RobinD42

EPUB and Moon+ Reader on Android.

This is confusing to me, ePub is a html based format why is your reader tripping on simple html? I would be submitting a ticket with the creators of Moon+.

[RobinD42]

I think mainly because it is simply not expecting html in the description text because the professionally made EPUBs I've seen (downloaded from places like feedbooks, etc.) all seem to have plain text with no html tags. For example in the attached screenshot the first book shown is one I converted with Calibre and does have a description that is not shown, (except for the leading <), and the second was downloaded from feedbooks. Other android readers I've tried also do not seem to expect html tags in the description text and simply display the raw text with the tags visible.

But I am talking with the developer about another issue so I'll bring this up too. But like I said, it's not just this one application, but at least a few of the more common ones that I've experimented with.

Edit: I've added an additional screenshot from a different book reader.

[itimpi]

Interesting - the epub spec says that the field contains xhtml, so if it is not being handled correctly that is definitely a fault in the reader.

[RobinD42]

Okay, thanks. I was just wondering if the spec said anything about it one way or the other. It's less important for me now, but I think it would still be nice to have some way to either be able to remove all html tags from the description text, or to edit it as plain text to begin with.

[itimpi]

I must admit I would not mind the option to have plain text rather than html, but I think Kovid has already said that he has no plans to revert to that option.

[kovidgoyal]

You can customize the amazon metadata download plugin to auto convert the html to txt.