Formating

[The Terminator]

I was just wondering if a E-pub converted to MOBI and read on the Kindle is any good? From a format/margin/font stand point? Has anyone had any problems with that? I had Calibre in mind as the converting tool. Has anyone tried this out?

[JMikeD]

I convert back and forth all the time with no problems..

[The Terminator]

Thanks thats what I needed to know. Karma to you

[dwig]

Originally Posted by THE TERMINATOR

I was just wondering if a E-pub converted to MOBI and read on the Kindle is any good? From a format/margin/font stand point? Has anyone had any problems with that? I had Calibre in mind as the converting tool. Has anyone tried this out?

I've converted a large number using Calibre and rarely have I encountered any real problems.

Occasionally, there are problems with margins, almost always the fault of a poorly formated ePub and relatively easily fixed in Sigil if Calibre's "Ignore Margins" conversion option fails to fix the issue. Also, while ePub supports text wrapping around an image, the Kindle's Mobipocket format doesn't. Usually a simple conversion is fine, but occasionally the ePub's layout can be improved in Sigil and then reconverted.

The other issue I encounter occurs most often in auto-generated ePubs (e.g. Project Gutenberg and ManyBooks) which don't break the ePub's various (x)html files in logical places. If you massage the ePub in Sigil to join chapters split in the middle, break the files into chapters, and set the chapter headings using HTML heading tags (eg. <h1>, <h2>, ...) the resulting Calibre conversion will have proper chapter breaks, both in terms of visual formatting and activation of the Kindle's chapter jump using the 4-way controller.

[Blossom]

I convert from epub all the time to mobi. The only problems I have is margins and indentation sometimes are off but there is a ignore margin option box you can check to fix it and if that doesn't work you can explode the epub and edit the style sheet directly.

For indentation I just add an override style in the Extra CSS box. That usually fixes it right up.

As for Chapter detection every epub is different. Sometimes the default regex will work and sometimes you have to look at the way the book is coded to get the right regex. You can view the ebook's code quick and easy in Search and Replace. Sometimes Heuristics Processing will fix it all right up for you but It's really trial and error most of the time.

I had a few epubs that I had to remove all font tags to because it keeps you from being able to resize the font on the Kindle. I would really love automatic option for this because it's not till I get it on the Kindle do I notice an issue.

Batch converting is something I don't recommend because each book is different and results will vary.

[JeremyR]

Margins are the big problem, some epub creators like to specify margins in the CSS for the epub (I guess) and when Calibre converts it, it uses this (again, I guess) and indents way too much.

Recent versions of Calibre get you an option to ignore margins, or you can just open the epub in Sigil and simply delete the CSS.

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

Margins are the big problem, some epub creators like to specify margins in the CSS for the epub (I guess) and when Calibre converts it, it uses this (again, I guess) and indents way too much.

Recent versions of Calibre get you an option to ignore margins, or you can just open the epub in Sigil and simply delete the CSS.

I hate when I conveniently overlook the ignoring of margins in that case. I'll get into a book, see the indents to be ridiculous, and feel a fool for missing the toggle.

[Blossom]

This is why I convert my books one by one. You can explode the epub in Calibre then edit the style sheet using a free editor like Topstyle light, Notepad2, PSpad or Notepad++ I use Topstyle as I'm an ole web Designer so it's my tool of choice when doing style sheets.
I usually check the ignore margin option first but if that doesn't work I edit the style sheet directly.

For indentation I use:
p {text-indent:1.3em;}
in the Extra CSS box.
It works in most cases "p" being the class that paragraphs use. Some use Div tag instead so you may have to edit it whatever class/tag the book uses to mark paragraphs.

Calibre now removes fake indentation. It saves a step of having to remove it manually in Search & Replace when it's coded in the actually html of book and not the style sheet.

[The Terminator]

OK so buying a Kindle and removing the DRM on my E-pubs and converting them to MOBI will work for a Kindle?

[ATDrake]

Absolutely, though you may run into formatting errors because Mobi is much more limited than ePub and sometimes the producers just slap together ePubs which aren't that great to begin with. I use a text editor and KindleGen+Mobi2Mobi to fix these.

I buy mainly DRM-free MultiFormat books when I can, but most of the DRM-ed purchases I make come from Kobo. I actually buy many more books from them than I do from Amazon, despite the fact that their cost comes from my own pocket rather than those Swagbucks-subsidized gift cards.

And of course there's the library e-books, though I tend not to bother fixing those unless there's something seriously wrong that completely messes up their readability, because I'm just going to delete them off the Kindle when I'm done anyway.

[astra]

Originally Posted by THE TERMINATOR

I was just wondering if a E-pub converted to MOBI and read on the Kindle is any good? From a format/margin/font stand point? Has anyone had any problems with that? I had Calibre in mind as the converting tool. Has anyone tried this out?

I would test it.
Check that all the italics, all the bold stay in place.
Any letters that are written differently to emphasize that it is a letter or a message (bigger indent, different font) keeps the proper formatting.
TOC stays the same.

[hrynkiw]

Originally Posted by THE TERMINATOR

I was just wondering if a E-pub converted to MOBI and read on the Kindle is any good? From a format/margin/font stand point? Has anyone had any problems with that? I had Calibre in mind as the converting tool. Has anyone tried this out?

I recently converted an e-pub book with footnote links (the footnotes were at the end of the book, not the bottom of the page). I was delighted to discover that the footnote links worked just fine and were, in fact, much easier to use than in a DTB*.

I imagine the ultimate determination of how successful any given conversion is depends on how well the original epub was formatted.

* Use the 5-way to scroll down to the link, click the link, which jumps you to the appropriate footnote, read the footnote, use the Back button to jump back to the same page where the footnote link originated. Slick!