Bought Amazon book HTMLZ format

[new]

Bought a book from Amazon that is formatted HTMLZ. The font is thin and one page is unreadable. Obviously they OCR'd. If I didn't want this book for my health that shows exercises I would return it. But I don't want to return it, I want it readable. I have the hardback version and it is unreadably small print.

How do I fix this? My Kindle KFHD and KDX and PW cannot load the fonts.

If this should be posted somewhere else sorry.

Thanks.

[pdurrant]

I really don't think that you can have bought an ebook from Amazon in HTMLZ format. I suspect you mean that you bought a Topaz format book (and that some tool has converted it to HTMLZ format).

If you convert the HTMLZ to ePub, and edit the ePub with Sigil, consuting your hardback copy where necessary, you should be able to massage it into a readable format.

[new]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I really don't think that you can have bought an ebook from Amazon in HTMLZ format. I suspect you mean that you bought a Topaz format book (and that some tool has converted it to HTMLZ format).

If you convert the HTMLZ to ePub, and edit the ePub with Sigil, consuting your hardback copy where necessary, you should be able to massage it into a readable format.

Thanks I will look into Sigil.

No I downloaded the Amazon book and loaded into Calibre it shows HTMLZ. Which surprised me, never seen it before. As I said it is obviously a scanned book.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by new

No I downloaded the Amazon book and loaded into Calibre it shows HTMLZ. Which surprised me, never seen it before. As I said it is obviously a scanned book.

It's in Topaz format, as I said. You must be a friend of Alf's if it loaded into calibre as HTMLZ.

[jmilica]

Originally Posted by new

Thanks I will look into Sigil.

No I downloaded the Amazon book and loaded into Calibre it shows HTMLZ. Which surprised me, never seen it before. As I said it is obviously a scanned book.

Before you loaded it into Calibre the extension of file was .TPZ. After you load it in Calibre it becomes HTMLZ. If you had Kindle and checked the file in Kindle (without taking it to Calibre) it would look rather nice. But in HTMLZ it rather looks awful and you loose a lot images I think.

[new]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It's in Topaz format, as I said. You must be a friend of Alf's if it loaded into calibre as HTMLZ.

It wouldn't have loaded otherwise.

How do you change the font in Sigil? I tried Sigil a long time ago, never really understood.

So I need to convert to Epub first? Do I need a CSS (never have done that either).

Thanks.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by new

It wouldn't have loaded otherwise.

How do you change the font in Sigil? I tried Sigil a long time ago, never really understood.

So I need to convert to Epub first? Do I need a CSS (never have done that either).

Thanks.

This probably isn't the right forum for an ePub editing thread. Convert the HTMLZ to ePub in calibre. Then explore Sigil.

[new]

Originally Posted by jmilica

Before you loaded it into Calibre the extension of file was .TPZ. After you load it in Calibre it becomes HTMLZ. If you had Kindle and checked the file in Kindle (without taking it to Calibre) it would look rather nice. But in HTMLZ it rather looks awful and you loose a lot images I think.

Actually I did load the original book into all of my 3 kindles. Before entering into Calibre. I just do that after for safe keeping.

The original hardbook pics are not the best, but still great info for me. Better than physical therapy sheets they give you.

[jmilica]

Originally Posted by new

Actually I did load the original book into all of my 3 kindles. Before entering into Calibre. I just do that after for safe keeping.

The original hardbook pics are not the best, but still great info for me. Better than physical therapy sheets they give you.

I am not happy with topaz format because I cannot take it thru Calibre and keep my own copy. And before I understood that I should first download sample from Amazon and be 95% sure it is not a topaz file it happened that I bought few books in topaz and then I just returned them to Amazon since I don't like the format...I kept only one which I really couldn't find anywhere else in epub or whatever...

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by new

Actually I did load the original book into all of my 3 kindles. Before entering into Calibre. I just do that after for safe keeping.

The original hardbook pics are not the best, but still great info for me. Better than physical therapy sheets they give you.

Try using it on the Fire. I find topaz books are easier to read on large screen.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by jmilica

I am not happy with topaz format because I cannot take it thru Calibre and keep my own copy. And before I understood that I should first download sample from Amazon and be 95% sure it is not a topaz file it happened that I bought few books in topaz and then I just returned them to Amazon since I don't like the format...I kept only one which I really couldn't find anywhere else in epub or whatever...

A Topaz book is just a bunch of SVG images. If you use the debug mode while adding the book in Calibre you can save the zips of images. You can then use a program like Abbyy Fine Reader to OCR it for you.

[pdurrant]

Although nothing's been over the line yet, I'd better remind people that detailed help with DRM removal software is not permitted on MobileRead.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by Blossom

A Topaz book is just a bunch of SVG images.

No it isn't, SVG is nowhere involved: it is a custom file format. Also, if it was a bunch of page images the file size would be enormous. It's a bunch of images corresponding to *individual glyphs* (generally letters in particular fonts), plus larger images for things like in-book images and perhaps the occasional tea-stain on the page. This is all automatically isolated from scans of the book by horribly computationally intensive software up at Amazon (which I still want a copy of even if it would take a year to Topazify a book on my hardware, because the job it does is so seriously nifty). Font resizing and the resulting automatic reflowing are even trickier to get right, but they did it.

(If it was just SVG images, there's no way resizing and reflowing would work.)

[DiapDealer]

Actually SVG is involved. Those individual glyphs you mentioned (which are not always individual characters) are drawn using SVG coordinates. A "dictionary" of all the SVG glyphs needed for the book exists within the topaz book. "Pages" are constructed on the fly by a map that consists of pointers to the necessary SVG glyph definitions in the dictionary and which "places" those glyphs in the correct order. Which is how reflow (and hyphenation) is achieved. Resizing is possible because, well... the S in SVG stands for "scalable," quite frankly.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Actually SVG is involved. Those individual glyphs you mentioned (which are not always individual characters) are drawn using SVG coordinates. A "dictionary" of all the SVG glyphs needed for the book exists within the topaz book. "Pages" are constructed on the fly by a map that consists of pointers to the necessary SVG glyph definitions in the dictionary and which "places" those glyphs in the correct order. Which is how reflow (and hyphenation) is achieved. Resizing is possible because, well... the S in SVG stands for "scalable," quite frankly.

Couldn't have explained it any better.