Quote:
Originally Posted by toddos
Why not use Calibre to convert your books? FB2, mobi, and epub all convert back and forth relatively cleanly.
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Until now I have been a die-hard FB2 user, as it is the best format on my PB360 using FBReader (and frankly, any other small-screen e-Ink device - ADE just doesn't cut it, regardless of recent 'updates' and 'improvements'). But the larger display of the iPad makes ePub a more viable option.
It was the same with my iRex DR1000S - I used to convert all my bought mobi ebooks to FB2 because mobireader couldn't compare to coolreader on my BeBook, but on the iRex FBReader worked very well with Mobi.
Anyway, long story short, I convert to FB2 and do a fair bit of clean-up on the original ePub or Mobi source. It's very rare to find a commercial eBook without some errors, even minor errors such as extra spaces before/after some quotes - quite common errors are things like:
- John 's
- " 'quoted text'..." or for UK quotes ' "quoted text"...' (I'm guessing there are some auto-formatting issues with the tools used to proof the source text, or the electronic 'typesetters' think it makes the paired quotes more readable?)
- Also common is some extra spaces on open or close quotes (i.e. ' Hello...' or " Hello...")
There are other more serious errors on some eBooks, depending on publisher and even between books from the same publisher. So far Random House seems to me the worst for inconsistency in the sense that some ePubs have been almost error-free, and others have been riddled with errors, such that I cannot understand how thay could be considered as 'proofed'.
In such cases I have complained to the seller and/or publisher, along with an exhaustive list of errors I've found, and have been either reimbursed or a corrected copy has been provided (and I assume made available to future customers inplace of the old one). In the latter case, I still think I should be reimbursed as I have done the job of the publisher in correcting errors, but they disagree - smacks of MicroSoft's policy of selling OS and app software that is riddled with bugs and relying on the locked-in users to point them out so they can be fixed!
Anyway, my point is that I have my final, clean eBooks in FB2, and I will try to use Calibre to convert to ePub but I'm afraid some of my formatting will be lost - I need to play around as I have rarely used Calibre. Never had a Sony (and never will - I know Calibre does much more but that is the origins) and their FB2 generation is problematic, so I have avoided using it, but it seems I may have a genuine need now.
One last point for iPad users, I decided to buy readMe and am
very impressed. Have tried ePub and FB2 and it works very well. A lot of people complained about the 3D animated page flip (a la iBooks) but I like it - traditionalists can have the basic scroll function set instead. But as a cheap and nice alternative to iBooks and as an FB2 reader, I highly recommend it.
And getting books onto the device/app doesn't even need iTunes! You can use the traditional iTunes app loading method, but the app has a built-in HTTP server, so you go to that in the app on iPad, then navigate to the page on your computer web browser and just load the books on there via WiFi - very nice!
P.S. I still think Stanza'a lack of FB2 sucks big time!!