MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - My Soul Destroying Experience with Calibre 2.54.0

dano_68 · 04-08-2016, 07:07 AM

I have an 813 page (book) Word document perfectly formatted for converting to ePub - same basic font, no nested images etc.

There are 484 images - most with captions.

After I ran it through Calibre, and converted to ePub, Mobi, or AZW3, it did the same errors every time.

Under images with a caption, it puts the caption in twice, one under the other.

ePub Story:

It ignored the image information in Word (i.e. Center position) and put images in willy nilly. Some it puts in the right spot, many it makes them right hand justified.

There are quotes in the text, which are in italics, and a smaller font. Sometimes these came out right, sometimes not. It would always remove the hard return from paragraph - quote - paragraph.

I have been a web programmer for 15 years, so I have no problem reading the HTML. So I bit the bullet, and went through every HTML page and fixed the many, many problems. This took 2 weeks, about 6 -10 hours per day.

When completed, it looked beautiful in the Calibre E-book viewer. So I saved it to disk, and uploaded it to Kindle.

It was rejected, saying it could not convert my file to Kindle (AZW3 I assume) as the file is not complied correctly.

AZW3 - Plan B:

So back to the drawing board. I converted my file to AZW3. Exactly the same problems with captions - creates two, and completely ignores image information.

No problem I thought, I will go into the CSS files and edit the image/text info like I did for the ePub version.

After another 8 days of long hours, I completed. But when I view the file in my PC Kindle viewer, it completely ignores the CSS. All images are displayed in full size, with no space (hard return) under or above, and usually right hand justified (instead on Center).

For one chapter, it also changed the margins, so words were cut off on the right. After examining code in Calibre, I could find no errors as to why this would happen.

In the Adobe Digital Edition viewer, this same chapter also had huge problems, but again as I say, there is not erroneous code I can find. It is obviously a conversion error.

So just out of curiosity, I uploaded the AZW3, and you guessed it - it could not convert my file to Kindle as the file is not complied correctly.

As I said, in the Kindle version, it completely ignores CSS. I deleted the AZW3 file from Kindle, and my hard drive every time I made a change.

The ePub looks fine in the Calibre viewer and the Adobe ePub viewer (after each page had “Fix HTML” applied), so I do not know why Kindle rejected it.

As for Calibre support - forget it - their answer is "We can't guarantee every conversion and if you don't like it, don't use Calibre.” Ouch!

I am now at my wits end, and am ready to give up. What a shame. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

04-08-2016, 07:07 AM	#1
dano_68 Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2016 Device: Kindle, Adobe Digital Editions	My Soul Destroying Experience with Calibre 2.54.0 I have an 813 page (book) Word document perfectly formatted for converting to ePub - same basic font, no nested images etc. There are 484 images - most with captions. After I ran it through Calibre, and converted to ePub, Mobi, or AZW3, it did the same errors every time. Under images with a caption, it puts the caption in twice, one under the other. ePub Story: It ignored the image information in Word (i.e. Center position) and put images in willy nilly. Some it puts in the right spot, many it makes them right hand justified. There are quotes in the text, which are in italics, and a smaller font. Sometimes these came out right, sometimes not. It would always remove the hard return from paragraph - quote - paragraph. I have been a web programmer for 15 years, so I have no problem reading the HTML. So I bit the bullet, and went through every HTML page and fixed the many, many problems. This took 2 weeks, about 6 -10 hours per day. When completed, it looked beautiful in the Calibre E-book viewer. So I saved it to disk, and uploaded it to Kindle. It was rejected, saying it could not convert my file to Kindle (AZW3 I assume) as the file is not complied correctly. AZW3 - Plan B: So back to the drawing board. I converted my file to AZW3. Exactly the same problems with captions - creates two, and completely ignores image information. No problem I thought, I will go into the CSS files and edit the image/text info like I did for the ePub version. After another 8 days of long hours, I completed. But when I view the file in my PC Kindle viewer, it completely ignores the CSS. All images are displayed in full size, with no space (hard return) under or above, and usually right hand justified (instead on Center). For one chapter, it also changed the margins, so words were cut off on the right. After examining code in Calibre, I could find no errors as to why this would happen. In the Adobe Digital Edition viewer, this same chapter also had huge problems, but again as I say, there is not erroneous code I can find. It is obviously a conversion error. So just out of curiosity, I uploaded the AZW3, and you guessed it - it could not convert my file to Kindle as the file is not complied correctly. As I said, in the Kindle version, it completely ignores CSS. I deleted the AZW3 file from Kindle, and my hard drive every time I made a change. The ePub looks fine in the Calibre viewer and the Adobe ePub viewer (after each page had “Fix HTML” applied), so I do not know why Kindle rejected it. As for Calibre support - forget it - their answer is "We can't guarantee every conversion and if you don't like it, don't use Calibre.” Ouch! I am now at my wits end, and am ready to give up. What a shame. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.