Quote:
Originally Posted by barryem
I convert epub to plain mobi files all the time and I rarely have a problem. I use Calibre. I occasionally convert from PDF to mobi and again, usually not a problem although that fails at times.
Maybe I'm just not fussy about the outcome but I don't see the issue.
Barry
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Historically, I've generally had good conversions, but then I read fiction that requires very little special formatting. If the ePub follows a KISS formatting philosophy then the conversions to the old MOBI will go well.
That said, I've seen many recent ePubs, released by commercial publishers, that run counter to the KISS philosophy and have very complex, but unnecessary, formatting and heavy use of embedded fonts. These seem to be either poorly though out designs or cases of lazy "export the file for the print version without any design changes". These will rarely look decent when converted to MOBI.
These days, I no longer convert to the old MOBI. I either read ePubs on my tablet or AZW3 on my Kindle. Still, I find I need to edit the ePub before reading or conversion to remove most of the formatting. This is often as simple as:
- open the ePub in calibre's Editor
- delete all of the CSS files
- delete all fonts, if any
- run Editor's "remove unused CSS" tool
- import my "house" default CSS file
- assign my CSS to each xHTML file
I usually end up replacing the cover image and cover page as well, but that's usually because I'm a Photographer/Photo Technician and a bit anal about images.