[retiredbiker]

Since you're going from raw text, a conversion has no real way of knowing where to apply your css, no matter what you put in...it has no coding to start from.

In such cases, I have a very simple css in a text file that contains what I like for reading: indent, noindent, chaptertitle, quotations, verse, center, right, and that's about it.

I convert the text to epub, then in the editor import my css file. Then I use search and replace as needed to change 'calibren' classes to my own. For a simple book like a novel this usually only takes a few minutes. If you have a lot of fancy stuff you want to pretty up, well, that can take a while. I know you don't want to do that, but I don't see any other way.