Changing fonts for epubs on calibre

[jackastor]

So I was getting frustrated with the occasional ebook that had fonts that were locked. I remembered that there was a thread here about fonts but I couldn't find it so I Googled how to change fonts in epubs using caliber plugin and found this link

http://phanquochuy.me/?p=114'

Downloaded the plugin and wow did it do the trick. Was wondering if anyone else has seen this and what your thoughts are on it? It seems to be work very well and I am very happy with it. But is there something better or quicker or easier?

Regards

Jack

[John F]

I have a three step process.

1) convert the book
2) check the book on my Kobo to see if I can change the font
3) If I couldn't change the font, I convert again, checking Convert->Look and Feel->Filter Style Information->Fonts

I'd say I need to do step 3 40% of the time.

This is for a Glo, and previously a Touch.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by jackastor

But is there something better or quicker or easier?

I'm not sure which option you chose to use from that plugin, but if it is option 3 - embedding fonts into the epub, then calibre should no longer need a separate plugin to do it. There is a fairly new option on the Convert - Look&Feel page for font-embedding, but I don't use it myself.

Options of the non-embedding variety, tend to be slightly different by ereader brand/model, e.g. the 'Kobo way' is slightly different to the 'Sony way' (although they are all variations on the same theme). As the plugin you referenced seems to refer to the mid-2011 Nook, I'd be quite surprised if the non-embedding options would work on a current Kobo. However, I haven't used the plugin and you have so I may be wrong

When you have such a custom-font-friendly device as a Kobo, it seems a shame to have to resort to embedding fonts. To use the Kobo's own font customisation feature, it's usually enough to remove any hard-coded references to font-family from the epub internal css using Sigil or calibre Tweak Book or JohnF's step 3. This pre-supposes your epub no longer has DRM, though.

If you need any help with a specific non-DRM epub feel free to PM me and I'll try to walk you through it.

[jackastor]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I'm not sure which option you chose to use from that plugin, but if it is option 3 - embedding fonts into the epub, then calibre should no longer need a separate plugin to do it. There is a fairly new option on the Convert - Look&Feel page for font-embedding, but I don't use it myself.

Options of the non-embedding variety, tend to be slightly different by ereader brand/model, e.g. the 'Kobo way' is slightly different to the 'Sony way' (although they are all variations on the same theme). As the plugin you referenced seems to refer to the mid-2011 Nook, I'd be quite surprised if the non-embedding options would work on a current Kobo. However, I haven't used the plugin and you have so I may be wrong

When you have such a custom-font-friendly device as a Kobo, it seems a shame to have to resort to embedding fonts. To use the Kobo's own font customisation feature, it's usually enough to remove any hard-coded references to font-family from the epub internal css using Sigil or calibre Tweak Book or JohnF's step 3. This pre-supposes your epub no longer has DRM, though.

If you need any help with a specific non-DRM epub feel free to PM me and I'll try to walk you through it.

I chose to use the system fonts. That way all the fonts I add to my KG are up for use if I so choose to use them. Also it seemed to be the best option for me at any rate.

But If I do have any questions I will most definitely check in with you .

Thanks

JAck

[geormes]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

calibre Tweak Book.

Thanks.
I was totally unaware of this method.
Another thing to try before opening Sigil.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by geormes

Thanks.
I was totally unaware of this method.
Another thing to try before opening Sigil.

While Calibre and it's "polish" are getting better, I still prefer to use Sigil to remove embedded fonts (clean the references from the stylesheet and delete the contents of the font folder). Part of my preference for Sigil is tied to my rather boring ideas of how an ebook should be formatted. Add in that I've rarely had issues with epubs on my Kobo after running them through Sigil and FlightCrew checker and ePubcheck externally before transferring them to the Kobo and I will be sticking with Sigil for cleanup duties for the next while.

Regards,
David

[geormes]

Originally Posted by DNSB

While Calibre and it's "polish" are getting better, I still prefer to use Sigil to remove embedded fonts (clean the references from the stylesheet and delete the contents of the font folder). Part of my preference for Sigil is tied to my rather boring ideas of how an ebook should be formatted. Add in that I've rarely had issues with epubs on my Kobo after running them through Sigil and FlightCrew checker and ePubcheck externally before transferring them to the Kobo and I will be sticking with Sigil for cleanup duties for the next while.

Regards,
David

My working machine is Linux. When Sigil dropped the official upgrades for Linux I gradually lost interest and found myself reaching for Sigil less and less. That says more about me than Sigil.

What is the order you run the epubs through your list of tools?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by geormes

My working machine is Linux. When Sigil dropped the official upgrades for Linux I gradually lost interest and found myself reaching for Sigil less and less. That says more about me than Sigil.

What is the order you run the epubs through your list of tools?

I generally open the book in ADE just to see what it looks like (layout, table of contents, fonts, etc.). I then open it in Sigil, do a first pass at cleanup (getting rid of embedded fonts, cleaning up the TOC, add my stylesheet entries, etc.) and then check it before exiting. If FlightCrew comes up with any errors, I clean them up. After this which takes an average of 10-15 minutes, I save the book and then run epubcheck on it locally. There are a several errors from epubcheck that I disregard especially since I am now using epubcheck 3 which is positively anal about what it considers an error. After all this, I re-open the book in ADE and if it looks passable, I copy it to the Kobo and read it on there.

I used Sigil with Linux but stopped when Linux support was dropped after 5.3 -- I did use the source code to compile 6.2 for Linux which finally worked after several attempts since, at that time, none of the repositories had a version that worked with my Fedora Linux in a VM. Took me back too many years to when I booted Linux off a floppy disk and memories of why I stopped using Linux for several years.

Regards,
David

[roger64]

Hi

Originally Posted by DNSB

.../...

I used Sigil with Linux but stopped when Linux support was dropped after 5.3 -- I did use the source code to compile 6.2 for Linux which finally worked after several attempts since, at that time, none of the repositories had a version that worked with my Fedora Linux in a VM. Took me back too many years to when I booted Linux off a floppy disk and memories of why I stopped using Linux for several years.

I am a Linux user too (LMDE64). It's true that compiling Sigil on Linux with the latest Qt5 binary is not, for the time being, very user friendly; to say the less...

However, you can directly use the W32 version of Sigil (0.7) using Wine, even on 64 bits systems (screenshot). As everything with Wine, the level of performance is quite good.

[jackastor]

Originally Posted by roger64

Hi




I am a Linux user too (LMDE64). It's true that compiling Sigil on Linux with the latest Qt5 binary is not, for the time being, very user friendly; to say the less...

However, you can directly use the W32 version of Sigil (0.7) using Wine, even on 64 bits systems (screenshot). As everything with Wine, the level of performance is quite good.

Actually all your methods seem fine and long winded to do. I have decided that the best method is the plugin I found and posted the link to. Anything else is just extra steps that are not needed to be taken.

regards

Jack

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jackastor

Actually all your methods seem fine and long winded to do. I have decided that the best method is the plugin I found and posted the link to. Anything else is just extra steps that are not needed to be taken.

regards

Jack

I don't use Sigil just for font modification. I tend to redo the style, table of contents and much else to fit my idea of what an ebook should look like. There are books where the author/editor/publisher have taken the time and effort to produce an excellent product. Too many times though, I see books that have been run through Calibre (and old Calibre versions at that) or an equivalent giving a final product that, in my not so humble opinion, sucks. How many times have you paid for an ebook that contains multiple typos? Lousy layout? A table of contents that is useless? Chapters that start and end in the middle of a page? An ebook that contains about 400KB of useful information and 6MB of fonts of which 4MB are never used?

Regards,
David

[roger64]

Originally Posted by jackastor

Actually all your methods seem fine and long winded to do. I have decided that the best method is the plugin I found and posted the link to. Anything else is just extra steps that are not needed to be taken.

Hi Jack

Good if you've decided.

To concur with DNSB and for the ones who don't, I'll provide a small example. I found an EPUB whose line-height was too small for my taste. The KOBO settings could do nothing to change it.

I opened the CSS with Sigil. It seems that Kobo modifies the body setting for line-height. But, as for all EPUBs, this setting can be overruled by the paragraph settings and I just found a line-height:normal in the standard paragraph setting. I modified it and all was OK.

This kind of surgical intervention is easy with Sigil and you can perform it to change many small things you do not like.

[geormes]

Originally Posted by roger64

Hi Jack

Good if you've decided.

To concur with DNSB and for the ones who don't, I'll provide a small example. I found an EPUB whose line-height was too small for my taste. The KOBO settings could do nothing to change it.

I opened the CSS with Sigil. It seems that Kobo modifies the body setting for line-height. But, as for all EPUBs, this setting can be overruled by the paragraph settings and I just found a line-height:normal in the standard paragraph setting. I modified it and all was OK.

This kind of surgical intervention is easy with Sigil and you can perform it to change many small things you do not like.

Would not Calibre's Tweak Books work in that specific case?
I do still use Sigil when nothing else works but,
there are several reasons I would prefer Calibre if possible:
1. Sigil no longer supports Linux.
2. I feel uneasy manipulating books in Calibre's db with a 3rd party tool,
so I do a lot of renaming, deleting and readding, not to mention deleting from the
ereader.
3. In order to make it possible to manipulate the book I usually have to have Calibre
open anyway.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by geormes

Would not Calibre's Tweak Books work in that specific case?
I do still use Sigil when nothing else works but,
there are several reasons I would prefer Calibre if possible:
1. Sigil no longer supports Linux.
2. I feel uneasy manipulating books in Calibre's db with a 3rd party tool,
so I do a lot of renaming, deleting and readding, not to mention deleting from the
ereader.
3. In order to make it possible to manipulate the book I usually have to have Calibre
open anyway.

Whatever tool works for you. For me, I use Calibre, Sigil and several other tools including a couple of trips through opening an epub's HTML files in Notepad++. One ebook was so screwed up, Sigil wouldn't open it without destroying much of the content. Calibre imported it and allowed me to read it but any attempt at cleaning up the content produced an unusable file. Epubcheck produced an error log larger than the book. I still would love to know why any HTML based ebook would have much of its content outside tags. The content looked similar to the bit below:

<p>The</p>

mountains loomed as he looked out the window

<span> </span>at the scar where the aircar has crashed

<p2>into the forest</p2><span>.</span>

This was a limited edition book -- unfortunately not limited enough as I obtained a copy.

Regards,
David

[geormes]

Originally Posted by DNSB

One ebook was so screwed up, Sigil wouldn't open it without destroying much of the content.

My wife recently bought an ebook from a bookseller that wouldn't even open in the bookseller's own ereader! It was a new release(released the day she bought it). Hard cover addition and then as almost a second thought the epub edition for $1.50 less.

There is really no excuse for that kind of slop.