Retail Harry Potter Formatting Issues.

[violent23]

Hello everyone. I had purchased the first Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) off of Pottermore about a year ago. Just recently I unattached my Kindle account an linked the eBook to my Kobo account. The eBook shows up just fine in my Kobo account but the problem is with the formatting of the kepub on my Aura 6". Every picture in the eBook are hard justified to the left. No matter what justification setting I use the pictures remain set to the left.

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I am wondering if anyone else has this problem with this particular eBook when linking the eBook from Pottermore to their Kobo account? I have tried emailing Pottermore about this issue but only recieved a canned response.

Thanks for contacting Pottermore Shop regarding your KOBO download.



We would like you to follow the procedures below, remove the existing Kobo link on your account and the copy you have downloaded on your Kobo device as well.



Go to 'my shop account'



Click 'linked accounts' then 'remove' the existing Kobo link.



After deleting the link, please make sure that you have deactivated your antivirus, enabled cookies and changed your computer's privacy settings. It will help to clear your cache and history.



At this point, go back to my books and start the push to Kobo again and re-link your account.



You could also try downloading from different browser as some browsers may have limited access to certain contents.



Best wishes,



Julien



The Pottermore Shop team

Of course this response was zero help. Now I only have one download left to this particular title (Pottermore limits the amount of times you can download a single title to five) and would love to be able to find a solution or at least some input about this issue.

I have loaded this title on the PC app and the same problem occurs with the pictures being forced to the left no matter the justification setting.


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Oddly enough though the Android app does display the pictures correctly centered.

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[JSWolf]

So sideload the retail ePub and not a kepub.

[violent23]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So sideload the retail ePub and not a kepub.

Yes I am aware that I can do this, point being I want to use the retail kepub and all of the perks that come with that. I am also trying to find if others have had this same issue so I can know that it is not a problem with just my copy.

Neither Pottermore nor Kobo should be selling these kepub versions when there are obvious formatting issues.

[Ripplinger]

I agree they need to fix the formatting issues if they're selling the Kobo kepub version. In the meantime, I'd do what JSWolf suggested and download the epub. Then you can try the KoboTouchExtended plugin to convert it to kepub when sending it to your device, and see if that doesn't turn out any better.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by violent23

I am also trying to find if others have had this same issue so I can know that it is not a problem with just my copy.

Similar problem in another thread...
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=237472

[violent23]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Similar problem in another thread...
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=237472

But that is from a personal conversion and can be fixed by first formatting the azw3 to epub and deleting all the left justifications in the css and then centering all pictures manually in Sigil and then formatting to kepub in Calibre. Or alternatively downloading the epub off of Pottermore and then converting to kepub. Not to mention that the OP of that thread eventually figured out it was just his justification setting that was placing the pictures to the left.

My problem is that this is the retail Kepub that comes directly from Kobo and Pottermore through my account and does not take any justification settings to the pictures as they are hard coded to the left. What boils down to Pottermore and Kobo selling incorrectly formatted eBooks because of Kobo's in house kepub conversions. Frankly I should not have to loose functionality by sideloading and converting because Kobo has zero quality control over their kepub format.

I have even received a call from Kobo over this issue today (I emailed them) and they say they will forward the issue. I was supposed to receive an email follow up, of course that is missing just as I am guessing any further investigation from Kobo will be over this issue.

[JSWolf]

Thing is, the kepub is just a conversion of the ePub. It is not created as a kepub from the ground up. So it's no wonder there could be formatting issues.

[violent23]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Thing is, the kepub is just a conversion of the ePub. It is not created as a kepub from the ground up. So it's no wonder there could be formatting issues.

And that is the problem at it's core. A ridiculous unneeded format that creates the illusion of control (as kepub is already cracked) while giving a sub par experience to the consumer. What makes the whole situation worse is that this is split between two different retailers and neither wants to take responsibility.

[JSWolf]

Since you know it's a sub-par format, go for the plain old ePub and enjoy your reading.

[violent23]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Since you know it's a sub-par format, go for the plain old ePub and enjoy your reading.

I have been and with GeoffR's patches they work pretty good. But it takes a lot of personal css editing (depending on the title) and epub to epub conversions to get an epub to where it works 100% with the kobo settings (margin, line-spacing, justification and font control) thus almost completely changing the original structure of the retail epub. Of course a lot of epubs need this done as their margin or line spacing settings can be outright ridiculous resulting in loads of wasted space and an un-uniform look. Frankly it would be nice to purchase an eBook and load it up without any faffing about, whether that's kepub or epub. It would appear the Kobo in it's current firmware state is unable to do this with any reliable certainty.

[Ripplinger]

I experimented with my epub for the heck of it and using the extended plugin where it will send as a kepub to the reader does have the image centered, but only if Justification is set to off (like you have it in first few pics). If I change the justification to left or full, the image is at the left in both instances.

But what's really odd about the conversion to kepub is that the first time I go to any page with an image, the image doesn't show, no matter how long I wait. I have to flip back or ahead a page, then back to the chapter title page, and then the image will appear. But at least they are centered as I said with justification off.

And I'm with you about kepub being an unnecessary extra format that they should just dump.

[violent23]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I experimented with my epub for the heck of it and using the extended plugin where it will send as a kepub to the reader does have the image centered, but only if Justification is set to off (like you have it in first few pics). If I change the justification to left or full, the image is at the left in both instances.

But what's really odd about the conversion to kepub is that the first time I go to any page with an image, the image doesn't show, no matter how long I wait. I have to flip back or ahead a page, then back to the chapter title page, and then the image will appear. But at least they are centered as I said with justification off.

And I'm with you about kepub being an unnecessary extra format that they should just dump.

I too have experimented with epub to kepub conversion for this title and I too saw how the pictures would not appear when first landing on a page with a picture. Changing the page one forward and then back would result in it finally showing up. I have no idea why it does this but this was the only title I have that ever had this problem.

As for the justification, it does work as intended when it is a converted epub to kepub which is even more baffling as to why the retail kepub version does not work. What code is in their conversion tool that ours does not have? As it would be pretty damning that our user created conversion plugin (for a closed source format) works better than the one Kobo made for a format they created and have the source of.

[Anak]

Text or images are aligned to the left instead as centered, while the html/xml code is properly formatted as centered.
This is one example of the numerous Kobo kepub issues and is solely caused by the infamous Kobo Style Hacks.

A regular epub which is correctly formatted will display text and images as intented (here: centered alignment of text and/or images).
When this regular epub is stripped from DRM or contains no DRM protection changing the file extension from .epub to .kepub.epub will not infuence/mess with the intended display output.

For the best kepub experience, in case you prefer to read kepub over epub books: do not read the Kobo offered kepub version as Kobo can and will not guarantee how it will be displayed on your Kobo device.
Download the regular epub from your online Kobo library instead, remove the DRM, and change the file format to .kepub.epub.
This renamed epub will be correctly displayed while the official Kobo supplied kepub edition may not display correctly.

Or use the Calibre plugin to not only rename but also patch a regular epub into a kepub.