F/R Question

[Pam E.]

What would be the best way to fix fractions (in Calibre's Edit Book) when they use this code below instead of a real fraction?

<li class="ing"><span class="fraction"><span class="numerator">1</span><span class="virgule">⁄</span><span class="denominator">8</span></span> teaspoon freshly ground black pepper</li>

The above is VERY messy!

I would like it to be this instead:

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

I do not like the one-character (symbol fractions, such as ¼) either but I can easily f/r those.

Thank you!

[Pam E.]

Here's another example:

<li class="ing"><span class="fraction"><span class="numerator">1</span><span class="virgule">⁄</span><span class="denominator">3</span></span> cup dried cranberries</li>

I would rather it simply be:

<li class="ing">1/3 cup dried cranberries</li>

[Tex2002ans]

You could just use a simple Regex. What you want to do is when you are in the Calibre Editor, when you do a Find, you want to make sure that you set the Mode to "Regex":



Then you can use this Search/Replace:

Search: <span class="fraction"><span class="numerator">([0-9]+)</span><span class="virgule">⁄</span><span class="denominator">([0-9]+)</span></span>

Replace: \1/\2

In English:

What this says in English is: "find the spans with fraction + numerator" + "grab the number and stick it in \1" + "find the spans with the virgule and denominator" + "grab the number and stick it in \2".

Replace with "the first captured number" + "slash" + "the second captured number".

Your examples:

<li class="ing"><span class="fraction"><span class="numerator">1</span><span class="virgule">⁄</span><span class="denominator">8</span></span> teaspoon freshly ground black pepper</li>

<li class="ing"><span class="fraction"><span class="numerator">1</span><span class="virgule">⁄</span><span class="denominator">3</span></span> cup dried cranberries</li>

This should give you the exact output you were looking for.

[Pam E.]

Thanks so much! This works perfectly. I need to learn regex.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Pam E.

Thanks so much! This works perfectly. I need to learn regex.

Yes, it is quite helpful, especially for easy things like that where you can recognize a very simple pattern.

Also, one word of warning. Regexes can be very powerful, so always save a backup copy before running Regex on it. You might make one minor typo, and it could blow up in your face. Definitely don't press "Replace All" unless you have tested it out thoroughly, and see that it works perfectly.

To be on the safe side, I would just go through the entire book and just "Replace" one-by-one... at least until you become much more familiar with Regex.

[Pam E.]

Thanks again! It worked great even with those like 2/3, etc. There were about 30 changes. I did a Replace one at a time to make sure it worked as it should. It did! The only thing I had to adjust was a couple of time when I needed to add a space...11/2 to 1 1/2. Beautiful!! My book is much cleaner to view in my ebook reader too. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain in ENGLISH what the code meant. That is very helpful in understanding how it works. You're awesome!! Made my day!

Thanks for the screenshot too.

[signum]

One tiny little addition-

The search pattern suggested above is tedious to type in and ensure its you haven't made a typo somewhere. You can save a lot of typing by highlighting the code and then typing ctrl-f, as if you were searching for it.

Then, all you have to do is edit the search pattern to replace the digits with (\d+) and construct the replacement pattern, just as above.

[Pam E.]

Thank you! I'll play with that on a copy of my epub and see what happens.

[Pam E.]

One more f/r question. I'd like to change these to three-character fractions:

1½ pounds fresh crabmeat, picked over for shells
1½ cups fresh corn (or frozen corn, thawed)
¾ cup diced red bell pepper
¾ cup chopped celery
¾ cup finely chopped yellow onion
1½ cups mayonnaise
¾ teaspoon dry mustard
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2½ cups saltine cracker crumbs, divided
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more as needed


Is there an easy way for it to find all fractions that are symbols and replace them all at once?

I'd like there to be a space between the replaced fractions when necessary, such as the black pepper doesn't need one but the saltine cracker crumbs do, like this:

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 1/2 cups saltine cracker crumbs, divided

Right now I do a normal f/r on each fraction to find ½ and replace with 1/2. Then I go back through and manually add a space where one is needed, such as fixing the 21/2 to 2 1/2.

I'm sure there's an easier way that I could learn? Thanks again!!!

[theducks]

(\d*)(\d\/\d) find any digits followed by digit/digit

\1 \2 <insert the space

This does not work with the vulger fraction entities

[eschwartz]

Make that

(\d+)(\d\/\d)

so as to avoid matching where (\d*) equals nothing-at-all.

Granted, an extra space at the beginning of the line will probably be rendered out anyway, but for the sake of cleanliness.

[Pam E.]

Thanks so much!! This works great!

[theducks]

If your original used the vulgar fractions (as shown in you original example) , I know how to find those

(¼|½|¾)

What I don't know is how to do this as a single pass replace

[Pam E.]

Ok, great! I'll give that a try. I've been using normal f/r and saved searches.

Find: ⅛, ⅔, etc.

Replace: 1/8, 2/3, etc.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Pam E.

Ok, great! I'll give that a try. I've been using normal f/r and saved searches.

Find: ⅛, ⅔, etc.

Where did you find these, they are not in the standard entity charts? Another non-standard 'Word' abomination?

Replace: 1/8, 2/3, etc.