Split text in EPub to PDF

TripleD · 04-22-2012, 05:48 AM

Whenever I try to convert Epub to PDF the resulting PDF has no page margins. The text sometimes shows up correctly, but more often than not the bottom/top line of text is "split" horizontally across two pages.

I'm using calibre 0.8.48 on Mac, with Preview being used to examine the resulting PDFs. I've tried playing around with the conversion settings but the results are all the same. Any insight you can offer would be much appreciated.

donB006 · 04-22-2012, 06:28 PM

The reason the page gets split through text or images is because the Calibre converts the ebook to html an then uses the QPrinter widget from QT to print the book to a pdf file. The QPrinter always chops and splits the pages when making a pdf.
To avoid those annoying splits I have been converting the files to htmlz and then extracting the index.html and printing to a pdf using Firefox or xhtml2pdf. Others use Open Office to print from the epub. Let us know if you have a better way.
.

icerabbit · 04-24-2012, 02:56 PM

I have been struggling with this very issue with any attempt I've made at converting things in Calibre.

This might circumvent splitting characters over two pages, but ...

How does one read an htmlz file ?

itimpi · 04-24-2012, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by icerabbit

How does one read an htmlz file ?

A htmlz is just a zipped HTML file where the whole book is eld as a single HTML file.

icerabbit · 04-24-2012, 03:29 PM

Ok thanks. I've renamed the htmlz to zip. Extracted the index file.

One step closer.

Now when printing to PDF from the browser, it puts either the long file path on the bottom of every page or with other settings actually file name on top and time and day on the bottom ... as if I'm printing any page life off the internet ...

Mmmm Firefox page settings might do it ... crossing fingers.

donB006 · 04-25-2012, 09:57 PM

You have probably figured this out already. In my Firefox when I click on print the dialog shows General, Page Setup and Options tabs. The General tab has the print to file and the pdf choice. The Page Setup shows the size of page to choose. The page size is an easy way to adjust the fonts if your reader automatically zooms to full page as mine does. the Options tab has the header and footer choices for the file name, time and day or the choice --blank-- that I use. The defaults can be modified permanently with the url about:config in the browser.

donB006 · 05-08-2012, 09:32 PM

I have found another way to convert to pdf. There is a program called wkhtmltopdf based on the same QPrinter widget used by Calibre except they have patched QT to prevent the splitting found in Calibre. This is what they say about this problem common with Calibre:

Quote:

Page Breaking

The current page breaking algorithm of WebKit leaves much to be desired. Basically webkit will render everything into one long page, and then cut it up into pages. This means that if you have two columns of text where one is vertically shifted by half a line. Then webkit will cut a line into pieces and display the top half on one page and the bottom half on another page. It will also break image in two and so on. If you are using the patched version of QT you can use the CSS page-break-inside property to remedy this somewhat. There is no easy solution to this problem, until this is solved try organising your HTML documents such that it contains many lines on which pages can be cut cleanly.

So they have a static version of wkhtmltopdf with the patches and I have tried that and the page breaks do not split the text. See wkhtmltopdf
.

fullybook · 07-16-2012, 03:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by donB006

The reason the page gets split through text or images is because the Calibre converts the ebook to html an then uses the QPrinter widget from QT to print the book to a pdf file. The QPrinter always chops and splits the pages when making a pdf.
To avoid those annoying splits I have been converting the files to htmlz and then extracting the index.html and printing to a pdf using Firefox or xhtml2pdf. Others use Open Office to print from the epub. Let us know if you have a better way.
.

There's a better way. I convert EPUB to RTF. I open the RTF in Microsoft Word 2007, then click Save As > PDF. It even retains the formatting. No split texts.

Cephas Atheos · 09-08-2012, 12:18 PM

So what's the best way of getting calibre to use either a patched version of QT, or a newer version, or a different tool?

I'm a little disappointed that such an all-in-one tool as good as calibre needs to rely on someone else's broken code, and forces us to do what we all did before we got calibre - use a plethora of other tools, with varying degrees of useability and reliability. Not to mention using Firefox or Word to convert hundreds (or indeed thousands) of files reliably to PDF! I'm not going to live that long, methinks!

Is it possible to download the QT tool and "insert" it into calibre's app structure as a workaround?

kovidgoyal · 09-08-2012, 12:20 PM

This thread is out of date. calibre conversion to PDF has not had split text for a while. Simply update to a recent calibre release.

Cephas Atheos · 09-08-2012, 12:23 PM

I wish that were true! I'm using 0.8.68 and I'm seeing this exact problem on every PDF produced... Is there a newer version that doesn't have this problem? Or have I somehow corrupted the support files?

kovidgoyal · 09-08-2012, 12:47 PM

I have no idea. This problem was fixed in 0.8.57 over two months ago.

Cephas Atheos · 09-08-2012, 12:53 PM

I see.

The only thing that I'm changing from the default settings when doing the conversion is to adjust the margins on the output to 25pt (instead of the default 5 pt). But while that results in far fewer splits, the results are not particularly pleasing to the eye.

Could it be that somehow I've managed to change the QT support file(s)? I don't know how I could have done it, unless a plugin could have modified the file? I have downloaded and installed (and then uninstalled) a number of plugins, but I was pretty careful to remove the plugin after I tried each one out.

Would reinstalling help fix the problem if there was a plugin that ate it's own brain?

kovidgoyal · 09-08-2012, 12:58 PM

Rename your calibre config directory, uninstall and re-install. Make sure you aren't running from an obsolete source checkout of the calibre code. The number of ways you can screw up something as complex as calibre are infinite and not even countably so. And then of course you may well be trying to convert a non reflowable epub, or an epub with scanned images oftext instead of actual text. Who knows. This whole thing would be a lot easier if you follow the instructions in the sticky on how to ask conversion questions.

Cephas Atheos · 09-08-2012, 07:54 PM

Thanks, that fixed the problem.

Just FYI, I'm extremely new to the Mac world, so I just *assumed* that being a good citizen and downloading the latest version of calibre from the official product page wouldn't end up with me needing to know about SVN checkouts and unofficial builds.

The reason I didn't want to raise a new thread that was a duplicate of an existing thread that described my problem to a 'T' was to not provoke anyone into thinking I hadn't conducted a reasonable search for a previous resolution to my problem.

And, since there was NO mention of any update that fixed, addressed, or resolved this thread's original problem - which, by the way, is just over a month old, and not locked - I just *assumed* (there's that word again

) that, since I couldn't find any textual search results that indicated that this problem had been fixed anywhere else, it was still a valid issue.

I admit that I did not follow your (actually quite reasonable and thorough!) protocol for posting a problem description, but that was because a) this thread already existed, and I thought that since there was no other mention of the problem or solution, it was still an ongoing issue; and b) I didn't want to clutter up a post with examples that (for my unsuspecting mind) seemed to indicate that every attempt to produce a PDF resulted in the exact problem described here.

But mea maxima culpa, and I'm sorry to have frustrated you - I can understand that you must be very busy, and the last thing you want is to have a noob mac user raise an issue that you thought had been fixed a long time ago! Personally, I'd hit me with a brick, but that's probably not possible online.

Might I respectfully suggest that this problem (which appears to be related to a plugin overwriting the QT library thingy) be added to the FAQ? I don't _think_ this is really a corner case - like I said, I'm trying to do the right thing by downloading the correct installer, and using only proper plugins, but this might cause a similar problem down the track to other users who haven't learned the ins and outs of how Mac apps work 'under the hood' so to speak.

I'm a fairly experienced Windows programmer and ex-security expert (30+ years), so I was truly not trying to be clever or devious in using or working with calibre. I can absolutely appreciate the incredible amount of work, sweat, and intelligence that's gone into this amazing product, and I hope to keep using it to manage my 28k+ document library in the future. There's nothing else that comes close to what calibre does, and I really don't want to piss off the developer - but I think I managed to do that, even with the purest of intentions. ANd for that I apologise.

04-22-2012, 05:48 AM	#1
TripleD Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2012 Device: none	Split text in EPub to PDF Whenever I try to convert Epub to PDF the resulting PDF has no page margins. The text sometimes shows up correctly, but more often than not the bottom/top line of text is "split" horizontally across two pages. I'm using calibre 0.8.48 on Mac, with Preview being used to examine the resulting PDFs. I've tried playing around with the conversion settings but the results are all the same. Any insight you can offer would be much appreciated.

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04-22-2012, 06:28 PM	#2
donB006 Connoisseur Posts: 86 Karma: 186294 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: Kindle k3G 3.4.2; DXG 2.5.8; DXG 3.1; Iriver Story HD	The reason the page gets split through text or images is because the Calibre converts the ebook to html an then uses the QPrinter widget from QT to print the book to a pdf file. The QPrinter always chops and splits the pages when making a pdf. To avoid those annoying splits I have been converting the files to htmlz and then extracting the index.html and printing to a pdf using Firefox or xhtml2pdf. Others use Open Office to print from the epub. Let us know if you have a better way. .

04-24-2012, 02:56 PM	#3
icerabbit Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2012 Device: kindle ipad	I have been struggling with this very issue with any attempt I've made at converting things in Calibre. This might circumvent splitting characters over two pages, but ... How does one read an htmlz file ?

04-24-2012, 03:29 PM	#5
icerabbit Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2012 Device: kindle ipad	Ok thanks. I've renamed the htmlz to zip. Extracted the index file. One step closer. Now when printing to PDF from the browser, it puts either the long file path on the bottom of every page or with other settings actually file name on top and time and day on the bottom ... as if I'm printing any page life off the internet ... Mmmm Firefox page settings might do it ... crossing fingers.

04-25-2012, 09:57 PM	#6
donB006 Connoisseur Posts: 86 Karma: 186294 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: Kindle k3G 3.4.2; DXG 2.5.8; DXG 3.1; Iriver Story HD	You have probably figured this out already. In my Firefox when I click on print the dialog shows General, Page Setup and Options tabs. The General tab has the print to file and the pdf choice. The Page Setup shows the size of page to choose. The page size is an easy way to adjust the fonts if your reader automatically zooms to full page as mine does. the Options tab has the header and footer choices for the file name, time and day or the choice --blank-- that I use. The defaults can be modified permanently with the url about:config in the browser.

09-08-2012, 12:18 PM	#9
Cephas Atheos Member Posts: 11 Karma: 50 Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: In the hills around Melbourne, Australia Device: Kindle DX	So what's the best way of getting calibre to use either a patched version of QT, or a newer version, or a different tool? I'm a little disappointed that such an all-in-one tool as good as calibre needs to rely on someone else's broken code, and forces us to do what we all did before we got calibre - use a plethora of other tools, with varying degrees of useability and reliability. Not to mention using Firefox or Word to convert hundreds (or indeed thousands) of files reliably to PDF! I'm not going to live that long, methinks! Is it possible to download the QT tool and "insert" it into calibre's app structure as a workaround?

09-08-2012, 12:20 PM	#10
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,194 Karma: 27110894 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	This thread is out of date. calibre conversion to PDF has not had split text for a while. Simply update to a recent calibre release.

09-08-2012, 12:23 PM	#11
Cephas Atheos Member Posts: 11 Karma: 50 Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: In the hills around Melbourne, Australia Device: Kindle DX	I wish that were true! I'm using 0.8.68 and I'm seeing this exact problem on every PDF produced... Is there a newer version that doesn't have this problem? Or have I somehow corrupted the support files?

09-08-2012, 12:47 PM	#12
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,194 Karma: 27110894 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	I have no idea. This problem was fixed in 0.8.57 over two months ago.

09-08-2012, 12:53 PM	#13
Cephas Atheos Member Posts: 11 Karma: 50 Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: In the hills around Melbourne, Australia Device: Kindle DX	I see. The only thing that I'm changing from the default settings when doing the conversion is to adjust the margins on the output to 25pt (instead of the default 5 pt). But while that results in far fewer splits, the results are not particularly pleasing to the eye. Could it be that somehow I've managed to change the QT support file(s)? I don't know how I could have done it, unless a plugin could have modified the file? I have downloaded and installed (and then uninstalled) a number of plugins, but I was pretty careful to remove the plugin after I tried each one out. Would reinstalling help fix the problem if there was a plugin that ate it's own brain?

09-08-2012, 12:58 PM	#14
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,194 Karma: 27110894 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Rename your calibre config directory, uninstall and re-install. Make sure you aren't running from an obsolete source checkout of the calibre code. The number of ways you can screw up something as complex as calibre are infinite and not even countably so. And then of course you may well be trying to convert a non reflowable epub, or an epub with scanned images oftext instead of actual text. Who knows. This whole thing would be a lot easier if you follow the instructions in the sticky on how to ask conversion questions.

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09-08-2012, 07:54 PM	#15
Cephas Atheos Member Posts: 11 Karma: 50 Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: In the hills around Melbourne, Australia Device: Kindle DX	Thanks, that fixed the problem. Just FYI, I'm extremely new to the Mac world, so I just assumed that being a good citizen and downloading the latest version of calibre from the official product page wouldn't end up with me needing to know about SVN checkouts and unofficial builds. The reason I didn't want to raise a new thread that was a duplicate of an existing thread that described my problem to a 'T' was to not provoke anyone into thinking I hadn't conducted a reasonable search for a previous resolution to my problem. And, since there was NO mention of any update that fixed, addressed, or resolved this thread's original problem - which, by the way, is just over a month old, and not locked - I just assumed (there's that word again ) that, since I couldn't find any textual search results that indicated that this problem had been fixed anywhere else, it was still a valid issue. I admit that I did not follow your (actually quite reasonable and thorough!) protocol for posting a problem description, but that was because a) this thread already existed, and I thought that since there was no other mention of the problem or solution, it was still an ongoing issue; and b) I didn't want to clutter up a post with examples that (for my unsuspecting mind) seemed to indicate that every attempt to produce a PDF resulted in the exact problem described here. But mea maxima culpa, and I'm sorry to have frustrated you - I can understand that you must be very busy, and the last thing you want is to have a noob mac user raise an issue that you thought had been fixed a long time ago! Personally, I'd hit me with a brick, but that's probably not possible online. Might I respectfully suggest that this problem (which appears to be related to a plugin overwriting the QT library thingy) be added to the FAQ? I don't _think_ this is really a corner case - like I said, I'm trying to do the right thing by downloading the correct installer, and using only proper plugins, but this might cause a similar problem down the track to other users who haven't learned the ins and outs of how Mac apps work 'under the hood' so to speak. I'm a fairly experienced Windows programmer and ex-security expert (30+ years), so I was truly not trying to be clever or devious in using or working with calibre. I can absolutely appreciate the incredible amount of work, sweat, and intelligence that's gone into this amazing product, and I hope to keep using it to manage my 28k+ document library in the future. There's nothing else that comes close to what calibre does, and I really don't want to piss off the developer - but I think I managed to do that, even with the purest of intentions. ANd for that I apologise.