New lines being converted to page breaks

[dt_nz]

Hi there
I have been converting azw3 ebooks to epub using Calibre, and all was good until the last book. It looks like new lines are being converted to page breaks, so for example, in the chapters section, each line is on a new page. This has ended up with the book being nearly 5000 pages long, when it should be around 480.

Any hints on how to fix this would be appreciated.

ps I tried turning on Heuristics using the default settings, but this didnt work either.

[HarryT]

Sounds like the same issue reported here:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?p=2742656

[DoctorOhh]

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=186697

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sounds like the same issue reported here:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?p=2742656

yep, sounds just like my issue - so its not a 1-book-glitch after all. It seems to start part way through the book, so maybe only books of a certain size are affected ?

OP could try what I did - go to preferences, structure detection, remove the default commands - reconvert- see if that works as a work-around.

PS as I am now a little geeky-curious, is there a simple tool that allows a peek at the source AZW3 code, to see if there is anything non-standard with how paragraphs are constructed

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by cybmole

PS as I am now a little geeky-curious, is there a simple tool that allows a peek at the source AZW3 code, to see if there is anything non-standard with how paragraphs are constructed

The new calibre editor will open up an azw3, won't it?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

The new calibre editor will open up an azw3, won't it?

Yes, it will.

[cybmole]

does it not actually convert it to an epub on the fly - like the calibre viewer ?

Ah - seems not & I see the issue:

I put a fresh copy of the book into calibre, so there was only the one format, & pressed T.

sure enough it opened. & I see that "chapter" is being used within actual chapters, as a class for each sentence, like this:

<p class="chapter">She climbed down....

That must be confusing the default xpath structure detection formulae - so its not a "bug" as such - it is a case where the default structure detection needs to be tweaked

[kovidgoyal]

Neither the calibre viewer nor edit book convert to epub on the fly. Both of them extract the html/css from the binary azw3 wrapper, in exactly the same way.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Neither the calibre viewer nor edit book convert to epub on the fly. Both of them extract the html/css from the binary azw3 wrapper, in exactly the same way.

Ok _ I was probably thinking of how mobi is handled

am I right in my previous post - that use of "chapter" as a CSS class would confuse structure detection ?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cybmole

am I right in my previous post - that use of "chapter" as a CSS class would confuse structure detection ?

Yes - this is an issue that's been reported previously.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by cybmole

am I right in my previous post - that use of "chapter" as a CSS class would confuse structure detection ?

It doesn't get confused, it makes the, very reasonable, assumption that if a tag is marked as class="chapter" it corresponds to a chapter. There are some ebooks out there that feel putting class="chapter" on all their tags is a smart thing to do, it takes all kinds...

[HarryT]

If you do find a book like that, it's extremely easy to fix. On the conversion options screen, go to "Structure Detection" and delete the part of the string that says something like "or class='chapter'".

[dt_nz]

Just saw HarryTs reply, gave it a crack, and it works. Awesome!!

[HarryT]

If the chapters are called "Chapter N", then you can entirely remove the class name detection from the xpath; it'll match on the name.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by dt_nz

Just saw HarryTs reply, gave it a crack, and it works. Awesome!!

Great!

The only reason I know this is that I had the same problem myself - not with books being split on each line, but some books that had chapter headings like:

Chapter 5
Our Hero Takes Action

Having the chapter name and title appear on separate pages, for the same reason (a class name called "chapter_something" being used for the chapter title).