Table Conversion problems ePub to MOBI

Lodril · 12-14-2014, 10:52 PM

This file was originally formatted by a professional, I just wrote the book. There were a couple of typos I wanted to fix, which was easy enough to address in ePub format, but now that I'm trying to convert the ePub to a MOBI, it's messing up the formatting on certain chapter headers, which were set up as tables to keep the appearance of a scripted exchange.

When I convert from Mobi to ePub, the formatting stays the same. When I convert from ePub to Mobi, the formatting changes such that the names on the left are squashed into too-narrow vertical columns, no matter the font size selected.

So here is how it appears in ePub (and how it should appear):

Here is the MOBI version Calibre puts out:

So here is the formatting as it appears when I convert from ePub to MOBI:

Quote:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Gedlund</title>
<link href="../Styles/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>

<body>
<table class="opener" id="chap1">
<col width="40%" />
<col width="60%" />

<tr>
<td class="pr1">
<a id="start"></a>Lord Blisan:
</td>

<td>
Mr. Baston, you knew Mr. Gilmot in Gedlund, did you not?
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td class="pr1">
A. Baston:
</td>

<td>
I did.
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td class="pr1">
Lord Sinter:
</td>

<td>
(interrupting) That was not your first meeting though, was it?
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td class="pr1">
Lord Blisan:
</td>

<td>
Order! Order! You’ll have your turn!
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td class="pr1">
A. Baston:
</td>

<td>
No, it was not. He actually first joined us in Rakhasin. Despite Marshal Kilgrave’s suggestions to the contrary, Gilmot went spear to spear with the natives, as brave as anyone.
</td>
</tr>
</table>

Verin Parliamentary Hearings on the Gedlund Invasion, YT 382

For the sake of curiosity, I tried to edit the professionally formatted MOBI version, but that had to be converted to ePub to view first, and the results came out differently than the ePub to MOBI version:

Quote:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Gedlund</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
<link href="../stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
<link href="../page_styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
</head>
<body class="calibre">
<table id="chap1" class="opener">
<col width="35%" class="calibre2"/>
<col width="65%" class="calibre2"/>
<tr class="calibre3">
<td class="pr"><a id="start"></a>Lord Blisan:</td>
<td class="calibre4">Mr. Baston, you knew Mr. Gilmot in Gedlund, did you not?</td>
</tr>
<tr class="calibre3">
<td class="pr">A. Baston:</td>
<td class="calibre4">I did.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="calibre3">
<td class="pr">Lord Sinter:</td>
<td class="calibre4">(interrupting) That was not your first meeting though, was it?</td>
</tr>
<tr class="calibre3">
<td class="pr">Lord Blisan:</td>
<td class="calibre4">Order! Order! You’ll have your turn!</td>
</tr>
<tr class="calibre3">
<td class="pr">A. Baston:</td>
<td class="calibre4">No, it was not. He actually first joined us in Rakhasin. Despite Marshal Kilgrave’s suggestions to the contrary, Gilmot went spear to spear with the natives, as brave as anyone.</td>
</tr>
</table>
Verin Parliamentary Hearings on the Gedlund Invasion, YT 382

And, for the sake of completion, here is the conversion log of ePub to MOBI:

Quote:

Parsing OEBPS/Text/28-chap23.xhtml ...
Parsing OEBPS/Text/20-chap15.xhtml ...
Parsing OEBPS/Text/17-chap12.xhtml ...
Parsing OEBPS/Text/32-chap27.xhtml ...
Reading TOC from NCX...
Merging user specified metadata...
Detecting structure...
Flattening CSS and remapping font sizes...
Source base font size is 12.00000pt
Cleaning up manifest...
Trimming unused files from manifest...
Trimming u'OEBPS/Text/1-cover.xhtml' from manifest
Creating MOBI Output...
Serializing resources...
Creating MOBI 6 output
Applying case-transforming CSS...
Parsing manglecase.css ...
Rasterizing SVG images...
Converting XHTML to Mobipocket markup...
Serializing markup content...
Compressing markup content...
Generating MOBI index for a book
MOBI output written to C:\Users\lodril\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_dcz1hq\ rshlon.mobi

I'd love to be able to make quick and easy edits to the book on my own, fix any new typos I come across, that sort of thing. Does anyone have any idea how I could manage this sort of conversion without screwing up the formatting in MOBI? Any help in sorting this out would be greatly appreciated!

eschwartz · 12-14-2014, 11:31 PM

How was the MOBI formed?

I would expect you should get a master EPUB that can then be processed by kindlegen to directly create the final MOBI for submission to Amazon. If you can get ahold of that master EPUB, you should be able to apply targeted fixes to the unpacked HTML and then simply reconvert using the same process your professional used.

Tables are... problematic in general, and particularly in the legacy MOBI format. There

Lodril · 12-15-2014, 12:18 AM

Thanks, eschwartz... it had never occurred to me that the results of Kindlegen would be cleaner (or even different) than Calibre's. I ran the ePub through that, and it came out just right.

eschwartz · 12-15-2014, 12:46 AM

calibre does a great deal of post-processing, that in theory makes it more generically suited for ereaders. That doesn't necessarily mean it is always right

and using a completely independent tool may result in different outcomes.

Especially if the EPUB was specially crafted to fit with kindlegen, which seems to have been the case here.

We have a resolution, yay!

kovidgoyal · 12-15-2014, 12:33 PM

kindlegen is converting to AZW3 not MOBI (technically a joint MOBI file). Convert to AZW3 in calibre and you will be fine.

JSWolf · 12-15-2014, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lodril

Thanks, eschwartz... it had never occurred to me that the results of Kindlegen would be cleaner (or even different) than Calibre's. I ran the ePub through that, and it came out just right.

But what you are seeing is most likely the KF8 part of the joint Mobi/KF8 file generated by Kindlegen. So you still won't know if your table is OK.

eschwartz · 12-15-2014, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

kindlegen is converting to AZW3 not MOBI (technically a joint MOBI file). Convert to AZW3 in calibre and you will be fine.

I know that ebook producers usually describe fallbacks for MOBI, so it degrades gracefully on older devices -- does calibre recognize the fallbacks kindlegen does? e.g. media queries...

For a professionally-published book, you want dual-MOBI so older Kindles automatically can read it, also Amazon checks to see if calibre created the KF8 and gets all mean.

kovidgoyal · 12-15-2014, 09:35 PM

There is not much point since amazon often rejects calibre produced joint MOBI files (for no discernible reason), if you want to publish with amazon, you are better off just sending them an EPUB or using kindlegen.

eschwartz · 12-15-2014, 10:37 PM

Right, so converting to AZW3 instead is not the be-all and end-all.

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12-14-2014, 11:31 PM	#2
eschwartz Ex-Helpdesk Junkie Posts: 19,421 Karma: 85400180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)	How was the MOBI formed? I would expect you should get a master EPUB that can then be processed by kindlegen to directly create the final MOBI for submission to Amazon. If you can get ahold of that master EPUB, you should be able to apply targeted fixes to the unpacked HTML and then simply reconvert using the same process your professional used. Tables are... problematic in general, and particularly in the legacy MOBI format. There

12-15-2014, 12:18 AM	#3
Lodril Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2014 Device: Kindle	Thanks, eschwartz... it had never occurred to me that the results of Kindlegen would be cleaner (or even different) than Calibre's. I ran the ePub through that, and it came out just right.

12-15-2014, 12:46 AM	#4
eschwartz Ex-Helpdesk Junkie Posts: 19,421 Karma: 85400180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)	calibre does a great deal of post-processing, that in theory makes it more generically suited for ereaders. That doesn't necessarily mean it is always right and using a completely independent tool may result in different outcomes. Especially if the EPUB was specially crafted to fit with kindlegen, which seems to have been the case here. We have a resolution, yay!

12-15-2014, 12:33 PM	#5
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,345 Karma: 27182818 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	kindlegen is converting to AZW3 not MOBI (technically a joint MOBI file). Convert to AZW3 in calibre and you will be fine.

12-15-2014, 09:35 PM	#8
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,345 Karma: 27182818 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	There is not much point since amazon often rejects calibre produced joint MOBI files (for no discernible reason), if you want to publish with amazon, you are better off just sending them an EPUB or using kindlegen.

12-15-2014, 10:37 PM	#9
eschwartz Ex-Helpdesk Junkie Posts: 19,421 Karma: 85400180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)	Right, so converting to AZW3 instead is not the be-all and end-all.

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