Unable to get page break to apply properly on an EPUB

[corban123]

Hey everybody,

I'm currently attempting to go from PDF -> EPUB -> EPUB, where I'm able to capture the large titles within the PDF and convert those into page breaks.
Despite my best attempts, I am consistently unable to get the page breaks to to be generated, and I'm curious if somebody may know whether or not I'm making an obvious mistake.

So the current idea was to convert the PDF -> EPUB with no page break settings, and then converting that new EPUB into a second EPUB with the page break adds since the formatting would be more consistent.

The area looks like

<p class="calibre1"><i class="calibre4">Blah blah blah ^ ^;</i></p>
<p class="calibre1"><span class="calibre2">557. Episode 2. Rewrite (2)</span></p>
<p class="calibre1">Blah blah blah blah</p>

with the XPath being

//p[re:test(span[@class='calibre2'], '.*episode.*', 'i')]

.
such that it'll page break before the `episode 557`.
Even attempting to manually put in 557 instead of `.*episode.*` doesn't seem to cause the page break to be created.

Thanks for any help you may be able to provide!

[Quoth]

1. PDF is really only to view or print. Try fixing it in MS Word or LO Writer (extra Save As in Docx for conversion). Usually attempting to convert to epub is a failure.

2. The 100% way to have a page break is a new HTML file. That can be done manually or searching for suitable text and adding <h tags in the editor via regex search & replace <h2>Episode 2</h2>
Then Editor split feature on h2

Forget direct conversion of PDF.

[corban123]

Yeah at the moment, the main change is to go from EPUB - > EPUB. That's why I'm able to get the above html. Is the regex I provided wrong for the epub?

[Sirtel]

If you want to use a p tag for chapter headings instead of h, then specify in the css that the page must break before that tag. For example:

.calibre11 {
page-break-before: always}

[gbm]

The easiest way to do what you want is to convert the PDF to an epub with one big html file,then use the editor split funtion at your chapter heading.

bernie

Originally Posted by corban123

Hey everybody,

I'm currently attempting to go from PDF -> EPUB -> EPUB, where I'm able to capture the large titles within the PDF and convert those into page breaks.
Despite my best attempts, I am consistently unable to get the page breaks to to be generated, and I'm curious if somebody may know whether or not I'm making an obvious mistake.

So the current idea was to convert the PDF -> EPUB with no page break settings, and then converting that new EPUB into a second EPUB with the page break adds since the formatting would be more consistent.

The area looks like

<p class="calibre1"><i class="calibre4">Blah blah blah ^ ^;</i></p>
<p class="calibre1"><span class="calibre2">557. Episode 2. Rewrite (2)</span></p>
<p class="calibre1">Blah blah blah blah</p>

with the XPath being

//p[re:test(span[@class='calibre2'], '.*episode.*', 'i')]

.
such that it'll page break before the `episode 557`.
Even attempting to manually put in 557 instead of `.*episode.*` doesn't seem to cause the page break to be created.

Thanks for any help you may be able to provide!

[corban123]

Originally Posted by gbm

The easiest way to do what you want is to convert the PDF to an epub with one big html file,then use the editor split funtion at your chapter heading.

bernie

Hey there Bernie,

I actually have already converted it to an EPUB, and oh hey, I didn't realize there was a splitter function in the editor, fantastic! You wouldn't happen to have a feel for if there's a way to automate this would you during the conversion process would you?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by corban123

Hey there Bernie,

I actually have already converted it to an EPUB, and oh hey, I didn't realize there was a splitter function in the editor, fantastic! You wouldn't happen to have a feel for if there's a way to automate this would you during the conversion process would you?

You can do it via conversion if you have inserted the page breaking code in the css - see my previous post. Then conversion will split the files.

[corban123]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You can do it via conversion if you have inserted the page breaking code in the css - see my previous post. Then conversion will split the files.

Hey Siren,

From my understanding, that requires that css to already exist within the html. I'm attempting to take advantage of the `insert page breaks before:` functionality in the convert page, using the xpath expression. Do you happen to have much experience with this?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by corban123

Hey Siren,

From my understanding, that requires that css to already exist within the html. I'm attempting to take advantage of the `insert page breaks before:` functionality in the convert page, using the xpath expression. Do you happen to have much experience with this?

Sorry, no. I've never done it that way.

[gbm]

https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/edi...ing-html-files

You can also split a single HTML file at multiple locations automatically, by right clicking inside the file in the editor and choosing Split at multiple locations. This will allow you to easily split a large file at all heading tags or all tags having a certain class and so on.

bernie

Originally Posted by corban123

Hey there Bernie,

I actually have already converted it to an EPUB, and oh hey, I didn't realize there was a splitter function in the editor, fantastic! You wouldn't happen to have a feel for if there's a way to automate this would you during the conversion process would you?

[corban123]

Originally Posted by gbm

https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/edi...ing-html-files


bernie

Thanks for this Bernie, it seems that my initial XPath expression was wrong, though I'm not completely sure why, but hey, at least I found one that kinda works. Thanks again for your help!

[BetterRed]

@corban - you can also split text arbitrarily in the Preview panel:



BR

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

If you want to use a p tag for chapter headings instead of h, then specify in the css that the page must break before that tag. For example:

.calibre11 {
page-break-before: always}

That doesn't work in all apps/ereaders. A file split always works unless an app is set to scroll and have no pages.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

That doesn't work in all apps/ereaders.

No, but then you can use conversion which will split the files as specified in the css.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

If you want to use a p tag for chapter headings instead of h, then specify in the css that the page must break before that tag. For example:

.calibre11 {
page-break-before: always}

IMHO, it's better to just split the HTML where the page break is wanted.