[GUI Plugin] Modify ePub

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hoods7070

Yes, that's proved a pretty big problem for me because unfortunately I converted a lot of my books when I first started and lost nearly all my section breaks. It's a pity those aren't marked up consistently in all books with characters or a break code instead of paragraph codes. The upside of my mess-ups is that I've go to know Calibre and Sigil a whole lot better. By the time I've finished wading through all my books I will be half educated.

Yes, you guessed, after a superficial glance to make sure lines had been removed and indents added I deleted the original-epubs. That was some time ago - I've only just discovered the extent of the damage I've done after reading several converted books.

It's things like this that makes me not advocate ePub > ePub conversations. Things can go wrong and if you don't notice it and think all is well and get rid of the original ePub, you then have a botched ePub that you can't go back and fix as easily as you could have before the conversion. It's best to do the fixes yourself by hand using a good text editor and Firefox or Sigil. I've been using a combination of Sigil, Notepad++, Firefox, and FlightCrew to edit ePub that Calibre has converted. Most publisher ePub, I leave out Sigil as the way I work in Notead++ is easier for me. But when I am needing to do things like rename a bunch of XML files, Sigil helps with that.

[Hoods7070]

I've done a variety of things - I use anything from Sigil to WordPerfect and Serif PagePlus for my editing. Never mind - I truly believe the best way to learn anything is trial and error - you don't forget the lessons hardest learned!

[GeckoFriend]

I haven't had consistent results using this plugin to insert or replace covers recently. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. This is the log from the latest try:

Spoiler:

calibre, version 0.8.56
ERROR: Modify ePub failed: No ePub files were updated

Modify ePubs
Logfile for book ID 7934 (Rachel's Totem / Harte, Marie)
7934
Modifying: C:\Users\Rebekah\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_0.8.56 _tmp_wufedv\paleuz_modify_epub\7934.epub
Adding or updating jacket
Manifest item added: jacket.xhtml (calibre_jacket)
Spine item inserted: calibre_jacket at pos: 0
Insert or replace cover
...Looking for guide cover reference
Found guide cover reference to: cover.html
Related manifest item id: cover
...Looking for meta cover
Found meta tag with cover id: cover-image
Meta item removed: cover
...Looking for other.ms-* guide references to clean out
...Working with possible existing cover: cover.html
Guide reference removed: cover.html
...Looking for TOC navpoint for this cover
...Inspecting old cover for removal
Cover page contains only this image so can be deleted
Manifest item removed: cover.html (cover)
Spine itemref removed: cover
Checking safe to remove cover image: OEBPS/images/cover.png
Rachel's Totem - ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.modify", line 62, in process_book
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.modify", line 175, in _process_book
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.modify", line 703, in _insert_replace_cover
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.covers", line 63, in insert_or_replace_cover
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.covers", line 296, in _remove_old_cover_if_safe
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.covers", line 253, in _find_item_for_cover_image
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.container", line 751, in get_page_image_names
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.container", line 209, in get_parsed_etree
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.container", line 197, in get_raw
KeyError: u'OEBPS/jacket.xhtml'

ePub not changed after 0.37 seconds

Can someone tell me why this didn't work?

[kiwidude]

@GeckoFriend - I can guess what the problem is, it is another permutation of interactions between different options (and obviously a bug in the plugin).

You have ticked the "Add/replace jacket" option at the same time as "Insert/replace cover". If it happens to be a book that didn't previously have a jacket, then the code will hit the error you see.

To avoid the error, just run Modify ePub twice - the first time without Insert/replace cover ticked. I'll push a fix tonight when I get home to verify it is the case. I don't add jackets myself so didn't catch it.

[GeckoFriend]

@kiwidude

Thanks; that worked and I even understand your answer

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Bug fix for when using the Add/replace jacket and Insert/replace cover options together if book has no jacket currently

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Add buttons to save and restore the current settings, to allow setting your own easily switched to defaults

This is just a simple usability enhancement for if like me you find yourself switching settings based on a particular book. I have a set of "preferred" settings that I run against new books, that I can now store using the "Save" button and retrieve using "Restore". So if I have a need to temporarily run some of the more "one-off" settings of this plugin or even just a single setting I can do so, then quickly revert back next time. The behaviour is similar to that found on the Metadata configuration dialog.

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• When inserting covers, if guide points to a non-existent cover href, make sure the log does not error.
• In the CSS margin updating, if adding page declaration at it to start rather than end of CSS file to workaround Sigil bug

[DiapDealer]

I use the heck out of this thing. Thanks a million for all the effort!

One tiny thing I've noticed is that when using the "Remove Adobe .xpgt files and links" option, it seems to ignore any "@import url(page-template.xpgt);" line in the CSS file(s). Certainly doesn't cause any problems that I've noticed, but I wondered if it would make sense to remove that as well while removing the links and the file?

Thanks again.

[kiwidude]

Ahhh, that would be because it isn't a syntax I am familiar with

The Quality Check plugin will also be missing the same check for it. I'll put it on the todo list to take a look at.

[JSWolf]

One thing that would be a good option is to be able to get rid of any @page that might be in the CSS. I always remove them when found.

[jackie_w]

@kiwidude,

Regarding page margins top/bottom and left/right...

If I have an original never-calibre-converted epub and I use the Modify Epub option called 'Rewrite CSS @page and body margins' then the mod appears to add an @page statement to the top of the css file which contains all 4 margins, i.e. top/bottom/left/right as per my calibre prefs. (if they're non-zero, that is)

However, a calibre conversion only puts the top/bottom margins in an @page and puts the left/right margins in the body class. Is this difference deliberate? If there are already L/R margins in the body class then I end up with 'double' margins?

Is it possible to summarise what margin mods are done under what circumstances.

[kiwidude]

@jackie_w - I didn't write that particular feature, it was done by Idolse. The discussion on it all starts here. I've never touched it other than a couple of tweaks necessary as other bits of the plugin got refactored or if I hit issues (like I found recently of Sigil 0.5.3 "hiding" text that was inserted into a css file by this feature unless it got inserted at the top rather than the bottom).

[ldolse]

I don't think the difference is deliberate exactly, but it wasn't one of my goals to do exactly what a Calibre conversion does either, for example it also won't modify every flow unless Calibre (or someone else) had done it previously. I do recall wondering why Calibre conversions use body for left/right instead of just using @page for everything. I know Calibre doesn't use body for top and bottom margins because that will only apply to the first and last page of a flow.

it's been a long time since I messed with this so I'd have to review the code in detail to answer this question fully. I don't think you'd get double margins from the plugin as it modifies both page and body margins - i.e. margins in body should be removed and everything would be in @page. It does sound like you're saying there may be an edge case if you run the plugin and then follow that by running a Calibre conversion. Calibre might insert the margins in the body tag whilst leaving @page alone, not sure of this, but since the whole point of the plugin is to avoid a Calibre conversion I'm not sure how critical it is. I sort of doubt this is an issue anyway as it could potentially happen with any number of retail ePubs as well and I haven't heard of Calibre doing that.

Edit:
Looks like I summarized the work I did fairly well here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=144

[kovidgoyal]

Because @page is not supported by lots of epub viewers.