Penguin Producing Crappy eBooks?

[tirsales]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

I've used Word on occasion to convert to HTML, and the HTML isn't *that* bad!

Never, ever say that. Word formatted HTML is hell.

[whitearrow]

It can be a bit of a pain, but I've had good success at cleaning it up fairly readily using search & replace, if converting from Word is my best or only choice.

But you definitely don't get blank lines between each paragraph unless you wanted them, and if you don't want them, you FIX them.

I doubt anyone even looked at the Kindle version of this book on a Kindle.

[Strether]

Two recent releases of Dick Francis mysteries, 10 Lb Penalty, and To the Hilt, both have the same problem. They're Berkley Books, which I think is a subsidiary of Penguin. There are pages where you get only 5 or 6 lines of print.

Jim

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

Good guess, but nope. Here is a sample of the crappy HTML inside Turn Coat (mobi/Kindle edition):

No style sheet -- just the same godawful markup on every. single. paragraph. If I wanted to make up a sample of bad formatting, I'm not sure I could've gotten it quite this bad.

That's how Mobipocket does it. Even if you start with a style sheet (CSS) you'll end up with the same sort of mess.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

Good guess, but nope. Here is a sample of the crappy HTML inside Turn Coat (mobi/Kindle edition):



No style sheet -- just the same godawful markup on every. single. paragraph. If I wanted to make up a sample of bad formatting, I'm not sure I could've gotten it quite this bad.

But that's not the "fault" of the original HTML - it's what Mobi Creator produces, even if you have a stylesheet originally. It's not supposed to be "human readable"; it's machine-generated code.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But that's not the "fault" of the original HTML - it's what Mobi Creator produces, even if you have a stylesheet originally.

And note that the mobipocket format (or the mobipocket readers) does not support CSS, so stylesheets in the original HTML have to be recoded as inline properties anyway.

[wallcraft]

This seems to be MobiPocket's fault, although I suppose it is up to Penguin to work around crappy conversions by Mobipocket.

The LIT version is perfectly ok. It adds a bit of extra space between paragraphs, but nothing excessive. The CSS is:

.tx  {
font-size: small;
text-align: justify;
text-indent: 1em;
margin-top: 0.5em;
margin-bottom: 0.5em;
}

The first screenshot is from Microsoft Reader (i.e. the LIT version) on a PC and the 2nd is from Windows MobiPocket Reader on a sample from the Kindle Store (i.e. the MOBI version). The 3rd screenshot is the LIT converted to MOBI using Calibre, it looks similar to the original LIT. The 4th is the LIT converted to MOBI using MobiPocket Creator. It is identical to the original MOBI, with very wide spacing between paragraphs.

So Penguin is using MobiPocket's Creator or mobigen to convert from OEB to MOBI, but the conversion does not work well.

[Fledchen]

I purchased the Secure MS Reader version of Turn Coat, and it has a lot of errors, mostly duplicated text.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

This seems to be MobiPocket's fault, although I suppose it is up to Penguin to work around crappy conversions by Mobipocket.

The LIT version is perfectly ok. It adds a bit of extra space between paragraphs, but nothing excessive. The CSS is:

.tx  {
font-size: small;
text-align: justify;
text-indent: 1em;
margin-top: 0.5em;
margin-bottom: 0.5em;
}

The first screenshot is from Microsoft Reader (i.e. the LIT version) on a PC

I don't know where your MS Reader edition came from, but it doesn't look like this...

The attachment is Turn Coat in MS Reader format.

And the CSS code is...

.tx  {
font-size: small;
text-align: justify;
text-indent: 1em;
margin-top: 6px;
margin-bottom: 6px;
}

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't know where your MS Reader edition came from, but it doesn't look like this...

I bought and downloaded it today from FictionWise. I also downloaded the Kindle sample today. Replacing 0.5em with 6px does allow MobiPocket Creator to produce a better MOBI, see the attached screenshot. Where did you get your LIT version?

[Jellby]

According to the Mobipocket documentation:

The vertical space can also be forced by adding the height of a paragraph:

<p height="Y"> (pixels), <p height="Y%">,<p height="Yem"> or <p height="Ypt">

Y is an INTEGER and can be only positive.

So, it seems "0.5em" is not valid and maybe mobipocket creator converts it to "1em" or something similar...

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Jellby

So, it seems "0.5em" is not valid and maybe mobipocket creator converts it to "1em" or something similar...

It probably converts it to "5em", which would explain the large spacing.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

It probably converts it to "5em", which would explain the large spacing.

The spacing in the screenshots is not larger than 1-2 em, assuming the em has the usual relation with the font size.

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But that's not the "fault" of the original HTML - it's what Mobi Creator produces, even if you have a stylesheet originally. It's not supposed to be "human readable"; it's machine-generated code.

I've exploded mobi files before that had plain old quote marks (" ') not the numeric code. They are much easier to proofread.

When I've used a simple style sheet with mobi creator, the html file that it spits out has left it intact.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

I bought and downloaded it today from FictionWise. I also downloaded the Kindle sample today. Replacing 0.5em with 6px does allow MobiPocket Creator to produce a better MOBI, see the attached screenshot. Where did you get your LIT version?

I'll be honest and say I'm not sure where that MS Reader copy came from. What I wanted to do was take a quick look at a copy of Turn Coat to see how bad it really is so I turned to the Darknet and found it. But, if I do like the series enough and get that far in reading it, I will purchase a copy legally.