Image settings for docx to epub/mobi conversion

[resolfe]

Hi,

I am in the process of publishing a travel-guidebook on kdp (and other ebook retailers) and would need some help:

I am writing the book in word 2007 (docx) and would like to convert it to mobi and epub. (mobi for kdp, epub for all other retailers)

The book is a guidebook and therefore contains many images (>200).

In order to keep the filesize low, I am in the process of resizing all the images to 600px (width/height) with 300dpi before I insert them into the word file.
(I want to keep the ebook-filesize low because Amazon charges for the delivery of the ebook $0.15/MB).

Since I am downsizing the images already in the word-file I think that the best output profile would be"tablet" (since there is no additional resizing during the conversation).

Could you give me some suggestions or best practice tips about image sizes and settings? (e.g. What output profile to use? What is the best image size to use? Is it better to use the original filesize in the wordfile and to resize the the images during conversation? etc.)

I am grateful for any suggestion!

[jhowell]

Some miscellaneous bits of advice.

The features of calibre are geared more toward readers than authors. You may want to consider hiring a professional or using a more mainstream workflow for getting your book ready to publish.

Do not submit a MOBI file created by calibre to KDP. Use Amazon's tools (kindlegen, Kindle Previewer, and/or Kindle Create) instead or just submit your source document (Word or EPUB).

The Workshop forum here at MobileRead is a good place to ask questions related to e-book production.

[resolfe]

Hi jhowell,

thanks for your advice, even though it’s not really what I wanted to hear

Unfortunately I don’t have the budget to hire a professional, so I have to do it by myself.

I was considering to use the Amazon tools but I decided against it because I don’t want to do the process twice (for mobi and epub; as far as I know the Amazon tools convert only to mobi).

What is the problem with the docx to mobi-conversion in Calibre?
I just need a simple design.
I tested it with a test-document and everything looks fine on my kindle.

[kovidgoyal]

Using calibre to create MOBI files to submit to amazon should be fine, as long as you dont care about amazon's newer formats such as AZW3/KFX which bring features you may not need. As for image sizes, it is a tradeoff, higher resolution images will look nicer on high res screen devices, but increase file size. The choice is yours.

[resolfe]

Thanks kovidgoyal!
MOBI is fine.

In regard of the image resolution, I was just hoping to get some best practice tips...

One more question:
I tested some of the output profiles.
What I find strange is, that if I use the "kindle output profile" the images look bigger in the "calibre viewer" than when I use the "tablet output profile".

Since I use images with 600px width and the "kindle output profile" is downsizing images to 525px, it should be the other way around...

Is there an explanation for that?

[resolfe]

Originally Posted by resolfe

One more question:
I tested some of the output profiles.
What I find strange is, that if I use the "kindle output profile" the images look bigger in the "calibre viewer" than when I use the "tablet output profile".

Since I use images with 600px width and the "kindle output profile" is downsizing images to 525px, it should be the other way around...

Is there an explanation for that?

I am getting a bit confused with the image style after conversation from docx to epub&mobi.

As I said my original images in the docx-file have a width of 600px.

Using the "inspect" function in the calibre ebook-viewer I geht the following infos about the images after the conversion:

Conversion to MOBI:
using tablet output profile:

img[Attributes Style] {
height: 326px;
width: 488px;
}

using kindle output profile:

img[Attributes Style] {
height: 416px;
width: 622px;
}

Conversion to EPUB:
using tablet output profile:

.calibre6 {
height: 178pt;
width: 266pt;
}

using kindle output profile:

.calibre6 {
height: 178pt;
width: 266pt;
}

This makes no sense to me.
(As I said, the original image is 600px wide.)

I thought that by using the tablet output profile, calibre would not do any image resizing and by using kindle ouput profile images will be resized to 525x640px.

This is not matching whit my results above.

What is the problem? Am I doing something wrong?
How can I just keep the same image size in the MOBI/EPUB as it is in the original doc-file?

[resolfe]

After reading through the forum I tried Extra CSS:

img { width: 100% !important; height: auto !important }

But no success, calibre is still changing the image size.
Any suggestions?

Here is one of my conversion logs:

Spoiler:

Convert book 1 of 1 (Test)
Conversion options changed from defaults:
extra_css: u'img { width: 100% !important; height: auto !important }'
output_profile: 'tablet'
verbose: 2
read_metadata_from_opf: u'C:\\Users\\xxx\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_2d j60i\\nbx9nr.opf'
Resolved conversion options
calibre version: 3.40.1
{'asciiize': False,
'author_sort': None,
'authors': None,
'base_font_size': 0.0,
'book_producer': None,
'change_justification': u'original',
'chapter': u"//*[((name()='h1' or name()='h2') and re:test(., '\\s*((chapter|book|section|part)\\s+)|((prolog|pr ologue|epilogue)(\\s+|$))', 'i')) or @class = 'chapter']",
'chapter_mark': u'pagebreak',
'comments': None,
'cover': None,
'debug_pipeline': None,
'dehyphenate': True,
'delete_blank_paragraphs': True,
'disable_font_rescaling': False,
'docx_inline_subsup': False,
'docx_no_cover': False,
'docx_no_pagebreaks_between_notes': False,
'dont_compress': False,
'duplicate_links_in_toc': False,
'embed_all_fonts': False,
'embed_font_family': None,
'enable_heuristics': False,
'expand_css': False,
'extra_css': u'img { width: 100% !important; height: auto !important }',
'extract_to': None,
'filter_css': u'',
'fix_indents': True,
'font_size_mapping': None,
'format_scene_breaks': True,
'html_unwrap_factor': 0.4,
'input_encoding': None,
'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x000000667B6242E8>,
'insert_blank_line': False,
'insert_blank_line_size': 0.5,
'insert_metadata': False,
'isbn': None,
'italicize_common_cases': True,
'keep_ligatures': False,
'language': None,
'level1_toc': None,
'level2_toc': None,
'level3_toc': None,
'line_height': 0.0,
'linearize_tables': False,
'margin_bottom': 5.0,
'margin_left': 5.0,
'margin_right': 5.0,
'margin_top': 5.0,
'markup_chapter_headings': True,
'max_toc_links': 50,
'minimum_line_height': 120.0,
'mobi_file_type': u'old',
'mobi_ignore_margins': False,
'mobi_keep_original_images': False,
'mobi_toc_at_start': False,
'no_chapters_in_toc': False,
'no_inline_navbars': False,
'no_inline_toc': False,
'output_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.TabletOutput object at 0x000000667B624D68>,
'page_breaks_before': u'/',
'personal_doc': u'[PDOC]',
'prefer_author_sort': False,
'prefer_metadata_cover': False,
'pretty_print': False,
'pubdate': None,
'publisher': None,
'rating': None,
'read_metadata_from_opf': u'C:\\Users\\xxx\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_2d j60i\\nbx9nr.opf',
'remove_fake_margins': True,
'remove_first_image': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing_indent_size': 1.5,
'renumber_headings': True,
'replace_scene_breaks': u'',
'search_replace': '[]',
'series': None,
'series_index': None,
'share_not_sync': False,
'smarten_punctuation': False,
'sr1_replace': None,
'sr1_search': None,
'sr2_replace': None,
'sr2_search': None,
'sr3_replace': None,
'sr3_search': None,
'start_reading_at': None,
'subset_embedded_fonts': False,
'tags': None,
'timestamp': None,
'title': None,
'title_sort': None,
'toc_filter': None,
'toc_threshold': 6,
'toc_title': None,
'transform_css_rules': '[]',
'unsmarten_punctuation': False,
'unwrap_lines': True,
'use_auto_toc': False,
'verbose': 2}
InputFormatPlugin: DOCX Input running
on C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_2dj60i\ibs nyj.docx
Converting Word markup to HTML
Converting styles to CSS
Cleaning up redundant markup generated by Word
Found Word Table of Contents, using it to generate the Table of Contents
Parsing all content...
Parsing index.html ...
Initial parse failed, using more forgiving parsers
Parsing index.html as HTML
Parsing docx.css ...
Reading TOC from NCX...
Merging user specified metadata...
Detecting structure...
Flattening CSS and remapping font sizes...
Source base font size is 10.00000pt
Removing fake margins...
Found 81 items of level: p_1
p_1 left margin stats: Counter({u'0': 81})
p_1 right margin stats: Counter({u'0': 81})
Cleaning up manifest...
Trimming unused files from manifest...
Creating MOBI Output...
Serializing resources...
Creating MOBI 6 output
Generating in-line TOC...
Applying case-transforming CSS...
Parsing manglecase.css ...
Parsing tocstyle.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\xxx\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_2dj60i\_nm mdp.mobi

[kovidgoyal]

That's not image resizing, that conversion of image size specifications in the docx file to image size specifications in the output file. Image resizing is when the actual image is itself resized. The tablet profile will not resize images.

Remember that docx is a page oriented format, so it tends to specify image sizes with respect to page boundaries. So on conversion these get translated into sizes based on the screen size and resolution of the target output profile.

[resolfe]

Thanks for explaining!

I will play around with the image sizes in the word file.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by resolfe

Thanks for explaining!

I will play around with the image sizes in the word file.

And check the image related settings in Word->Options->Advanced

BR

[resolfe]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

And check the image related settings in Word->Options->Advanced

BR

Thanks BetterRed for the hint. In word 2007 I couldn't find this settings in Word->Options->Advanced.
But I think in 2007 this option can be found under "Save as" -->Tools--> Compress Pictures --> Options. There I can adjust the ppi, etc.


I have another general question:

After playing around with the image size in word (docx) I found the right image size which gets translates into a image specification of 600px (width) in the MOBI file (thats what I wanted).

The problem is, that in the conversion from docx to EPUB the image size specifications gets translates differently (smaller than 600px).
I can bypass this problem by converting the EPUB from the MOBI (instead from the docx).

My question is: am I causing any kind of problem/issue by converting the EPUB from the MOBI-file instead of the docx? (such losing any formats, styles, etc.)

[BetterRed]

Hmmm that seems a bit odd, if DOCX to MOBI is 600px why not DOCX to EPUB.

What do you have in Conversion Page setup->Output profile - if its Tablet then no resizing should occur. Otherwise images will be resized to the size shown for each profile - e.g the MS Reader has 480x652.

BR

[resolfe]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Hmmm that seems a bit odd, if DOCX to MOBI is 600px why not DOCX to EPUB.

What do you have in Conversion Page setup->Output profile - if its Tablet then no resizing should occur. Otherwise images will be resized to the size shown for each profile - e.g the MS Reader has 480x652.

BR

I use the tablet output profile.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by resolfe

I use the tablet output profile.

- sorry I should have read your post #6 more thoroughly

Having to do a DOCX->MOBI (tablet)->EPUB (tablet) conversion to retain the original image sizes rather DOCX->EPUB (tablet) doesn't seem right to me.

IIRC there are 'things' you can do in DOCX and EPUB that you can't do in MOBI. So you could lose something along the way.

There are a couple of other tools that will convert DOCX to EPUB that you might want to try, Sigil's DOCXImport plugin, and Toxaris' e-Book Tools Word add-in.

BR

[kovidgoyal]

Yes, MOBI is a much less capable format, so you will lose things going via it. MOBI has much less ability to specify image sies in markup, which is probably why you get the original image size (600px) when going to MOBI, whereas when going to EPUB you will get the translated image sizes, since EPUB has that capability.