Libra [kepub] Can't use the dictionary, pressing picks a single character instead of word

[Colonel Cathcart]

This is very very strange (to me). I wanted to start reading a new book. That was just after upgrading to the latest firmware, but that's not the reason for the problem, other books work just fine. It's just this single book that's giving me some trouble.

I'm not a native English speaker, but I read in English and, occasionally, need to use the built-in dictionary. Unlike other books I've read on the device, when I click-and-hold on a word I need a definition to, instead of the entire word being picked, only a single character is picked and, obviously, the wrong dictionary entry is shown. For example, if I try to look up "aviation" (yes, I know what it means), only the 2nd 'a' is highlighted and the dictionary entry for the word "a" is shown. Now I need to fidget around with the left and right control to pick the entire word.
This happens 100% of the time in this book, even on 2-letter words, on different pages of the book, using both the default publisher font and some built-in alternatives like Georgia and Kobo Nickel.

This is a side-loaded epub converted with Calibre to kepub.
What's wrong with this book? How do I fix it?

[Poppaea]

I don't know how to fix it, but you can type your word into the search box that opens when you tap on the magnifying icon in the footer menue and choose the dictionary via the drop down menue next to the search bar.

[davidfor]

The only times I have seen something like that, it turned out that for some words, each letter was wrapped in a tag. It was usually a span, but, if part of a word is wrapped in an i tag for emphasis, it won't automatically select the full word.

If this is a bad conversion from a scan, you can get all sorts of things happening. If you open it in the calibre editor or Sigil, it will be fairly obvious if the above is happening.

[Colonel Cathcart]

Thank you, as always, davidfor.
So far I Just took a look at the original epub in Calibre editor and saw nothing like the stuff you're suggesting. I haven't gotten around to connecting the reader to the PC, coping over the kepub and looking at it. I'll find time this weekend to check that out as well.

The work is copyright, of-course, so I won't upload files here. In case nothing stands out, like the stuff you pointed out, I was wondering if it's OK to upload here the CSS file and, say, an excerpt from the 1st chapter, from the beginning of the xhtml file, containing a few paragraphs of text. Possibly some other stuff that might help figure it out?

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by Colonel Cathcart

Thank you, as always, davidfor.
So far I Just took a look at the original epub in Calibre editor and saw nothing like the stuff you're suggesting. I haven't gotten around to connecting the reader to the PC, coping over the kepub and looking at it. I'll find time this weekend to check that out as well.

The work is copyright, of-course, so I won't upload files here. In case nothing stands out, like the stuff you pointed out, I was wondering if it's OK to upload here the CSS file and, say, an excerpt from the 1st chapter, from the beginning of the xhtml file, containing a few paragraphs of text. Possibly some other stuff that might help figure it out?

You can use the scramble epub plugin in Calibre to make an upload friendly copy.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Colonel Cathcart

Thank you, as always, davidfor.
So far I Just took a look at the original epub in Calibre editor and saw nothing like the stuff you're suggesting. I haven't gotten around to connecting the reader to the PC, coping over the kepub and looking at it. I'll find time this weekend to check that out as well.

The work is copyright, of-course, so I won't upload files here. In case nothing stands out, like the stuff you pointed out, I was wondering if it's OK to upload here the CSS file and, say, an excerpt from the 1st chapter, from the beginning of the xhtml file, containing a few paragraphs of text. Possibly some other stuff that might help figure it out?

An excerpt is usually safe so long as it isn't to long. There is also the ScrambleEbook plugin. That does what its name suggests and produces a version of the book that cannot be unscrambled. That produces a version that can be posted and can usually be used to see these sort of problems.

An alternative is to point to the store page for it. If there is a sample, it can show what is happening. Or, someone might already have the book.

[svenlind]

I have had a speciel problem with a single book. It was fixed by making a new conversion of epub to kepub using the KoboTouchExtended plugin.

Look here

[Colonel Cathcart]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The only times I have seen something like that, it turned out that for some words, each letter was wrapped in a tag. It was usually a span, but, if part of a word is wrapped in an i tag for emphasis, it won't automatically select the full word.

If this is a bad conversion from a scan, you can get all sorts of things happening. If you open it in the calibre editor or Sigil, it will be fairly obvious if the above is happening.

No, that doesn't seem to be the case here, as far as I can see. There are drop-caps at the beginning of each chapter. Those are implemented with spans containing the first letter of the first word of the chapter, but that's as far as it goes. This happens even in html files that doesn't contain this feature, such as the about the author page, or the inside cover containing just the title of the book. Even those exhibit the same behavior, I can't pick a whole word just by pressing it. Just a single letter is picked.

Originally Posted by svenlind

I have had a speciel problem with a single book. It was fixed by making a new conversion of epub to kepub using the KoboTouchExtended plugin.

Look here

It was worth a shot, I tried searching and it works fine.

What I've tried so far:
1. The original epub.
2. The kepub created by Calibre/KoboTouchExtended
3. The kepub created by the online version of kepubify
4. Fixing errors in Calibre editor in the original epub: fix HTML - all files; check book
5. Fixing errors and also upgrade book internals.

None of that did the trick.

nothing did the trick.

Here are a couple of short, html files from the book, both having this issue. Yes, even this single line title page exhibits this issue.

Edit I'm uploading the epub of the book that just contains these two pages, not even the front cover. It also exhibits this issue. Could it be just my kobo device? I doubt it.

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
	<title>The Plot Against America</title>
	<meta content="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"/><link href="stylesheet.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/><style type="text/css">
		@page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; }</style></head>
  <body class="text">
<div class="calibre1">
<h2 class="calibre2" id="calibre_pb_1"><span class="calibre3"><span class="bold"><span><span class="bold">The Plot Against America</span></span></span></span></h2></div>
<div class="mbppagebreak" id="calibre_pb_2"></div></body>
</html>

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
	<title>The Plot Against America</title>
	<meta content="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"/><link href="stylesheet.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/><style type="text/css">
		@page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; }</style></head>
  <body class="text">
<div class="calibre">
<div class="calibre">
<h2 class="calibre26" id="calibre_pb_43"><span class="calibre39"><span class="bold"><span><span class="bold">ABOUT THE AUTHOR</span></span></span></span></h2><div class="calibre20"></div></div>
<div class="calibre">
<p class="calibre30">In 1997 Philip Roth won the Pulitzer Prize for <span><span class="italic">American Pastoral.</span></span> In 1998 he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House, and in 2002 received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, previously awarded to John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, and Saul Bellow, among others. He has twice won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.</p>
<p class="calibre32">In 2005 Roth will become the third living American writer to have his work published in a comprehensive, definitive edition by the Library of America. The last of the eight volumes is scheduled for publication in 2013.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mbppagebreak" id="calibre_pb_44"></div></body>
</html>

[mathil]

The book's language was set to Chinese in Calibre instead of English. Change that and send it back to the device, it should work (it worked for me on the sample you shared here).

[Colonel Cathcart]

Originally Posted by mathil

The book's language was set to Chinese in Calibre instead of English. Change that and send it back to the device, it should work (it worked for me on the sample you shared here).

Where? How?
Edit: OK, I think I found it. At 1st I thought it was in the book's content itself.

Edit 2: Thank you thank you thank you! You got it, sanity and order in the universe is restored.
I have no idea how that happened I didn't have the languages column displayed.

[mathil]

Originally Posted by Colonel Cathcart

Where? How?
Edit: OK, I think I found it. At 1st I thought it was in the book's content itself.

Select the book in the Calibre Library and press Modify Metadata in the top menu. You should find the Language option there. Set to English, Apply and then try resending it to the device (I use the KoboExtended plugin, so I sent over a kepub).