Odd letters/characters

MSWallack · 12-29-2011, 05:40 PM

I recently opened a book that appears to be normal in all respects except that many paragraphs begin and/or end with "â". Does anyone know why that might be? I suppose I could just do a search and replace to delete that character (hopefully it isn't used in any real words), but I was wondering if this was some kind of formatting error or if Calibre has a built in way to remedy issues like this.

theducks · 12-29-2011, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSWallack

I recently opened a book that appears to be normal in all respects except that many paragraphs begin and/or end with "â". Does anyone know why that might be? I suppose I could just do a search and replace to delete that character (hopefully it isn't used in any real words), but I was wondering if this was some kind of formatting error or if Calibre has a built in way to remedy issues like this.

Is that the only odd character in all the book?
Usually there are a few more, which indicates that the Auto-magic code page guess was wrong and you will have to force a CODEPAGE setting.

JSWolf · 12-29-2011, 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSWallack

I recently opened a book that appears to be normal in all respects except that many paragraphs begin and/or end with "â". Does anyone know why that might be? I suppose I could just do a search and replace to delete that character (hopefully it isn't used in any real words), but I was wondering if this was some kind of formatting error or if Calibre has a built in way to remedy issues like this.

That is an encoding issue. You;ll have to go back to the source file and set it so it's UTF-8 and then convert again.

MSWallack · 12-29-2011, 06:06 PM

Unfortunately, I don't have the source file; just the ebook that was provided to me. So far the â is the only odd character that I've noticed, but that was after a fairly quick skim of the book. Is there a way in Calibre to reconvert the book (it's already an ePub) from ePub to ePub but change the codepage along the way? Would that help? How do I find out what the codepage in the file is set to?

theducks · 12-29-2011, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSWallack

Unfortunately, I don't have the source file; just the ebook that was provided to me. So far the â is the only odd character that I've noticed, but that was after a fairly quick skim of the book. Is there a way in Calibre to reconvert the book (it's already an ePub) from ePub to ePub but change the codepage along the way? Would that help? How do I find out what the codepage in the file is set to?

Code page tells everyone what WAS there., once that is lost. GIGO

JSWolf · 12-29-2011, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSWallack

Unfortunately, I don't have the source file; just the ebook that was provided to me. So far the â is the only odd character that I've noticed, but that was after a fairly quick skim of the book. Is there a way in Calibre to reconvert the book (it's already an ePub) from ePub to ePub but change the codepage along the way? Would that help? How do I find out what the codepage in the file is set to?

That depends. If I am not mistaken, â is one of the quotes. So, you have tyo look at the XML in the ePub and see if you have quotes or â. If you have â and not quotes the ePub is screwed up. If you have quotes and do not see â in the XML files, then you just have to fix the codepage and/or the encoding of the files. Good luck.

For example, I've had books set to the wrong codepage and when I loaded into Sigil, they got converted and screwed up. I didn't save them. I just backed out and fixed things before loading again with Sigil and it was fine.

retro · 12-29-2011, 10:49 PM

I just had the same problem. The epub was fine in ADE, but when I added it to calibre all the quotes changed to the a with a caret on top. I found the thread linked below and tried converting epub to epub with this:

On Conversion Screen: Look and Feel: Character encoding: try cp1252

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=139753

It worked!! Now it looks the same in calibre and ADE.

MSWallack · 12-30-2011, 11:25 AM

Following the recommendations here (and in that old thread), I loaded the ePub into Calibre, did a convert (from ePub to ePub) but in the Input character encoding field I selected cp1252 and ... it worked! The book now appears to be formatted correctly. Some of the â characters became quotation marks, others became em dashes.

12-29-2011, 05:40 PM	#1
MSWallack Right, Except When Wrong Posts: 364 Karma: 4323767 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Indianapolis Device: Kindle Oasis 3 (sometimes iPad Mini).	Odd letters/characters I recently opened a book that appears to be normal in all respects except that many paragraphs begin and/or end with "â". Does anyone know why that might be? I suppose I could just do a search and replace to delete that character (hopefully it isn't used in any real words), but I was wondering if this was some kind of formatting error or if Calibre has a built in way to remedy issues like this.

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12-29-2011, 06:06 PM	#4
MSWallack Right, Except When Wrong Posts: 364 Karma: 4323767 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Indianapolis Device: Kindle Oasis 3 (sometimes iPad Mini).	Unfortunately, I don't have the source file; just the ebook that was provided to me. So far the â is the only odd character that I've noticed, but that was after a fairly quick skim of the book. Is there a way in Calibre to reconvert the book (it's already an ePub) from ePub to ePub but change the codepage along the way? Would that help? How do I find out what the codepage in the file is set to?

12-29-2011, 10:49 PM	#7
retro Groupie Posts: 195 Karma: 245 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: USA Device: Kobo Clara Blue PRS 350	I just had the same problem. The epub was fine in ADE, but when I added it to calibre all the quotes changed to the a with a caret on top. I found the thread linked below and tried converting epub to epub with this: On Conversion Screen: Look and Feel: Character encoding: try cp1252 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=139753 It worked!! Now it looks the same in calibre and ADE.

12-30-2011, 11:25 AM	#8
MSWallack Right, Except When Wrong Posts: 364 Karma: 4323767 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Indianapolis Device: Kindle Oasis 3 (sometimes iPad Mini).	Following the recommendations here (and in that old thread), I loaded the ePub into Calibre, did a convert (from ePub to ePub) but in the Input character encoding field I selected cp1252 and ... it worked! The book now appears to be formatted correctly. Some of the â characters became quotation marks, others became em dashes.