Making EPUB 'My Way' CSS

[Gusgsm]

Hi,

I am converting-making epub with Calibre and so far, so good. It's terrific. However, there's something I don't know how to make, surely due to my ignorance:

I input XHMTL as simple as possible. That is: plain p, h2, h3, and h1 tags with some em and blockquotes. No more as what I do are plain text novels. Then I add a very simple css with very basic rules (align letf, size 1em, 1.4em...). Nothing more as I like/need my code and texts to be as simple and clean as possible.

The question:

Is there any way I cand stop Calibre from adding all the classes and extra CSS stuff so that I simply inject the CSS in the conversion dialogues and I get the simple output I want?

Thanks a lot, folks.

Gustavo, posting from Madrid

[jackie_w]

I don't think you can stop Calibre adding all the classes to the <p>, <h1> etc tags inside the converted epub, but if you already have a standard css file which you use with your simple html, then those Calibre-created classes should give you the same visual result as your standard css file.

There are several ways to make Calibre use your standard css file:

• Add a <link> to your standard css file in the html header section before you import the html file into Calibre
• Add your standard css statements, between <style>...</style> tags inside the html header section before you import the html file into Calibre
• Copy your standard css statements to the Look&Feel ExtraCSS box as you convert zip-to-epub.
• Type the filename of your standard css file (onyour PC) to the Look&Feel ExtraCSS box as you convert zip-to-epub.

[Gusgsm]

Thanks. I'll try though some of the answer I have already tried and Calibre (if I recall it all right) adds a lot of extra things.

Anyway, nothing I cannot really live with it. I hoped there were some 'template-like' setting where I could place my CSS output preferences (and some othe ones as well) and forget about them for ever

Bye

Gustavo

[jackie_w]

If either option 3 or 4 works for you, you can add css to your Calibre preferences defaults. Then you could 'forget about it' for all new conversions.

[Agama]

Originally Posted by Gusgsm

I input XHMTL as simple as possible. That is: plain p, h2, h3, and h1 tags with some em and blockquotes. No more as what I do are plain text novels. Then I add a very simple css with very basic rules (align letf, size 1em, 1.4em...). Nothing more as I like/need my code and texts to be as simple and clean as possible.

I achieve this by using calibre's Tweak ePub option after conversion:

1) Explode the ePub.
2) Copy your own stylesheet.css over the top of calibre's generated one.
3) Use a simple regex to remove all class="calibre..." from the generated HTML documents.
4) Rebuild the ePub.

You can omit step 3 but this will leave redundant data in the book.

I know it's a few steps but it doesn't take long and you only do it once for each book, provided you do not reconvert. (Maybe there would be a way to program this as a plugin to automate it.)

I agree, it would be useful to be able to do this via some sort of conversion dialogue.

[Gusgsm]

@Agama;

I do that in one or two steps less: I open the file in OxygenXML, I replace the CSS and I make a full regex in all files inside the epub.

But the wonders of templating...

[Agama]

What's OxygenXML? Sounds interesting. Is it expensive?

[Gusgsm]

There's a reasonable priced version. The demo is fully functional for 30 days. I have no relation with them, BTW.