Font Issues Between Mobi and ePub

[GeckoFriend]

I have several books that appear "normal" when viewed as a Mobi but when viewed as an ePub have font issues. There are no embedded fonts; I've also tried converting to ePub removing all fonts, and the problem still remains.

I guess I've had good luck in the past because this issue has not arisen until yesterday. I tried to read six different books and they all had font problems.

I have a related question in that when viewed using the calibre viewer, even though the font changes throughout the text, I can still enlarge it so that it's readable. When I convert the book to ePub and try to read it on my T1, I cannot enlarge the font. That's how I found these problem books.

This is a sample portion of one book as it appears when viewed as a Mobi and as an ePub. The midde paragraph is noticeably smaller when viewed as an ePub.

Spoiler:

"Well, maybe next year, but everything’s all arranged, you know that, we always do it this way.* Come on bird, Peter's going to take you to learn aboriginal dancing and body painting.* Oh please don't roll your eyes, it is absolutely MADDENING!"* Missy turned back to her easel, leaving Falcon to stomp out of the studio muttering, "I hate dancing."
**** Of course, once she was in Australia she had a great time.* Peter had a big beautiful apartment in Sydney where they spent Christmas with Missy and several of her father’s friends.* He was a terrific cook and the table looked like something out of Gourmet Magazine with crystal and silver that glittered in the candlelight.* Missy looked so beautiful and Peter looked handsome, and she got to dress up and even wear a little lipstick and eye shadow.
**** “Powder and paint and perfume,” sang Missy, dancing around and spraying clouds of “Pacific Midnight,” her special Christmas smell of the week.

Spoiler:

<p class="calibre4">“Well, maybe next year, but everything’s all arranged, you know that, we always do it this way. Come on bird, Peter’s going to take you to learn aboriginal dancing and body painting. Oh please don’t roll your eyes, it is absolutely MADDENING!” Missy turned back to her easel, leaving Falcon to stomp out of the studio muttering, “I hate dancing.”</p>

<p class="calibre4"></p>

<p class="calibre4"><span class="calibre23">Of course, once she was in Australia she had a great time. Peter had a big beautiful apartment in Sydney where they spent Christmas with Missy and several of her father’s friends. He was a terrific cook and the table looked like something out of <span class="italic">Gourmet</span></span> <span class="calibre23">Magazine with crystal and silver that glittered in the candlelight. Missy looked so beautiful and Peter looked handsome, and she got to dress up and even wear a little lipstick and eye shadow.</span></p>

<p class="calibre4"></p>

<p class="calibre4">“Powder and paint and perfume,” sang Missy, dancing around and spraying clouds of “Pacific Midnight,” her special Christmas smell of the week.</p>

Can someone identify what is causing the font issue? (Then I can ask you how to fix it.)

[dwig]

Originally Posted by GeckoFriend

...

Can someone identify what is causing the font issue? (Then I can ask you how to fix it.)

Nothing you've provided can lead anyone to figure out what caused the conversion issue. It may not be a fault in the conversion but, instead, an issue with how the original MOBI is constructed.

The smaller size in the ePub is a result of the Style applied to the <span> wrapping the text in the second paragraph. The <span class="calibre23"> is the issue.

To fix this, you should edit the CSS Stylesheet and alter the .calibre23 entry so that it matches the .calibre4 entry. By approaching it this way any other occurrences or the same issue will also be fixed. Alternately you could just delete the <span class="calibre23"> and the </span> tags to fix this one paragraph. Using this approach is best if there are other places where .calibre23 is used correctly.

I find the easiest way to do this type of editing is to use Sigil to edit the ePub. You can also use calibre's functions for expanding the ePub and use a text editor to make the fixes.

[GeckoFriend]

Originally Posted by dwig

.....
The smaller size in the ePub is a result of the Style applied to the <span> wrapping the text in the second paragraph. The <span class="calibre23"> is the issue.

To fix this, you should edit the CSS Stylesheet and alter the .calibre23 entry so that it matches the .calibre4 entry......

Thanks for the help. I used Sigil to edit the stylesheet and the ePub now appears to be fine.

Any suggestions from anyone for the issue of not being able to change font size on the T1 even though it will change using the calibre viewer?

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by GeckoFriend

Any suggestions from anyone for the issue of not being able to change font size on the T1 even though it will change using the calibre viewer?

This may not be the answer to your particular problem, but the only time I've had problems with font scaling on a reader has been when the css in the epub has settings like font-size:18pt, i.e. size is specified in non-scalable points rather than scalable ems or %, e.g font-size:1.5em or font-size:150%

If you open up the epub again (in Sigil or using Tweak epub) you could search for occurrences of font-size: and see what sort of values it has.

[GeckoFriend]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

This may not be the answer to your particular problem, but the only time I've had problems with font scaling on a reader has been when the css in the epub has settings like font-size:18pt, i.e. size is specified in non-scalable points rather than scalable ems or %, e.g font-size:1.5em or font-size:150%

If you open up the epub again (in Sigil or using Tweak epub) you could search for occurrences of font-size: and see what sort of values it has.

Thanks for the help. This did not turn out to be the problem but did steer me to the correct solution. At some time (don't know when but hope it was recently) I must have checked "Disable font size rescaling" in the conversion options. Unchecking and converting the original Mobi fixed the problem.

I hope I don't find too many more books that need to be redone.