DRM alters formatting? [Ans: No, Kobo does]

[ApK]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I am hardly an expert on Adobe DRM, but DRM does encrypt the content of the book, so it is possible (granted unlikely) that in rare instances, Adobe's software might mess up a markup tag or style sheet directive during decryption... of course that would require the DRM stripping tool not to have that bug if it were to fix the problem.

--
Bill

I've been programming since the days when software was predictable and systems behaved logically and consistantly, and I have seen those days have passed, so I would not dare to call that scenario impossible, but....

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by ApK

Pretty sure he accounted for that:

Missed that.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by ApK

I've been programming since the days when software was predictable and systems behaved logically and consistantly, and I have seen those days have passed, so I would not dare to call that scenario impossible, but....

Yeah, but I am suggesting a hypothesis that works with the information I have received. Either it is a bug in ADE's decryption routine that only crops up under rare conditions or we are missing a key piece of information.

If we rule out the latter then Sherlock Holmes famous dictum comes into play.

--
Bill

[JSWolf]

Of all the ePub I've stripped the DRM from, I have never seen one that displays any different after the DRM is stripped.

[melchizedek]

Upon further experimentation, I think the problem may have occurred during transit and may have nothing to do with me stripping the DRM. Initially, to get the novel from the Kobo store to my Kobo, I synced using wifi. The file then showed up on my Kobo as poorly formatted... and, on copying the file to my hardrive FROM my Kobo, also showed up poorly formatted in all viewing media (Kobo desktop software and ADE, etc).

However, in order to strip the DRM, I downloaded a fresh version from the Kobo site, and then stripped the DRM from that file. (Downloaded it using ADE and then moved the file from its stored folder.)

So I'm guessing either (a) transferring the file via wifi from site to Kobo somehow altered its formatting, (b) this is just some random, one off fault (possibly a corruption of the file on download), or (c) ADE does something to the file which alters the formatting somehow.

Anyway,. thanks for your input, guys.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by melchizedek

Upon further experimentation, I think the problem may have occurred during transit and may have nothing to do with me stripping the DRM. Initially, to get the novel from the Kobo store to my Kobo, I synced using wifi. The file then showed up on my Kobo as poorly formatted... and, on copying the file to my hardrive FROM my Kobo, also showed up poorly formatted in all viewing media (Kobo desktop software and ADE, etc).

However, in order to strip the DRM, I downloaded a fresh version from the Kobo site, and then stripped the DRM from that file. (Downloaded it using ADE and then moved the file from its stored folder.)

So I'm guessing either (a) transferring the file via wifi from site to Kobo somehow altered its formatting, (b) this is just some random, one off fault (possibly a corruption of the file on download), or (c) ADE does something to the file which alters the formatting somehow.

Anyway,. thanks for your input, guys.

Ah. That explains it. I beleive that Kobo sometimes fiddle with the ePubs they get from the publishers, and turn them into 'kepubs' for use on their own devices, sometimes with unfortunate results.

[HarryT]

Yes indeed. If you buy a book from Kobo, download it via the Kobo website; that will ensure that you get it as a "normal" ePub book.

[The Terminator]

Originally Posted by melchizedek

Upon further experimentation, I think the problem may have occurred during transit and may have nothing to do with me stripping the DRM. Initially, to get the novel from the Kobo store to my Kobo, I synced using wifi. The file then showed up on my Kobo as poorly formatted... and, on copying the file to my hardrive FROM my Kobo, also showed up poorly formatted in all viewing media (Kobo desktop software and ADE, etc).

However, in order to strip the DRM, I downloaded a fresh version from the Kobo site, and then stripped the DRM from that file. (Downloaded it using ADE and then moved the file from its stored folder.)

So I'm guessing either (a) transferring the file via wifi from site to Kobo somehow altered its formatting, (b) this is just some random, one off fault (possibly a corruption of the file on download), or (c) ADE does something to the file which alters the formatting somehow.

Anyway,. thanks for your input, guys.

Sometimes KePubs have messed up formatting.

[tecweston]

Originally Posted by The Terminator

Sometimes KePubs have messed up formatting.

Only sometimes? Any time I buy an ebook from Kobo I load it into Calibre and fix the justification and indenting, and remove the spaces in between paragraphs. For whatever reason Kobo books almost always have terrible formatting.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tecweston

Only sometimes? Any time I buy an ebook from Kobo I load it into Calibre and fix the justification and indenting, and remove the spaces in between paragraphs. For whatever reason Kobo books almost always have terrible formatting.

It's the way they get them. A lot of publisher eBooks need fixing and not bought just from Kobo. You can buy eBooks from B&n, BooksOnBoard, Kobo, Sony, B&N, Diesel and others that need fixing.

I bought a couple of eBooks from Weightless during their 50% off sale and they both need fixing. One has margins that are way too large and it's not justified. The other has small margins that most could be fine with but it's not justified and in chapter four of the first book, there is text that doesn't wrap properly. Also, it's created using Sigil and the filenames are garbage. Chapter four of book one (It's an omnibus) is Secon08.xhtml.

[melchizedek]

Are any ebook suppliers reliable then? I don't mind fixing the odd book, but if stripping the DRM from every book and reformatting is pretty much the norm... that's going to soon become a pain in the bottom. Does anyone take any pride in their product?

[calibrated]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It's the way they get them. A lot of publisher eBooks need fixing and not bought just from Kobo. You can buy eBooks from B&n, BooksOnBoard, Kobo, Sony, B&N, Diesel and others that need fixing.

This is true. After getting a number of badly formatted epubs from several different sources, I now automatically load them into Calibre, strip DRM, delete any embedded fonts, fix the margin settings, insert a blank line between paragraphs (I like it that way) and set it to left-justify. Some of that is purely personal preference, not bad formatting per se, but since I'm the one who will be reading it I might as well fix it up the way I like it.

[calibrated]

Originally Posted by melchizedek

Are any ebook suppliers reliable then? I don't mind fixing the odd book, but if stripping the DRM from every book and reformatting is pretty much the norm... that's going to soon become a pain in the bottom. Does anyone take any pride in their product?

It's really a matter of personal preference. If you're OK with the book as received from the publisher, there's no reason to tweak anything.

Also, stripping the DRM and reformatting is just a few clicks in Calibre (once you have the proper plugins installed), which really isn't that much of a pain. To me, it's worth it to have something customized to my own preferences.

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by melchizedek

Are any ebook suppliers reliable then? I don't mind fixing the odd book, but if stripping the DRM from every book and reformatting is pretty much the norm... that's going to soon become a pain in the bottom. Does anyone take any pride in their product?

Depends how fussy you are. I've read hundreds of ebooks, some of them with ugly formatting, but I've never bothered to tweak a single ebook.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by melchizedek

Are any ebook suppliers reliable then? I don't mind fixing the odd book, but if stripping the DRM from every book and reformatting is pretty much the norm... that's going to soon become a pain in the bottom. Does anyone take any pride in their product?

Overall, no.