毎日新聞 (Mainichi Shimbun) on Kobo Glo

[Uschiekid]

I know there are a few other peeps out there who read Japanese with a Kobo, so I was hoping someone knows the answer to my problem.

I used Calibre's Fetch News to get from various countries, most work very well, including the Yomiuri Online which is also in Japanese, but I can't get the Mainichi to read on my Kobo. It works fine using the Calibre ebook viewer. But on my Kobo, after switching to a japanese font, it only shows the main menu, the articles menu and in small font, it shows what appears at the end of articles. But the actual articles themselves are missing...just pure blank pages. The links on the articles menu appear to work (ie they send me to a different page), but they are just blank. This is not the case when reading in Calibre, so I thought it's a bit strange.

Since the articles seem to be written western style left to right, it doesn't seem like it should be a limitation of the Adobe epub renderer....

Any one have any ideas?

Edit: Actually, I take it back...it doesn't show up entirely properly on the calibre ebook viewer, although it isn't just a bunch of blank pages...it cuts off the ends of sentences!! I'm surprised that it's included as it doesn't work very well even in calibre, but other ones created by the same person DO seem to work...

[tshering]

I just downloaded the Mainichi Shimbun of today in order to see it myself. Unfortunately, I cannot really help. One thing that I observed is this: It looks much better, if you rename the file to kepub.epub. Those links that you referred to (at least I think these are the links you are talking about) are external links and open in the web browser (only in epub.kepub).
The ends of lines are still (I mean also as kepub.epub) cut. Somebody of the formatting experts might be able to offer a solution for this. Even when you open the html files in a browser and minimize the width of the browser window, the lines automatically break only up to a certain degree and very soon get cut.

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by tshering

I just downloaded the Mainichi Shimbun of today in order to see it myself. Unfortunately, I cannot really help. One thing that I observed is this: It looks much better, if you rename the file to kepub.epub. Those links that you referred to (at least I think these are the links you are talking about) are external links and open in the web browser (only in epub.kepub).
The ends of lines are still (I mean also as kepub.epub) cut. Somebody of the formatting experts might be able to offer a solution for this. Even when you open the html files in a browser and minimize the width of the browser window, the lines automatically break only up to a certain degree and very soon get cut.

Thanks for giving it a look! Once I realised that the text was getting cut, I thought there might not be a good solution...
If the other bit (cut words) can get fixed, it's good to know that as a fake kepub the file does work better.

[tshering]

I deleted the whole content of the stylesheet.css. Now no lines are cut. Layout is very simple now, but good enough for my taste.

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by tshering

I deleted the whole content of the stylesheet.css. Now no lines are cut. Layout is very simple now, but good enough for my taste.

Okay, cool, I'll give that a try. Thanks!

[Uschiekid]

Worked great, thanks!

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Uschiekid

I know there are a few other peeps out there who read Japanese with a Kobo, so I was hoping someone knows the answer to my problem.

I used Calibre's Fetch News to get from various countries, most work very well, including the Yomiuri Online which is also in Japanese, but I can't get the Mainichi to read on my Kobo. It works fine using the Calibre ebook viewer. But on my Kobo, after switching to a japanese font, it only shows the main menu, the articles menu and in small font, it shows what appears at the end of articles. But the actual articles themselves are missing...just pure blank pages. The links on the articles menu appear to work (ie they send me to a different page), but they are just blank. This is not the case when reading in Calibre, so I thought it's a bit strange.

Since the articles seem to be written western style left to right, it doesn't seem like it should be a limitation of the Adobe epub renderer....

Any one have any ideas?

Edit: Actually, I take it back...it doesn't show up entirely properly on the calibre ebook viewer, although it isn't just a bunch of blank pages...it cuts off the ends of sentences!! I'm surprised that it's included as it doesn't work very well even in calibre, but other ones created by the same person DO seem to work...

Thank you for this thread, I'm having the same issue with other Japanese web sites and Calibre. I'll to see how to edit the style sheet to have those news displayed properly.
When reading 毎日新聞 with calibre, every article ends by "続きを読む", so I thought one needs to be registered to access the full article. However if I click the link, I can see the full article on Internet. Maybe the recipe isn't very good

Originally Posted by tshering

I deleted the whole content of the stylesheet.css. Now no lines are cut. Layout is very simple now, but good enough for my taste.

That's interesting. Is it possible to do that with Calibre? Or should I use Sigil?

[tshering]

Originally Posted by samhy

Is it possible to do that with Calibre? Or should I use Sigil?

I do not know, but I guess Sigil might be more convenient. I can only tell for sure that any text editor will do.
if you plan to do it on a regular basis, easiest thing might be to overwrite the original stylesheet.css with an empty one.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by tshering

I do not know, but I guess Sigil might be more convenient. I can only tell for sure that any text editor will do.
if you plan to do it on a regular basis, easiest thing might be to overwrite the original stylesheet.css with an empty one.

Thank you, I'll dig into that and all the preparing ebooks part. Until now, my experience with ebooks has been more on the reading side

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by samhy

Thank you for this thread, I'm having the same issue with other Japanese web sites and Calibre. I'll to see how to edit the style sheet to have those news displayed properly.
When reading 毎日新聞 with calibre, every article ends by "続きを読む", so I thought one needs to be registered to access the full article. However if I click the link, I can see the full article on Internet. Maybe the recipe isn't very good

Huh, interesting...I hadn't even realised that the "続きを読む" was free content too...I've I only read using my glo, and then those internet links don't work. I don't know much about recipes (other than for cooking ), so I'm not sure whether it's even possible for them to make it collect the whole article, if there is always that "続きを読む" on their online articles...

[tshering]

Originally Posted by Uschiekid

I've I only read using my glo, and then those internet links don't work.

There is something strange. I remembered that those links worked last time when I checked the file. Out of curiosity I tried it now again. I opened the same file as last time on my touch and pressed "続きを読む". The article opened without any problem in the browser. I went back to the kepub and tried another "続きを読む"-link and it did not work, instead it navigated to www.google.com. I tried again with the first link and now this also did not work. I tried several times, but no success.

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by tshering

There is something strange. I remembered that those links worked last time when I checked the file. Out of curiosity I tried it now again. I opened the same file as last time on my touch and pressed "続きを読む". The article opened without any problem in the browser. I went back to the kepub and tried another "続きを読む"-link and it did not work, instead it navigated to www.google.com. I tried again with the first link and now this also did not work. I tried several times, but no success.

Ah, ok, I hadn't converted to kepub since it worked fine as epub after getting rid of the stylesheet.css. But I guess internet links only work with kepub (although the underline disappears, so it's harder to tell what is a URL link...). But as you say, at least right now, it is just going to google.ca (my homepage).

I don't think I'd find it all that useful anyway, as I'd have to do that for every article, which defeats the purpose of downloading it, I'd rather have the full article download in the first place.
But in other newspapers which use links to show other articles for if you are not familiar with the background of a story, it might be quite useful...I might try those in kepub and see if the links work. Since I would only use it sparingly, it wouldn't be so interruptive to the reading process as with 毎日新聞.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Uschiekid

Huh, interesting...I hadn't even realised that the "続きを読む" was free content too...I've I only read using my glo, and then those internet links don't work. I don't know much about recipes (other than for cooking ), so I'm not sure whether it's even possible for them to make it collect the whole article, if there is always that "続きを読む" on their online articles...

Maybe 毎日新聞 only displays a blurb on the main page, ending each time by a "read more" link, so the recipe is copying that. I don't know much about recipes either, but usually I can read the full article of the (non Japanese) news fetched by Calibre

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by samhy

Maybe 毎日新聞 only displays a blurb on the main page, ending each time by a "read more" link, so the recipe is copying that. I don't know much about recipes either, but usually I can read the full article of the (non Japanese) news fetched by Calibre

Yeah, it may be just a tricky website setup. The Yomiuri Online (World) is also created by the same guy, but it doesn't have the read more link. (It also doesn't have the cut off words issue though..so maybe he just did a better job with the other one).
But you're right, it's the only one I've come across with that shortcoming.

[Quexos]

Could someone show me where I could get free e-books in Japanese ? I am curious to see how Japanese text displays on my Aura