How to repair broken lines? - Page 2

Jane Eyre · 05-26-2026, 05:11 PM

Thank you but... I know nothing about regex.

Turtle91 · 05-26-2026, 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jane Eyre

Thank you but... I know nothing about regex.

It’s just a fancy find/replace with some variables thrown in where you want multiple “finds”. Luckily you have been given an example or two where you can simply copy/paste the “find” portion, and then copy/paste the “replace” portion.

Then step thru the find replace one item at a time - that covers 99.99% of JSWolfe’s insistence on the “manual” method.

I also highly advise taking 10 minutes to learn the very basics of regex… it makes editing soooo much easier!!!

Jane Eyre · 05-26-2026, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turtle91

It’s just a fancy find/replace with some variables thrown in where you want multiple “finds”. Luckily you have been given an example or two where you can simply copy/paste the “find” portion, and then copy/paste the “replace” portion.

Then step thru the find replace one item at a time - that covers 99.99% of JSWolfe’s insistence on the “manual” method.

I also highly advise taking 10 minutes to learn the very basics of regex… it makes editing soooo much easier!!!

I played for 30 seconds with Calibre, but nothing happened. So frustrating..
Useless. I won't try anything more.

Turtle91 · 05-26-2026, 05:52 PM

lolz! That sounds a lot like "I sat in the seat and poked a couple of buttons but the car didn't drive anywhere!!"

If you quit too early on learning anything, then you will never learn anything... at least that is what I teach my grandkids when they give me answers like that! The short version is "Use your own brain, not mine. I already know how to do it!"

Cheers,

Jane Eyre · 05-26-2026, 06:08 PM

No. I don't want to waste my (little) daytime to do nonsense tasks. I would rather use it to READ the books that I already have

KevinH · 05-26-2026, 06:14 PM

Then read them as pdfs and be done.

PeterT · 05-26-2026, 06:19 PM

You might want to experiment with "Heuristic processing" options during the conversion; especially the "unwrap lines" setting. See https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/con...tic-processing

Jane Eyre · 05-26-2026, 06:45 PM

I'd better purchase a paperback copy. It must cost very little money.
Tanks to everybody!

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeterT

You might want to experiment with "Heuristic processing" options during the conversion; especially the "unwrap lines" setting. See https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/con...tic-processing

Too hard for me, because of a book which I don't even want to (re)read, truly.
It's been a sort of nostalgy, really.

DNSB · 05-26-2026, 08:59 PM

I would agree with @gbm and @Karellen. You can automate much of the correction with @gbm's code or a similar variant to locate a paragraph ending in a lower case letter with the next paragraph starting with a lower case letter, @Karellen's code for locating a paragraph ending in a - and locating a paragraph ending in a ;:,. After that search and replace which is saved as an automated search/replace in Sigil, I then check for paragraphs starting with a lower case letter and paragraphs ending in a lower case letter and clean those up as needed. About 95% of the work is done by the automated search.

For the first search, I started with the Join Paragraph sample search in Sigil's saved searches:

Code:

Find: ([[:alpha:],])</p>\s*<p\b[^>]*>
Replace: \1

and added code similar to @Karellens for the more common non-alphabetic characters.

The last book I ran though the process dropped from 600 paragraphs split incorrectly to 14 that needed manual fixing plus a few random incorrect fixes in the title and copyright pages. The joys of an author after the rights were reverted, getting the electronic versions of their books in PDF format which needed to be converted to ePub and docx format.

icearch · 05-27-2026, 01:54 AM

Does anybody have any idea how to fix broken paragraph in Chinese?

Jane Eyre · 05-27-2026, 02:56 AM

@DNSB Thank you but I don't want hear about Sigil anymore.
I had started to edit the epub manually, almost line by line. That's a strongly exhausting thing to do and I had been able to do the large part of it... since when the bastard decided to waste my fatigue to the dustubin by NOT saving the file.
This happened in the past some times. NOW STOP.
And the file is gone. I don't care anymore.

John F · 05-27-2026, 06:21 AM

Jane Eyre: please ignore.

In case it helps someone else...

I did a quick try of PeterT suggestion, and it did remove a lot of hard line breaks.

DNSB · 05-27-2026, 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by icearch

Does anybody have any idea how to fix broken paragraph in Chinese?

I suspect the only way would be to look for paragraphs that do not end in a punctuation mark—speaking as someone who does not read any flavour of Chinese.

DNSB · 05-27-2026, 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jane Eyre

@DNSB Thank you but I don't want hear about Sigil anymore.
I had started to edit the epub manually, almost line by line. That's a strongly exhausting thing to do and I had been able to do the large part of it... since when the bastard decided to waste my fatigue to the dustubin by NOT saving the file.
This happened in the past some times. NOW STOP.
And the file is gone. I don't care anymore.

Sorry to hear about your bad experience. Between using checkpoints and compulsively saving after changes, my experience with Sigil has been a lot more positive. The automation features are the cherry on my cake.

Jane Eyre · 05-28-2026, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

using checkpoints

Yes, that was a mistake of mine.
Anyway, I found the book in english, I can understand almost all, it's a good exercise, that's fine

05-26-2026, 08:59 PM	#24
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 53,315 Karma: 181495311 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	I would agree with @gbm and @Karellen. You can automate much of the correction with @gbm's code or a similar variant to locate a paragraph ending in a lower case letter with the next paragraph starting with a lower case letter, @Karellen's code for locating a paragraph ending in a - and locating a paragraph ending in a ;:,. After that search and replace which is saved as an automated search/replace in Sigil, I then check for paragraphs starting with a lower case letter and paragraphs ending in a lower case letter and clean those up as needed. About 95% of the work is done by the automated search. For the first search, I started with the Join Paragraph sample search in Sigil's saved searches: Code: Find: ([[:alpha:],])</p>\s<p\b[^>]> Replace: \1 and added code similar to @Karellens for the more common non-alphabetic characters. The last book I ran though the process dropped from 600 paragraphs split incorrectly to 14 that needed manual fixing plus a few random incorrect fixes in the title and copyright pages. The joys of an author after the rights were reverted, getting the electronic versions of their books in PDF format which needed to be converted to ePub and docx format.

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05-26-2026, 05:11 PM	#16
Jane Eyre Zealot Posts: 142 Karma: 6368 Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Italy Device: Kindle P.white3/Kobo Clara 2E	Thank you but... I know nothing about regex.

05-26-2026, 05:52 PM	#19
Turtle91 A Hairy Wizard Posts: 3,490 Karma: 21099999 Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Charleston, SC today Device: iPhone 15/11/X/6/iPad 1,2,Air & Air Pro/Surface Pro/Kindle PW & Fire	lolz! That sounds a lot like "I sat in the seat and poked a couple of buttons but the car didn't drive anywhere!!" If you quit too early on learning anything, then you will never learn anything... at least that is what I teach my grandkids when they give me answers like that! The short version is "Use your own brain, not mine. I already know how to do it!" Cheers,

05-26-2026, 06:08 PM	#20
Jane Eyre Zealot Posts: 142 Karma: 6368 Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Italy Device: Kindle P.white3/Kobo Clara 2E	No. I don't want to waste my (little) daytime to do nonsense tasks. I would rather use it to READ the books that I already have

05-26-2026, 06:14 PM	#21
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 9,822 Karma: 7500000 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Then read them as pdfs and be done.

05-26-2026, 06:19 PM	#22
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 14,045 Karma: 83121446 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Libra H2O, Libra Colour	You might want to experiment with "Heuristic processing" options during the conversion; especially the "unwrap lines" setting. See https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/con...tic-processing

05-27-2026, 01:54 AM	#25
icearch Groupie Posts: 167 Karma: 2000 Join Date: Nov 2025 Device: none	Does anybody have any idea how to fix broken paragraph in Chinese?

05-27-2026, 02:56 AM	#26
Jane Eyre Zealot Posts: 142 Karma: 6368 Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Italy Device: Kindle P.white3/Kobo Clara 2E	@DNSB Thank you but I don't want hear about Sigil anymore. I had started to edit the epub manually, almost line by line. That's a strongly exhausting thing to do and I had been able to do the large part of it... since when the bastard decided to waste my fatigue to the dustubin by NOT saving the file. This happened in the past some times. NOW STOP. And the file is gone. I don't care anymore.

05-27-2026, 06:21 AM	#27
John F Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,272 Karma: 72602129 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Kobo Clara 2E	Jane Eyre: please ignore. In case it helps someone else... I did a quick try of PeterT suggestion, and it did remove a lot of hard line breaks.