EPUB output

[SharkDivingDiva]

I bought an ebook on B&N to test converting (<$5, my stepmom gave me B&N gift cards for Christmas). I was able to use ereader2html to remove the DRM. I get a folder with book.html and several .png files. If I open book.html in firefox, it looks great.

How do I convert the html to an epub format? I tried using Calibre, but it put ? where there should be ' or ". It's readable but annoying. I saw a previous similar question, and it was suggested to use W3C at http://validator.w3.org but it didn't show me anything that was useful to me. I couldn't see any relevant settings in Calibre either.

I should mention that I'm using a MacBookPro.

Thanks!

[bkilian]

Try a search for "html tidy" It can normally fix the weird characters you get out of ereader2html and make them into entities that calibre can do something with.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by SharkDivingDiva

I bought an ebook on B&N to test converting (<$5, my stepmom gave me B&N gift cards for Christmas). How do I convert the html to an epub format? I tried using Calibre, but it put ? where there should be ' or ".

Try checking the Transliterate unicode characters to an ASCII option under Look & Feel.

[MidnightRun]

Yesterday I was trying to generate a ePub from an 80 Mbytes big HTML book. Calibre couldn´t handle this. With simple HTML pages it works so far.

So calibre cant handle big books ?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by MidnightRun

Yesterday I was trying to generate a ePub from an 80 Mbytes big HTML book. Calibre couldn´t handle this. With simple HTML pages it works so far.

So calibre cant handle big books ?

Try Sigil, be patient.

Dale

[jconway1968]

I've noticed that when taking a PDF book and converting it to ePub, I often get strange line breaks such as:

"Once upon a time there lived a princess in a faraway
castle. Now this
princess was very beautiful, and no one in the land
thouhgt that
they were good enough..."

I've tried messing with settings, such as font size, etc... but that's hit or miss, and when it works, it's usually because I've selected a font that is small enough, but then I can't read it on my PRS-500, unless I increase the size, and then I'm back in the same boat as above... I'm hoping that I'm just not using the right features...

Please help

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by jconway1968

I've noticed that when taking a PDF book and converting it to ePub, I often get strange line breaks such as:

"Once upon a time there lived a princess in a faraway
castle. Now this
princess was very beautiful, and no one in the land
thouhgt that
they were good enough..."

I've tried messing with settings, such as font size, etc... but that's hit or miss, and when it works, it's usually because I've selected a font that is small enough, but then I can't read it on my PRS-500, unless I increase the size, and then I'm back in the same boat as above... I'm hoping that I'm just not using the right features...

Please help

In the conversion process each of these lines converted with a hard break at the end of each line. Evidently the converter you used could not distinguish a line from a paragraph. If you open the file up and look at its conent, for example, using Sigil or just unzipping it and looking with a simple editor you will find that the lines have been defined as separate paragraphs or at the very least they have hard breaks defined at the end of each of the orignal PDF lines.

Dale

[honk69]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

In the conversion process each of these lines converted with a hard break at the end of each line. Evidently the converter you used could not distinguish a line from a paragraph. If you open the file up and look at its conent, for example, using Sigil or just unzipping it and looking with a simple editor you will find that the lines have been defined as separate paragraphs or at the very least they have hard breaks defined at the end of each of the orignal PDF lines.

Dale

I have the same problem with the pdf -> epub conversion…

If I open the pdf with stanza, the conversion is done well and if I convert with the command line tool from calibre (ebook-convert <File.pdf> <File.epub>) the conversion is done well either…
So why can't calibre convert a pdf the "right" way, without inserting a line break at every line end?
Is there really no way to change something in the preferences of calibre to use it for pdf conversion? Any help would be great!

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by honk69

If I open the pdf with stanza, the conversion is done well and if I convert with the command line tool from calibre (ebook-convert <File.pdf> <File.epub>) the conversion is done well either…
So why can't calibre convert a pdf the "right" way, without inserting a line break at every line end?

1. Calibre doesn't insert a line break, the line break is there.
2. If you use the free Mobipocket Creator you can change pdf to html. Here you can see where the actual breaks are and clean things up using find and replace it wordpad.
3. PDF to epub code is being rewritten for Calibre. But the command line and the gui for Calibre use the same ebook-convert executable.

Originally Posted by honk69

Is there really no way to change something in the preferences of calibre to use it for pdf conversion? Any help would be great!

While we wait for the new conversion for PDF try going to preferences, conversion, PDF input and adjust the line unwrapping factor. Try .6 to start and vary it till you have what works best for you. I think the command line default is .5

Good Luck.

[nikkie]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

In the conversion process each of these lines converted with a hard break at the end of each line. Evidently the converter you used could not distinguish a line from a paragraph. If you open the file up and look at its conent, for example, using Sigil or just unzipping it and looking with a simple editor you will find that the lines have been defined as separate paragraphs or at the very least they have hard breaks defined at the end of each of the orignal PDF lines.

Dale

I also found this problem in a lot of my books. When I opened them up in plain text editors, they had newlines at the end of every physical line break to control the width of the text.

Here is what I did to solve this problem when the file was rtf or something I could physically edit:

Because I was working with these books in windows instead of on linux, I wanted a solution that would work in windows. So I tested a few things in Word and found a solution that mostly worked, and then recorded it as a macro.

In cases where there is a paragraph break, you always have two new lines. In cases where it is inappropriately breaking at the end of the physical width of the screen, there's always one. So, what I did is I did a Find/Replace for any two line breaks (^p^p) in word, and replaced them with another special character not in the file. Then I did a find replace for the single line breaks (^p) and replaced them with a single space. The I found and replaced the special character I had replaced the double breaks with again a double line break. (Or you can use a paragraph, whatever you want.)

Now, every time I find an RTF book that has this problem, I open it in Word real quick, run my macro, and save. Then I convert in calibre. Works perfectly.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by nikkie

Here is what I did to solve this problem...
Find/Replace for any two line breaks (^p^p) in word, and replaced them...Works perfectly.

Some books have lists in them, for example, a list of characters, a list of chapter titles, an index, etc. These lists usually do not have the two line breaks in them, and this procedure screws them up.

I find it is worth the effort to quickly look over the beginning and end of the book for lists (where they are usually found). If I find a list, I protect it. You can just add an extra line break at the end of each line in the list before running the macro so that the list has the double break format.

My usual procedure, however is to have two macros. The first replaces single line breaks with the nonsense word "_paralist_." I position the cursor at the start of the list and run the macro under manual control (confirm each replace) until it runs off the list (where I stop the macro). Then I run the global macro. The global macro finds all remaining double line breaks, replaces them with the nonsense word "_parapara_," then replaces all remaining single line breaks with spaces, then cleans up by replacing the two nonsense words with single or double line breaks.

[nikkie]

Originally Posted by Starson17

Some books have lists in them, for example, a list of characters, a list of chapter titles, an index, etc. These lists usually do not have the two line breaks in them, and this procedure screws them up.

I find it is worth the effort to quickly look over the beginning and end of the book for lists (where they are usually found). If I find a list, I protect it. You can just add an extra line break at the end of each line in the list before running the macro so that the list has the double break format.

My usual procedure, however is to have two macros. The first replaces single line breaks with the nonsense word "_paralist_." I position the cursor at the start of the list and run the macro under manual control (confirm each replace) until it runs off the list (where I stop the macro). Then I run the global macro. The global macro finds all remaining double line breaks, replaces them with the nonsense word "_parapara_," then replaces all remaining single line breaks with spaces, then cleans up by replacing the two nonsense words with single or double line breaks.

Ah, good point. I hadn't thought of that. Most of the books I used this procedure on were fiction.

[otrebor]

I have been having the same problem jconway1968 is having. I converted most of my ebooks in previous calibre versions, thus I used .36 or .37 for only a few. This led me to believe the issue was an isolated case. However, in .37 i tried converting a few pdfs that I knew had successfully been converted to epub in previous calibre versions and these presented the same issue. Thus i 'downgraded' to 0.6.31 and my conversions were then carried out flawlessly (i didn't enable anything in 'Look and Feel' besides the default font size key).

I just keep .31 installed on my XP partition for conversion purposes and use .37 on win7 for organizational purposes.

[pendragginp]

May I butt in and bring up a different problem for a moment?

I changed a kindle book to pdf and then, using calibre, I converted it to epub and tried to send it to my jetbook. It goes, but when I try to open it on my reader I get a message that says the file is too large. I get this message whether I download it directly to my reader or to the sd card. There's enough room in either the reader or the card for this file, so I don't know what the problem is. Can anyone help?

I started to read through this thread to see if this had already been addressed, but I have to go to work soon. So please to forgive if this has been asked and answered already. If it has, maybe somebody could just provide the link.

TIA!

ETA: I really need basic language here, I'm not anywhere near the level of most of you.

[pendragginp]

Added: the file is 30.8 mb, which my husband just told me is way too big for a book file. When he said that I looked at the others calibre has converted for my pocket pc and they are only 0.3, 0.4, 0.2 - what is wrong, do you think? Why did this book change to such a big file?

Totally confoozled.