How to allow our books to be converted to all ereader formats with calibre?

[itimpi]

As I understand it when you use the Calibre viewer if the format is not already ePub it does a conversion to ePub and then shows the result. You therefore cannot rely on the Calibre viewer to be representative of the real e-reader devices.

I ahve never checked to see how true the PC/Mac versions of specific viewers are to the real devices, but I would expect them to be closer to that the calibre viewer. It could also be worth trying the iOS (iPhone/iTouch/iPad) versions of these applications to see if they are truer which they may well be the case considering the different form factor. The iPad may be a good test vehicle as it has viewers (Kindle, B&N, Kobo etc) that are meant to be equivalent to most of the dedicated e-reader devices as well as having a raft of ePub capable readers (iBooks, Stanza, QuickReader etc)..

[webfolk]

Thanks for the suggestion, itimpi. I just downloaded the SONY ereader and the EPUB file looks fine. There's a blank page before the cover and between the publisher's page and the foreword but, all things considered, that's no big deal. I Googled around and confirmed there is no ipad "simulator" for the Mac. Since I live in a somewhat remote area and don't have access to an iPad, at this point I'm just about ready to assume the EPUB and MOBI files are OK to use as they are.

Does anyone have any insight as to why the Barnes and Noble viewer is so anomalous?

Originally Posted by webfolk

Opening the EPUB file in the Barnes and Noble viewer, the lines of text are shifted and indented strangely: many lines look like they're centered. How can this be corrected?

A PDB file converted from either HTML or EPUB viewed in the Calibre viewer or B&N reader loses all font formatting (no bold, italics, font size variations). There's no book cover or publisher logo GIF. Why is this happening?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by webfolk

Thanks for the suggestion, itimpi. I just downloaded the SONY ereader and the EPUB file looks fine.

itimpi was suggesting you find another viewer to use to review your mobi files. Calibre's viewer is a epub viewer and while it might not be representative of any specific ereader it does give you an idea of what the epub is actually looks like. Many ereaders use some version of Adobe Digital Editions to render their epubs so viewing using ADE might also be a good preview for epubs.

Mobi on the other hand is converted to epub before calibre's viewer displays it, so to view a mobi file it is best to find another app like Kindle4PC or Mobipocket Reader that will display mobi in its native format.

[webfolk]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

itimpi was suggesting you find another viewer to use to review your mobi files. Calibre's viewer is a epub viewer and while it might not be representative of any specific ereader it does give you an idea of what the epub is actually looks like. Many ereaders use some version of Adobe Digital Editions to render their epubs so viewing using ADE might also be a good preview for epubs.

Mobi on the other hand is converted to epub before calibre's viewer displays it, so to view a mobi file it is best to find another app like Kindle4PC or Mobipocket Reader that will display mobi in its native format.

My last post wasn't clear, not restating that I had looked at the MOBI file in Kindle for Mac. Having seen the difference between this and the view in Calibre generated my questions:

Originally Posted by webfolk

How accurately does the Calibre viewer depict the actual book in each format? The MOBI book looks different in Calibre than it does in Kindle for Mac: for example, Calibre changes the font from serif to non-serif.

Just how poorly or how well can I expect an EPUB file to be displayed on the many different devices?

which have been answered.

I just downloaded ADE and the EPUB file looks the same as it does in the SONY Reader Library: a blank page is displayed as the cover and the cover image appears on the next page. I loaded the cover in Calibre during the conversion to EPUB. This and a few other issues are still hanging. The topic for this thread is pretty broad and I think it's time now to address the remaining issues individually on separate threads.

Thanks!