Which 'other' ebook converts to best to epub?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I didn't say that all self-published eBooks are lousy. I said it's a crap shoot meaning some are OK and some are not.

As for the layout, that's not the issue here. The issue is the code. The code has to be good enough for the conversion to be good. Take a KF8 published by a mainstream publisher. The source of that KF8 will have been ePub. That KF8 can have the code shifted to an ePub with KindleUnpack (just have to fix the errors and there are not many of them). You get an ePub that matches the KF8 which matches the ePub pretty well. Take one of those lousy self published KF8 where the code is not good and the HTML is one big file and the conversion is not going to go well without a lot of work.

As for Vellum, the code it produces is lousy. So do not say that using Vellum produces a good eBook. Others can tell you about Vellum and how nasty it is. Pages is another awful program for creating eBooks. And then there is Word where the author has no clue about styles and the output is a freaking nightmare.

So really, there is no one format that converts well in all cases. Some formats convert better then others when the code is decent enough. That's about the best you can say.

I've cleaned up and converted many Vellum books. All I can say is they're one of the easiest to clean up. Not much there that needs fixing, at least for my personal needs. Most books from major publishers are a lot more pain in the backside.

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

By the way, Mobi and AZW are EXACTLY THE SAME FORMAT!

Not quite. Mobi is one HTML file, AZW is multiple HTML files.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

Not quite. Mobi is one HTML file, AZW is multiple HTML files.

Not quite.

Mobi is both a file format (Palm DataBase (PDB) containing a version of HTML 3.2 as one text stream, with images) and a file name extension usually used for that file format. There are several versions of that format, the 'current' version being 7.

AZW is just a file name extension. There's no specific file format associated with it, and Amazon uses it for any of their file formats.

AZW3 is the file name extension used for the KF8 format, which is a PDB containing HTML 4.0, CSS2 and image files, very similar to the specs for the internals of an ePub.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

AZW3 (non-fixed layout format) will convert best, as it was most likely generated from an epub.

Yes, and also docx. The doc and docx files may need headings, styles etc fixed.

PDF and DjVu are totally worst.