Sage Best way to convert epub to Kepub in Calibre

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Frankly I don't know if it fixes the line-spacing bug, because I edit all my books manually. You can try. For books already on the device, you must remove them and send them again, there's no other way.

You don't have to remove them. You just have to remove line-height from the CSS and resend.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Apollyon202

Just out of curiosity, what do you (plural) edit in epub books? Normally I purchase it from the local store, download it as epub, convert it with Calibre and send it to my Libra.
The formatting etc is perfect all the time, all the books look the same on my Kobo as I can customize all settings on the ereader.

Perfect? Look the same? That's not reality. Many eBooks have different formatting. And some of that is not good. So how would you remove all the excess space from chapter headers using Kobo settings? How would you remove chapter headings as links and get rid of the underlines? How would you fix the smaller text so it's normal size? How would you fix it so you can adjust the line height in eBooks with line height in the CSS? How would you add sections to the ToC so the page numbers work properly? How do you fix the overly large L/R margins? How do you fix overly large indents?

These are all things you need to edit the ePub to fix.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Apollyon202

Just out of curiosity, what do you (plural) edit in epub books? Normally I purchase it from the local store, download it as epub, convert it with Calibre and send it to my Libra.
The formatting etc is perfect all the time, all the books look the same on my Kobo as I can customize all settings on the ereader.

Maybe all the publishers in your country use the same formatting? Most of what I read is in English and formatting can vary wildly between books. And I don't want to fiddle with ereader settings every time I open a new book.

As to what I personally edit, there are many things depending on the specific book, including:

• Removing unnecessary margins from body text
• Removing font size from body text if different from 1em
• Removing embedded font family from body text (not from headings or special sections)
• Removing line height from body text
• Setting text indents to 1em
• Deleting spaces between ordinary paragraphs (not section breaks)
• Setting widows and orphans to 1
• Removing unnecessary white space from chapter headings and section breaks
• Deleting ads, praises, excerpts, samples and all other unnecessary filler stuff
• Fixing table of contents when needed (some older books have missing or incomplete TOC)

I'm sure there are more things...

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Perfect? Look the same? That's not reality. Many eBooks have different formatting.

The OP may not be in an English-speaking country. Maybe most books have similar formatting where they live.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Maybe all the publishers in your country use the same formatting? Most of what I read is in English and formatting can vary wildly between books. And I don't want to fiddle with ereader settings every time I open a new book.

As to what I personally edit, there are many things depending on the specific book, including:

• Removing unnecessary margins from body text
• Removing font size from body text if different from 1em
• Removing embedded font family from body text (not from headings or special sections)
• Removing line height from body text
• Setting text indents to 1em
• Deleting spaces between ordinary paragraphs (not section breaks)
• Setting widows and orphans to 1
• Removing unnecessary white space from chapter headings and section breaks
• Deleting ads, praises, excerpts, samples and all other unnecessary filler stuff
• Fixing table of contents when needed (some older books have missing or incomplete TOC)

I'm sure there are more things...

There are more things. these and other are not things you can do in the Kobo software.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You don't have to remove them. You just have to remove line-height from the CSS and resend.

If the books were epub and now they want to send kepubs, they'll have to remove the epubs, or they'll have two books instead of one.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

If the books were epub and now they want to send kepubs, they'll have to remove the epubs, or they'll have two books instead of one.

That's true.

[Apollyon202]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Perfect? Look the same? That's not reality. Many eBooks have different formatting. And some of that is not good. So how would you remove all the excess space from chapter headers using Kobo settings? How would you remove chapter headings as links and get rid of the underlines? How would you fix the smaller text so it's normal size? How would you fix it so you can adjust the line height in eBooks with line height in the CSS? How would you add sections to the ToC so the page numbers work properly? How do you fix the overly large L/R margins? How do you fix overly large indents?

These are all things you need to edit the ePub to fix.

Oh I get it. I think I misunderstood something. These things aren't that important to me, I guess. Or are they? Do these things fix the issue where sometimes at the end of a chapter the last sentence or word takes up a whole page, so you have to turn the page again just for the next chapter to start?

From your description it looks like it would take more time to do all of this (at scale) than just reading the book as it is and moving on to the next one. Unless it's automated.
How do you edit your books? With Sigil and/or Calibre? I have to add that I only convert the epub files to kepub and that's it, especially since NickelTypeFix fixes most kepub renderer issues.

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Maybe all the publishers in your country use the same formatting? Most of what I read is in English and formatting can vary wildly between books. And I don't want to fiddle with ereader settings every time I open a new book.

As to what I personally edit, there are many things depending on the specific book, including:

• Removing unnecessary margins from body text
• Removing font size from body text if different from 1em
• Removing embedded font family from body text (not from headings or special sections)
• Removing line height from body text
• Setting text indents to 1em
• Deleting spaces between ordinary paragraphs (not section breaks)
• Setting widows and orphans to 1
• Removing unnecessary white space from chapter headings and section breaks
• Deleting ads, praises, excerpts, samples and all other unnecessary filler stuff
• Fixing table of contents when needed (some older books have missing or incomplete TOC)

I'm sure there are more things...

Holy Christ, that's a lot of stuff.
Half of the things I don't even know what they do... What I've seen on my ebooks is that they look almost the same as the paper version.
Like what does this do?
"Removing unnecessary margins from body text"

I mean I get it, but if I put my margins to minimal, all paragraphs look the same. Sometimes there's special formatting, like a citation with different margins (narrower), but that's there for a reason, like to differentiate it from the rest of the text. Do you also remove these?
What about ads? Yeah, sometimes there's a recommendation from the publisher to buy other books, but I just jump to the end and that's it, book finished. There was one time when at the end of a book there was half a chapter from another book, as a preview. Well yeah that's annoying, but I never check the end of a book I've never read before, so I only find out when I get there and I'm basically finished with the book. I hope that's the worst you get, and not something in the middle of a book.

I also skip the TOC mostly, because even the titles of the chapters can spoil the content (for me) of the book.

I've never seen different fonts in one book. More like I haven't seen a different font in a book other than what I set up in the settings.
By the way, I mostly read in Hungarian when there's a translation, otherwise I read in English. Most of the time I buy the books from local bookstores to support local publishing. Otherwise I buy the books from Kobo and remove the DRM.
And the same question goes to you as well, what do you edit your books with?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Apollyon202

Oh I get it. I think I misunderstood something. These things aren't that important to me, I guess. Or are they? Do these things fix the issue where sometimes at the end of a chapter the last sentence or word takes up a whole page, so you have to turn the page again just for the next chapter to start?

That's widows and orphans, and actually the way you describe it is the way I prefer it. The other option is regular gaps at the bottom of the page.

From your description it looks like it would take more time to do all of this (at scale) than just reading the book as it is and moving on to the next one. Unless it's automated.

No, it doesn't take as long as reading the book, unless you're a super speed reader. Generally it takes 15-30 min per book, sometimes less.

How do you edit your books? With Sigil and/or Calibre? I have to add that I only convert the epub files to kepub and that's it, especially since NickelTypeFix fixes most kepub renderer issues.

I edit with the calibre editor.

"Removing unnecessary margins from body text"

I mean I get it, but if I put my margins to minimal, all paragraphs look the same. Sometimes there's special formatting, like a citation with different margins (narrower), but that's there for a reason, like to differentiate it from the rest of the text. Do you also remove these?

No. I mean that some publishers put additional margins all around the text. I think kepubs ignore them, but epubs don't, and I want my books to look the same no matter which renderer I use.

What about ads? Yeah, sometimes there's a recommendation from the publisher to buy other books, but I just jump to the end and that's it, book finished. There was one time when at the end of a book there was half a chapter from another book, as a preview. Well yeah that's annoying, but I never check the end of a book I've never read before, so I only find out when I get there and I'm basically finished with the book. I hope that's the worst you get, and not something in the middle of a book.

The worst was 7 sample chapters at the end. I don't want that stuff, because it screws up the page count and the progress bar.

I also skip the TOC mostly, because even the titles of the chapters can spoil the content (for me) of the book.

I often use the TOC to look something up I've forgotten, and I also use it for chapter hopping, which doesn't work without TOC.

I've never seen different fonts in one book. More like I haven't seen a different font in a book other than what I set up in the settings.

Kepubs ignore all embedded fonts without patching. Again, epubs don't, and sometimes publishers embed a font for general text, in which case you can't even change it in the device settings (unless it's kepub).

In short, you don't see many of those issues with kepubs, but you will if you ever switch to a device that uses straight epubs.

[John F]

Apollyon202, I use calibre and do an EPUB to EPUB conversion and a send kepub. To me, the main formatting looks the same on all the books. Chapter headers a scene breaks may look different.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by John F

Apollyon202, I use calibre and do an EPUB to EPUB conversion and a send kepub. To me, the main formatting looks the same on all the books. Chapter headers a scene breaks may look different.

Yes, as I said kepubs ignore many of those issues. Epubs don't.

[Dal Bhat]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Edit the ePub and in the CSS, remove all of the line-height lines. You don't need them. That will fix your wife's problem.

This is required for every new epub before sending to device?

Can this be automated?

[Dal Bhat]

Originally Posted by John F

Apollyon202, I use calibre and do an EPUB to EPUB conversion and a send kepub. T

How do you send a kepub?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Dal Bhat

How do you send a kepub?

See the second post of this thread.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Dal Bhat

This is required for every new epub before sending to device?

Can this be automated?

It's not required. But if using kepub instead of epub doesn't fix the issue, then yes, deleting line-height from css will do it. You can also convert epub to epub and insert line-height in Look&Feel -> Styling -> Other CSS Properties in the conversion settings. Be aware that this will remove ALL line-height settings from the css, not only those for general text.