kepubify - A standalone tool to convert ePubs into Kobo ePubs

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by gilster

I'm curious about this as well, and pardon my lack of experience on the point. But I do have several kepubs that display footnotes erratically, a problem because I have many books with needed footnotes. In one recent case, the popup shows about a third of the time, but on the same page I will often then get a link to a footnote page. This is problematic because it slows reading and causes multiple page refreshes.

That is going to be something in the book not matching the rules that the kepub renderer uses. I'd have to see the book to be able to guess what is going on.

My question is: Is this entirely a kepub issue, or would the same book in epub also have the same problem? My hunch is the it may be something in kepub, but I would appreciate guidance. Many thanks!

Effectively, it is a kepub issue as the epub renderer doesn't use popups for footnotes. They are all treated as links.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by RedHeron

I've noticed something strange.

If an epub uses <p>&nbsp;</p> to make a space, kepubify seems to ignore it, and there is no space.

But if I use the Calibre plugin to convert to kepub, <p>&nbsp;</p> still works and there is a space.

You might want to open the kepubify and Calibre plugin versions in an epub editor and see what that code looks like after the conversion. It's possible that one is converting to <p>&#160</p> while the other is leaving it as <p>&nbsp;</p>. The XHTML5 spec removed most of the named character entities so you have to use the numeric character entities which makes sense since XHTML5 dropped DTDs and most of the named character entities were defined in a DTD.

[gilster]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Effectively, it is a kepub issue as the epub renderer doesn't use popups for footnotes. They are all treated as links.

Thanks -- I didn't realize that!

[gilster]

One further question: Is the page numbering issue also a kepub-only phenomenon? I've found that even in books I've bought at the Kobo store, I occasionally run into the weird page jumps, indicating coding trouble somewhere. I'm assuming that epub does a better job with pagination? Thanks.

Paul

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by gilster

One further question: Is the page numbering issue also a kepub-only phenomenon? I've found that even in books I've bought at the Kobo store, I occasionally run into the weird page jumps, indicating coding trouble somewhere. I'm assuming that epub does a better job with pagination? Thanks.

There are a lot of people who complain about the page numbering in epubs and love the way it is done in kepubs, so I don't know if they do a better job. But, there are issues with the full-book page numbering in kepubs. These are related to errors in how the books are constructed, mainly to do with chapters/files missing from the ToC. I don't use this enough to have noticed them in purchased kepubs.

[RedHeron]

Originally Posted by DNSB

You might want to open the kepubify and Calibre plugin versions in an epub editor and see what that code looks like after the conversion. It's possible that one is converting to <p>*</p> while the other is leaving it as <p>&nbsp;</p>. The XHTML5 spec removed most of the named character entities so you have to use the numeric character entities which makes sense since XHTML5 dropped DTDs and most of the named character entities were defined in a DTD.

That's a good idea, so I tried checking the two versions in an editor.

The Calibre plugin changes it to <p>&#160</p>.
Kepubify changes it to <p></p>.

I tried changing the instances of <p>&nbsp;</p> in the original epub to <p>&#160</p>, and then converted with kepubify, to see if there was any difference.
Like before, it still changed it to <p></p>.

So I guess that explains why the spaces are disappearing.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by RedHeron

That's a good idea, so I tried checking the two versions in an editor.
The Calibre plugin changes it to <p>& #160 ;</p>.
Kepubify changes it to <p></p>.

I tried changing the instances of <p>&nbsp;</p> in the original epub to <p>& #160 ;</p>, and then converted with kepubify, to see if there was any difference.
Like before, it still changed it to <p></p>.

So I guess that explains why the spaces are disappearing.

Thanks for the feedback. I had to add some spaces as Mobileread's quote function kept changing the numeric entity to a space.

[JSWolf]

Before converting to kepub, just go into the code and fix all those nasty bits of poor coding. Use CSS to do it. Problem solved.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by RedHeron

That's a good idea, so I tried checking the two versions in an editor.

The Calibre plugin changes it to <p>*</p>.
Kepubify changes it to <p></p>.

I tried changing the instances of <p>&nbsp;</p> in the original epub to <p>*</p>, and then converted with kepubify, to see if there was any difference.
Like before, it still changed it to <p></p>.

So I guess that explains why the spaces are disappearing.

Sorry for not responding earlier, I was away for a while. I'll look into this issue now and fix it in the next version (which will have many other major changes too).

[geek1011]

I have finished version 2.0. Please use my new post for discussing it instead of this one.

I created a new thread to avoid confusion, as the syntax and features of kepubify have changed quite a bit.