[GUI Plugin] Modify ePub

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

I always seem to learn new things about calibre.

Just keeping track of Calibre changes is a full time job.
And Tweaks get tweaked from time to time. Besides New tweaks, Some of the old ones get additional options.

Kovid
Could the Tweak description line include a date of the Option description block change (not to be confused with a user option value edit), so we can easily spot our Newer options

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by theducks

Kovid
Could the Tweak description line include a date of the Option description block change (not to be confused with a user option value edit), so we can easily spot our Newer options

Not really, that's rather a lot of work to develop to maintain. And just think of all the nice surprises you would miss out on when browsing the forums

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Not really, that's rather a lot of work to develop to maintain. And just think of all the nice surprises you would miss out on when browsing the forums

[mob]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@mob - just see Man Eating Duck's post above regarding Preferences -> Tweaks.

The category of the tweak to change is "Save original file when converting/polishing from same format tos...". You will see "save_original_format_when_polishing" which as per the release notes for this plugin is what the plugin checks for - set this to False, restart calibre and you will not get the ORIGINAL_EPUB entries appearing.

Kiwidude, I saw this post.... Dont mean to be fuzzy but only would like to disable the generation of Original_Epub in "Modify Epub" plug-in as the it works perfectly... As it worked that way in previous versions, thought it might be easy to re-introduce...

If I were to disable the generation globally, I would get into all sorts of trouble when doing the "normal" epub-to-epub conversation, where more often than not (at least for me) the result of the new epub is worse than the original.... Again, this would be nice to have but is really not necessary...

Really appreciate that you take the time to reply to all our queries / requests!

Mop

[kiwidude]

@mob - read the comments for the tweak. It *only* applies to the "Polish Books" feature and now also this Modify ePub plugin. If you look at the screen you will see a completely independent tweak which applies for doing conversions. So long as you only set the one I mentioned above of "save_original_format_when_polishing" to false then you will be fine.

[mob]

@kiwidude - thanks a lot for clarification! Will give it a whirl...

Cheers / Mop

[Ashfall]

I've only been using this plugin for about a month and have found it extremely useful. I have one feature request though, and haven't been able to find it in this thread.

Would it be possible to add a section to check reference types in the content.opf? I know thumbimagestd gets removed when replacing a cover, and it also seems to get removed when removing unused images. But what about fixing references such as type="copyright" (fix to type="copyright-page") and type="Start" (fix to type="text"). Or just removing them when they are completely unnecessary.

[Ealdwulf]

I've been using this plug-in for a while now and haven't had any issues until tonight. I was looking at the metadata jacket and wanted to add taht to some of my files that I was going to provide a friend of mine with. So I ran it on a couple of files with no problems, saw what it looked like, and then edited the template.xhtml and stylesheet.css files to match what I wanted. Now when I run modify epub with the option to add/replace the jacket it provides an error and will not update the file.

calibre, version 1.3.0
ERROR: Modify ePub failed: No ePub files were updated

Modify ePubs
Logfile for book ID 117 (The Assassin and the Pirate Lord / Sarah J. Maas)
117
  Modifying:  D:\- - ! Temp Files ! - -\Temp Files\calibre_ykft0n\14kqyk_modify_epub\117.epub
Parsing xml file: ops/9781599909547.opf
Parsing xml file: ops/toc.ncx
	Looking for files to remove: [u'iTunesMetadata.plist', u'iTunesArtwork']
	Looking for files to remove: [u'META-INF/calibre_bookmarks.txt']
	Looking for files to remove: [u'.DS_Store', u'thumbs.db']
	Looking for unused images
	Looking for broken links in the NCX
	Looking for Adobe xpgt files and links to remove
	Looking for Adobe DRM meta tags to remove
	Adding or updating jacket
The Assassin and the Pirate Lord - ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.modify", line 73, in process_book
  File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.modify", line 155, in _process_book
  File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.jacket", line 16, in add_replace_jacket
  File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\transforms\jacket.py", line 259, in render_jacket
  File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\transforms\jacket.py", line 221, in generate_html
KeyError: u'_subseries'

ePub not changed after 0.25 seconds

Does the plug-in not allow for these files to be edited or is this a bug in the plugin?

[kiwidude]

@Eadwulf - this is calling calibre code, so I am willing to bet that doing a Polish or ePub conversion will give you the same error. I think Kovid has actually changed that file with the latest code so looks like it was something he may have fixed for the next release?

[Ealdwulf]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@Eadwulf - this is calling calibre code, so I am willing to bet that doing a Polish or ePub conversion will give you the same error. I think Kovid has actually changed that file with the latest code so looks like it was something he may have fixed for the next release?

Thanks for the quick response on this. I had never used ebook-polish before, so hadn't even thought to check it. I just got through doing a test and sure enough, it gave the same errors

Using this, I was able to figure out that for some reason it does not like using one of my custom columns in the metadata jacket, specifically a secondary column that provides series like information. Guess I need to go file a bug report with Kovid on this one.

[Japes]

Question. When modifying an epub to insert a description at the start of the book, and then converting to mobi, for whatever reason, the description is gone when I open it in my Kindle. Is there a way around this?

[Sabardeyn]

This is confusing to answer because MOBI is potentially any one of four different file structures using the same extension.

To over-simply things (assuming I'm remembering correctly), there is no place within the MOBI schema to place a description/comment field. So effectively, when calibre updates the MOBI ebook file, the description is ignored. Calibre keeps the info within it's own set of files, but has no way to include it within the MOBI format - it would be considered a corrupted file.

Having said that, you can sidestep the issue entirely by using the AZW3 format (which is one of the four file schemes hiding in a MOBI), which I believe does support a description/comment field. Assuming your device can use that format.

You probably need to change your Output settings and... something else having to do with the priority order of output files. If you don't change both, I think you still get a MOBI. Both are in Preferences, but I'm not exactly sure where ATM.

[Man Eating Duck]

@Japes: did you mean the description field in calibre, or a description inserted as part of the content of the epub? I understood your post to mean the latter, and in that case, it might be malformed xhtml in that particular file. Open a copy of the epub in Sigil, let it fix any errors, and run validation. I've had entire chapters disappear from a commercial epub on conversion due to bad xhtml.

If it is indeed the description field in the metadata, listen to Sabardeyn instead

Edit: my brain is obviously not in proper working order this fine morning. Modify Epub does probably not generate invalid xhtml, so scratch that. Still, an inspection in Sigil might uncover other problems with the epub itself.

[@Escape]

@kiwidude

My Calibre version is 0.9.0

I have install the last version of the plug-in "Modify Epub" and I receive now the message

calibre, version 0.9.0 (win32, isfrozen: True)
Failed to modify ePubs: Échoué: Modify ePubs

Modify ePubs
Python function terminated unexpectedly
cannot import name IDPF_OBFUSCATION (Error Code: 1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site.py", line 132, in main
File "site.py", line 109, in run_entry_point
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\ipc\worker.py", line 186, in main
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\ipc\worker.py", line 130, in arbitrary_n
File "importlib\__init__.py", line 37, in import_module
File "site-packages\calibre\customize\zipplugin.py", line 150, in load_module
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.jobs", line 14, in <module>
File "site-packages\calibre\customize\zipplugin.py", line 150, in load_module
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.modify", line 22, in <module>
File "site-packages\calibre\customize\zipplugin.py", line 150, in load_module
File "calibre_plugins.modify_epub.container", line 19, in <module>
ImportError: cannot import name IDPF_OBFUSCATION

I have search a previous version but not found :-(

Thanks in advance.

[theducks]

Calibre is now at 1.5
is there a reason not to update?

Many PI needed fine tuning when the backend code changed, the needed calibre level requirements may have been missed and you got a version you should not have.
Kiwidude or Kovid will need to answer that.