Weird Calibre Bugs

[gt_undergrad]

I have discovered some weird mistakes Calibre makes when it converts an HTML file to a MOBI file (Kindle). I don't know whether it is just my machine or you all have the same problem. Perhaps you can try.

(BUG 1) When you have something like Xxxx Street or Xxxx Boulevard or Xxxx Drive or Xxxx Highway. It creates a line break so the street name becomes a separate line in italic. See the example I have below.

Interestingly, if you have "... the Xxxx Highway ..." this does not occur.

(BUG 2) When you have two Capitalized words like Lake Huron or Dade County, the conversion makes it into a single word (LakeHuron, DadeCounty).

Please try it yourself. Here is a paragraph to try:

--------------------------------------------------

I’m living at 1924 Wilkenson Street. This is a good place, which is next to Highland Boulevard. Yes it may not be so convenient to go to Johnson Drive. But it is very close to Buford Highway.

I live very close to Lake Jesup. It is a great fishing lake in the Harrison County.

---------------------------------------------------

Paste it in Word, and save it as a webpage. Send it to Calibre to convert to mobi (assuming you have a Kindle). You'll see what I mean. Here is what the converted text looks like:

====================================
I’m living at
1924 Wilkenson Street
. This is a good place, which is next to
Highland Boulevard
. Yes it may not be so convenient to go to
Johnson Drive
. But it is very close to
Buford Highway
.

I live very close to LakeJesup. It is a great fishing lake in the HarrisonCounty. This is a very middle class county.
===================================

Thanks,
GT

[JMikeD]

I just tried it and it converted from HTML to MOBI with no problems.

[gt_undergrad]

I just saw that I'm using version 0.6.12 of Calibre. Do you use the latest version or an older version? Maybe I'll try on 6.17.

Also, it is possible that I have to click some box to get the correct conversion. So far I have not clicked any box in the conversion process. On the other hand, I don't get any problem unless what I describe occur in the Word converted webpage file.

I am attaching the two files: word file with the desired text (I couldn't upload the webpage file. This has to be converted to webpage in Word first), and the converted mobi file.

Could it be my machine?

Help!

GT

calibre test - Unknown.mobi

calibre test.doc

[JMikeD]

I'm using the current version, whatever that is (0.6.17?).

[jackie_w]

Hi GT,
There may be more than one solution to this, but have you tried saving your Word document as type "WebPage filtered" rather than type "WebPage"? This may get rid of the problem.

Jackie

[gt_undergrad]

Dear Jackie:

Many thanks for the suggestion. Indeed I played around just a moment ago, and you beat me to it! So have you had the same problem?

Here is what I had found:

(1) Saving it as a web page filtered instead of just a webpage completely eliminates the problem! Great call, Jackie!

(2) Saving it as RTF is also good.

Now I did upgrade to Calibre 0.6.17, and the problem persisted.

So what could the problem with saving it as a "webpage"? Is it because of some of the tags in it that scew things up?

GT

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by gt_undergrad

So what could the problem with saving it as a "webpage"? Is it because of some of the tags in it that scew things up?

If you save from Word as Web Page rather than Web Page (filtered) you get a vast number of additional HTML items added in the file that are really Microsoft specific.

If you try loading the results of the two different types of save into a Text editor you can easily see the vast difference in the generated HTML.

[jackie_w]

Glad to be of help, GT. I am fairly new to ebooks, HTML and Calibre myself and have spent many a long hour trying to find ways to get nice, neat HTML out of Word so I could store it in Calibre. The solution I suggested was the biggest help. I'll also pass on a few more findings in case they are of use to you or anyone else.

1. If you style your main text paragraphs with the Word Style "Normal(Web)" rather than "Normal" then the HTML output will look like

<p>This is my paragraph</p>

instead of

<p class=MsoNormal>This is my paragraph</p>

which is easier to read if you have to edit the HTML afterwards.

2. Make sure you apply Word's built-in Styles "Heading 1", "Heading 2" etc to style your Titles and Chapter headings, as these will result in neat HTML like

<h1>My Book Title</h1>
<h2>Chapter 1</h2>

You can then use these h1, h2 etc tags to tell Calibre how to detect chapters and page breaks.
If you don't like the existing Word "Heading n" styles then modify the Word style, don't be tempted to modify your text directly.

3. If you want to go a step further, you can create your own standard CSS file containing all your styling info. Once you've got it just right for your needs you don't need to touch it again. Just link to it in each Word doc before saving as type Web-filtered. Then you can strip out all the generated HTML that Word produces between (and including) the
<style> and </style> tags
(and that can be an awful lot of code!) which makes for a smaller HTML file.

4. I didn't find RTF very satisfactory as a format for storing in Calibre. The main reasons being that some formatting was lost when converted to LRF/EPUB, namely, centre- and right-alignment, graphics, line-breaks. I don't know whether this is still the case.

Jackie

P.S. I think the problems you were having with the Street names etc were to do with Word's smart-tags "features". You could investigate switching these off.

[gt_undergrad]

Hi Jackie:

Thanks a lot for those tips! You don't look like someone who is new to ebooks, as you are far more advanced than I'm

GT