Epub to Mobi (calibre) Table dosen't show

[Nessyta]

Hi!
I converted an .epub to .mobi with calibre and it works perfect, BUT the tables dosen't show, only therir content.
Any idea on how to fix this?
I use Notepad++ to build and edit the epub file. Can the prolem be on the code?

Thanks

[DaleDe]

Did you define border="1"

[Nessyta]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Did you define border="1"

No, I didn't, that was the problem I had changed thar value several times, using the same format of border of the other parts of the table without success. It's true what they say, simplify the code and it will all work :P
Thanks! I hope not to fall to another stupid mistake like this one :P

[SoftwareManiac]

I also have seen issues with getting table borders to work. Using InDesign, a CSS style is produced for tables and this is what I modified in the .epub generated file:

table.Lined-Table {
border-collapse : collapse;
border-width : 1px;
border : 1;
border-style : solid;
border-color : #000000;
margin-top : 0px;
margin-bottom : 0px;
}

The table content shows just fine -- the border doesn't in the resultant .mobi using calibre v0.8.1. Odd, when I view the modified .epub using Adobe Digital Editions or even the calibre internal viewer, the tables render as I'd expect. It is only the resultant conversion to .mobi.

Help?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by SoftwareManiac

I also have seen issues with getting table borders to work. Using InDesign, a CSS style is produced for tables and this is what I modified in the .epub generated file:

table.Lined-Table {
border-collapse : collapse;
border-width : 1px;
border : 1;
border-style : solid;
border-color : #000000;
margin-top : 0px;
margin-bottom : 0px;
}

The table content shows just fine -- the border doesn't in the resultant .mobi using calibre v0.8.1. Odd, when I view the modified .epub using Adobe Digital Editions or even the calibre internal viewer, the tables render as I'd expect. It is only the resultant conversion to .mobi.

Help?

Way too complicated for mobi. Mobi is an older web format, mostly predating HTML 4.0. It has no knowledge of CSS. The conversion program attempts to convert CSS to something mobi can understand but the above it beyond what it can do. It cannot collapse the width to 1 pixel for example. Table support in mobi is primitive.

Dale

[SoftwareManiac]

Thank you - I appreciate that. Good information to know about the mobi format, but there is an Amazon InDesign to Kindle plug-in that does work with tables and it does put a nice border around tables. The calibre to mobi format conversion does not. Mmmm...anyone know how to get the .mobi format specification?

Thanks, Ken

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by SoftwareManiac

Mmmm...anyone know how to get the .mobi format specification?

Offer Amazon a bajillion dollars to buy it from them?
It's proprietary. Much has been guessed at and reverse engineered by others, but there are still unsolved mysteries. You can check out what is known on the format wiki here at MobileRead.

Originally Posted by SoftwareManiac

but there is an Amazon InDesign to Kindle plug-in that does work with tables and it does put a nice border around tables. The calibre to mobi format conversion does not.

I would suggest unpacking an InDesign generated mobi (that contains a table with a nice border around it) with something like the MobiUnpack python script to see exactly what the html to produce what you want, looks like. Then you can modify your source epub (by hand or with Sigil) to something that calibre can work with.

But if you already have InDesign with the Kindle plugin, why are you using calibre to convert your books to mobi? I love me some calibre, but I'm going to use Amazon's official mobi creation software (if they're available to me) to ensure maximum compatibility for ebooks that are going to be read on their devices and apps.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by SoftwareManiac

Thank you - I appreciate that. Good information to know about the mobi format, but there is an Amazon InDesign to Kindle plug-in that does work with tables and it does put a nice border around tables. The calibre to mobi format conversion does not. Mmmm...anyone know how to get the .mobi format specification?

Thanks, Ken

The best reverse engineering documentation available about the format is in our wiki. Amazon has not released the specification. They do have some documentation which is also linked in our wiki.

Dale

[SoftwareManiac]

Hi. Well, I am actually using both Amazon InDesign Kindle Plug-in and EPUB export. Why? The KPI is still in beta and there are some significant issues still and probably isn't up to date with ID CS5.5 EPUB (in combination with calibre for .mobi conversion) is extremely stable and most recently the EPUB export has been dramatically overhauled.

Thanks for the advice about unpacking .mobi.

[SoftwareManiac]

News flash -

Based on my initial post. I use InDesign's EPUB Export feature to produce an .epub. Uncompressing the .epub I adjusted the CSS definitions to include what should have produced a table border:

border-style : solid;
border-width : 2px;

I tried all sorts of other CSS border definition combinations. None of them worked. Thanks to Grey's comments I did the unthinkable and added the border="1" to all the <table> occurrences in my HTML source document tag and re-compressed into a new .epub file. I ran it back through calibre to convert to .mobi and voila! It worked. Every table now has a border (including each cell). If I am missing a statement that I should put into my .css definition instead please let me know (I tried the "border : 1px solid black" and other variations), please let me know.

This is a kludge, but at least it makes tables look like tables again!

[HarryT]

Mobi doesn't support CSS - what happens is that the various Mobi creation tools attempt to convert CSS into the appropriate tag attributes, so it's a question of how well (or otherwise) the various tools carry out this conversion.

If you want the maximum flexibility, you're best off avoiding CSS (and this conversion process) and directly coding the attributes in the HTML tags, as you've done in the example you quote.

[SoftwareManiac]

Thank you guys! You all fixed it in 0.8.6. Next week I am definitely donating a wad of loot to the cause. I am extremely happy!

Software Maniac
author of Indesign to Kindle
Seattle, WA

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by SoftwareManiac

Software Maniac
author of Indesign to Kindle
Seattle, WA

Sneaky, sneaky.