epub to docx conversion loses paragraph spaces

[JerrySmile]

Windows 10, latest Calibre, Word 2019

Issue: epub -> docs conversion works, but loses paragraph spaces.

The div are there where they should be in the epub source, and the spaces appear on the epub reader (used calibre as reader).

However, as shown by Word 2019, the docx file resulted from conversion doesn't have any extra spacing, where the div were.

This is a book of poetry, so the spacing between stanzas is critical.

I tried various conversion options wrt heuristics (with and without), look & feel / layout, nothing works.

I have experience on calibre, but not converting to docx, thus any pointers would be appreciated. BTW, I've installed no plugins (should I?).

Thanks in advance.

[kovidgoyal]

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=186697

[retiredbiker]

This is a book of poetry,

I've recently worked with an author on 4 volumes containing mostly poetry and quotations...with all of the infinite styling challenges of poetry. It's not easy.

Your styling must be spot on, no cheating using <br/> for a new line, for example. Use the editor and do a solid style for every need. I have 21 styles to handle what is in those four books, for example.

IMHO, Calibre won't do a perfect job of converting this sort of thing for a word processor if you need precise output. In my case, we do the ebook first, then go to Writer for page size, final editing, and then a pdf for sending to Amazon for the printed book. The only thing I've found that will do the conversion "really well but not perfectly" is Jutoh.

I open the epub in Jutoh, and the styles from Calibre are nearly perfectly maintained, right down to the style name. So a style I called "Verse1_Top" in the editor stays that way in Jutoh. Most settings are also perfect. Some tiny adjustments are still needed, for some reason.

Then when I use Jutoh to compile an odt for Writer, it is still 99% good, again, right down to the style names. This is a huge leg up. Then in Writer I add the page styles needed for not only the page size, but headers, footers, page numbering, TOC generation, gutter margins, and all that. Then we do the pagination and final edits, export to pdf, and Amazon is happy.

Although I use Writer, Jutoh will work with Word as well, although I can't personally speak to the results.

[JSWolf]

What does work is converting the eBook to HTML and loading that into Word.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by retiredbiker

IMHO, Calibre won't do a perfect job of converting this sort of thing for a word processor if you need precise output. In my case, we do the ebook first, then go to Writer for page size, final editing, and then a pdf for sending to Amazon for the printed book. The only thing I've found that will do the conversion "really well but not perfectly" is Jutoh.

FWIW: the Mammoth DOCX converter uses a map of Word Styles to equivalent CSS entries - DiapDealer has written a Sigil wrapper plugin for it. The mapping of Word Styles to CSS entries must be provided by the book maker. Useful if you can re-use the mapping on multiple books, especially the ones yet to be written

BR

[JerrySmile]

Hello, everyone,

I really appreciate your replies. Sorry for not answering for quite a while.

Now, let me give you some details I've found recently.

1. Calibre does an excellent job for the
epub -> docs
conversion for the epub version of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," as found here, course in the public domain.

And this is important for Whitman is using, of course, a wide variety of stanzas. The important result was that the stanzas were separated via extra blank lines.

The options I used in Calibre were simple:
- look & feel: layout: insert blank line between paras
- no heuristics

This is the epub code for two stanzas at the beginning of a poem:

---
<h2 id="pgepubid00008">Eidolons</h2>
<div xml:space="preserve" class="pgmonospaced">****** I met a seer,<br/>* Passing the hues and objects of the world,<br/>* The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,<br/>****** To glean eidolons.<br/><br/>****** Put in thy chants said he,<br/>* No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in,<br/>* Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of all,<br/>****** That of eidolons.<br/>
---

The fact that <br/> separators were used in the source seems to have been critical in the success of the calibre conversion to docs (please see further).

2. Calibre failed for me in terms of stanzas separation for the
epub -> docs
conversion for the epub code containing other separators such as:

---
<div class="page_top_padding" id="div3">
<p class="poetry" id="p1">Text of first verse of the stanza</p>
<p class="poetry" id="p2">Text of 2nd verse of the stanza< /p>
<p class="poetry" id="p3">Text of last verse of the stanza</p>
</div>
---

This was epub code generated by Calibre in a previous
azw3 -> epub conversion
in cases where a direct
azw3 -> docs conversion
was losing stanza separation.

I tried many options, with and without heuristics. Any suggestions for options?

The stanza separation was lost.

I tried many options.

3. Another case in which Calibre seems to do a good job in terms of stanzas separation for both of the conversions

azw3 -> docs
azw3 -> epub

is when the epub code looks like this:

---
<p class="vsb"> 1st verse in the stanza </p>
<p class="v"> next verse in the stanza </p>
<p class="v"> next verse in the stanza </p>
<p class="vsb">1st verse in the stanza</p>
<p class="vsb">1st verse in the stanza</p>
<p class="v"> next verse in the stanza </p>
<p class="v"> next verse in the stanza </p>
---

I guess class="vsb" forces a new stanza.

I'm not able to read any azw3 code, sorry.