Difficulty getting Calibre to honour flush left bullets

[DBnew]

1 Calibre Example Challenges

Table of Contents
1 Calibre Example Challenges
2 Abridged Submission – Flush left and Shading
2.1 Level 1 The Technology
2.2 Level 2 Major Preferred Formatting Features
3 Resulting Epub File Variances


2 Abridged Submission – Flush left and Shading

2.1 Level 1 The Technology
• Let me start by saying, “Thankyou for Calibre.”
• I just learned about your product and am currently using version 5.42.0, 64-bit.
• Windows 10 Home 10.0.18363.
• Office/word 2016.
Workarounds
• <ul style="padding-left: ??px;">
• <Div style="background-color:#D9D9D9;">
I have many free Kindle downloads.

2.2 Level 2 Major Preferred Formatting Features
My intent was to draw attention visually to key parts of the document with bulleted and numbered lists and shading, and to a limited extent, tables.
I wished to convert a word doc with these feature formats:
• Flush left bullet lists
o Some lists with sub lists
o Flush left numbered lists (modest)
o Managed to achieve smaller indents with <ul style="padding-left: ??px;">
o Added just before the closing bracket
• Selective background shading
o I expected flush left/flush right shading.
o I extended this line to multiple lines to see the results of wrapping. I extended this line to multiple lines to see the results of wrapping. I extended this line to multiple lines to see the results of wrapping.
 I can get flush left shading with <div style="background-color:#D9D9D9;">
 And terminate with</div>
3 Resulting Epub File Variances
The resulting epub file varied from the above as follows:
Here were my results from running this, and other docs, through Calibre:
1) Flush left bullets were indented vs flush. Surprising since word .doc was flush
a) Flush left numbered lists were indented vs. flush.
b) Managed to achieve smaller indents with <ul style="padding-left: ??px;">
2) I had initially simply created lists by clicking on the list icon; then the [decrease indent] icon, which gave me flush left.
a) Since the program ignored [decrease indent]/flush left,
b) I created a new multi-level list with smaller indents (I.e., 0.5cm, screen shot below); did this for numbered lists and bulleted lists.
i) Then I clicked Update “List paragraph” to match selection
ii) Word honoured the new list settings.
iii) Calibre chose different indents.
3) Even the calibre e-viewer when reading the word .doc, shows bullets at default indent, not decreased indent and not custom indent.
4) Selective background shading
a) Several issues. Though I can get
flush left shading with <div style="background-color:#D9D9D9;">
b) And terminate with</div>
c) This also gives me flush right shading.

[kovidgoyal]

Not everything in docx which is a page oriented format can be converted to HTML exactly, which is a reflowable format. That includes precise positioning of bullets.

[DBnew]

Thank you for the prompt reply.

With respect, I am unsure why positioning of a new chunk of (bulleted) text relative to the left margin, should be unduly onerous. Book styles and HTML approve the action.

While manually intensive, I was able to achieve the desired effect with
<ul style="margin:0px;padding:5px;">
I was surprised calibre just didn't handle such formatting during input conversion.

Though numbered lists didn't follow the <ol> method.

[kovidgoyal]

In word the position is with respect to the page margin, in HTML with respect to the containing block. The positioning modells are completely different.