Epub Reader Mangling section start

[jcobban]

I am using Epub Reader to read an EPUB but it is mangling the presentation of the opening text of the first paragraph in each section. The EPUB file is obviously specifying some special formatting which is telling Epub Reader to not break the text, but the text is wider than a column, so it extends beyond the width of the column and overlays on text of the next column, or if the window is not wide enough the text extends beyond the window. I am going to try other Linux apps to see if I can get around this, but I thought I would let the community know. If there are any suggestions of ways I can get around this I would appreciate it, and if anyone wants to volunteer to experiment with the book I can send a copy, since the file is DRM-free. To be fair to the publisher, who so generously insists upon not using DRM, I would of course want any experimenter to delete the book once finished testing, or at least to patronize this very generous publisher Baen Books.



I have been using Calibre for at least 15 years now.

[jcobban]

Followup:

The relevant portion of the document in the Calibre epub editor looks like:

<p class="pcalibre p4">Honor stood in the observation dome on <i class="calibre5">Imperator</i>’s spine. Her flagship was inverted, and her eyes were dark and thoughtful as she gazed up at the white-swirled sapphire of the planet called Tschermak.</p>

[mikelv]

Originally Posted by jcobban

I have been using Calibre for at least 15 years now.

To make sure, I got it right: you are using the EPUBReader browser extension for reading the ebook?

[jcobban]

Thank you for replying. I am using the program that is invoked by Calibre. Calibre has three icons that it adds to the application menu, Calibre, Book Reader, and Book Editor.

[mikelv]

I have moved the thread to the Calibre forum.

[kovidgoyal]

That is a bug in chromium. Your book is using text-transform: uppercase on the first line of the text. That breaks in column mode in chromium. Either remove that from the book or switch to flow mode in the viewer settings for this book.

[nqk]

I think so too. I often use font-variant: small-caps; for that effect.

So if my guess is right, putting this in the Styles may work similarly.

.pcalibre {
text-transform: none !important;
font-variant: small-caps; }

[jcobban]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

That is a bug in chromium. Your book is using text-transform: uppercase on the first line of the text. That breaks in column mode in chromium. Either remove that from the book or switch to flow mode in the viewer settings for this book.

Thank you. I do not understand how Chromium is involved. I am not explicitly invoking any browser and my default browser is Firefox. I am just requesting Calibre to open the book. I just checked and I do not even have Chromium, or any other Google software, installed on the computer where I am encountering the problem. Does the Calibre BookReader use Chromium code internally? This is not a book I created and although it is not protected by DRM I am uncomfortable about altering a file for which I do not own the copyright. This issue affects every section of the book. I have never encountered this problem before and I have hundreds of e-books including several dozen from this publisher. Should I report this as an issue to the publisher? Should I download some other file format than epub?

[kovidgoyal]

calibre includes chromium and uses it. And yes report the issue to the publisher, or use one of the workarounds i mentioned in my previous post.

[jcobban]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

calibre includes chromium and uses it. And yes report the issue to the publisher, or use one of the workarounds i mentioned in my previous post.

Thank you for your very quick response. As I look at the EpubReader I see:


I don't see anything in the options, for example under Preferences, that looks like what you suggested I do.

[jcobban]

Originally Posted by nqk

I think so too. I often use font-variant: small-caps; for that effect.

So if my guess is right, putting this in the Styles may work similarly.

.pcalibre {
text-transform: none !important;
font-variant: small-caps; }

Thank you for your suggestion. This changes the presentation of the remainder of the paragraph but does not resolve the mangling of the first line of the paragraph.



Note how the last word is truncated and there are obviously several words between "GRE..." and "DISEMBARKED" which extend beyond the edge of the window.

[jcobban]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

calibre includes chromium and uses it. And yes report the issue to the publisher, or use one of the workarounds i mentioned in my previous post.

Thank you. I found the flow option under Page Layout and it does address the issue.

The xhtml file that is being displayed starts with

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops">
  <head>
    <title>To End in Fire</title>
    <meta name="Generator" content="Cocoa HTML Writer"/>
    <meta name="CocoaVersion" content="2022.5"/>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css"/>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="page_styles.css"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
  </head>
  <body class="calibre">
<div class="calibre2" id="calibre_pb_6"></div>
<p class="p2"><br class="calibre3"/></p>
<p class="p2"><br class="calibre3"/></p>
<p class="p9"><b class="calibre1">Mendel Spaceport</b></p>
<p class="p9"><b class="calibre1">Planet Mesa</b></p>
<p class="p9"><b class="calibre1">Mesa System</b></p>
<p class="p2"><br class="calibre3"/></p>
<p class="pcalibre p4">Cathy

Now since I cannot see why the priginal publisher would have included a reference to Calibre specific styles in the .epub it strikes me that "Cocoa" must be a tool used by Calibre to convert the document from its original .epub to the internal xhtml format used by Calibre. In which case the problem is in the conversion to xhtml. But why would the Cocoa tool convert to a style which is misinterpreted by the Chromium code which Calibre has chosen to use for layout?

When I look at a book from the same publisher (actually the immediately preceding volume in the same series) the internal Calibre file looks like:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
    <meta content="text/css" http-equiv="Content-Style-Type"/>
    <title>Cauldron of Ghosts</title>
    <meta content="Cocoa HTML Writer" name="Generator"/>
    <meta content="1265.19" name="CocoaVersion"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
  <link href="stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
<link href="page_styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
</head>
  <body class="calibre">
<div class="calibre4" id="calibre_pb_0">
<div class="calibre4" id="calibre_pb_1">
<div class="calibre4" id="calibre_pb_2">
<div class="calibre4" id="calibre_pb_3">
<div class="calibre4" id="calibre_pb_4">
<p class="chapter" id="calibre_toc_3">Chapter 2</p>
<p class="left">“Well, it would have been nice if they’d given us another week or so to complete our preparations, but I guess you can’t

My goal is to avoid other users of Calibre from encountering this frustration, not just to fix the problem for myself.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jcobban

Thank you. I found the flow option under Page Layout and it does address the issue.

The xhtml file that is being displayed starts with

Spoiler:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops">
  <head>
    <title>To End in Fire</title>
    <meta name="Generator" content="Cocoa HTML Writer"/>
    <meta name="CocoaVersion" content="2022.5"/>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css"/>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="page_styles.css"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
  </head>
  <body class="calibre">
<div class="calibre2" id="calibre_pb_6"></div>
<p class="p2"><br class="calibre3"/></p>
<p class="p2"><br class="calibre3"/></p>
<p class="p9"><b class="calibre1">Mendel Spaceport</b></p>
<p class="p9"><b class="calibre1">Planet Mesa</b></p>
<p class="p9"><b class="calibre1">Mesa System</b></p>
<p class="p2"><br class="calibre3"/></p>
<p class="pcalibre p4">Cathy

Now since I cannot see why the priginal publisher would have included a reference to Calibre specific styles in the .epub it strikes me that "Cocoa" must be a tool used by Calibre to convert the document from its original .epub to the internal xhtml format used by Calibre. In which case the problem is in the conversion to xhtml. But why would the Cocoa tool convert to a style which is misinterpreted by the Chromium code which Calibre has chosen to use for layout?

When I look at a book from the same publisher (actually the immediately preceding volume in the same series) the internal Calibre file looks like:

Spoiler:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
    <meta content="text/css" http-equiv="Content-Style-Type"/>
    <title>Cauldron of Ghosts</title>
    <meta content="Cocoa HTML Writer" name="Generator"/>
    <meta content="1265.19" name="CocoaVersion"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
  <link href="stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
<link href="page_styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
</head>
  <body class="calibre">
<div class="calibre4" id="calibre_pb_0">
<div class="calibre4" id="calibre_pb_1">
<div class="calibre4" id="calibre_pb_2">
<div class="calibre4" id="calibre_pb_3">
<div class="calibre4" id="calibre_pb_4">
<p class="chapter" id="calibre_toc_3">Chapter 2</p>
<p class="left">“Well, it would have been nice if they’d given us another week or so to complete our preparations, but I guess you can’t

My goal is to avoid other users of Calibre from encountering this frustration, not just to fix the problem for myself.

As for why the publisher has references to calibre styles? Probably that Baen uses calibre to convert to epub. AFAIK, "Cocoa HTML Writer" is part of MacOS X. BTW, the version of calibre used by Baen has generally been on the old side.

And for what it is worth, calibre does not modify an epub file imported into it's library unless you edit, polish Modify Epub, etc. the file. When you send the epub to your ereader, save to disk, etc., the metadata updates stored in the metadata.opf file stored in the same directory as the epub will be used to update the metadata in the copy of the epub but the original in the library does not get modified unless you choose to do so.

[nqk]

Originally Posted by jcobban

Thank you for your suggestion. This changes the presentation of the remainder of the paragraph but does not resolve the mangling of the first line of the paragraph.

Oh, it was my bad, I think you have to add :first-line.

.pcalibre:first-line {
text-transform: none !important;
font-variant: small-caps;
font-size: 107%; }