Tinkering With Coolreader CSS (and Some Original Writing For Yew)

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

In the .fb2 files the chapter headings are surrounded by the strong /strong tags, so the solution I am after is one that does not involve editing each individual file by hand (I have a few).

So far, I have never been happy with the FB2 generated by Calibre, so I can not offer any Calibre specific information. In my FB2 files, all titles are surrounded by title /title tags, and I have a section in my fb2.css telling CoolReader how to render text within title tags. Since you are using strong tags, does your fb2.css have a section telling CoolReader how to render text bracketed by strong tags???

Here is my fb2.css telling CoolReader how to render text bracketed by title tags. My chapter titles are always displayed in bold with a slightly larger text size(130%), and my page changes are very rapid even with my 6" reader which has a much slower processor than the 5" reader.

title {
  color: #C00;
  text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;
  margin-top: 0.7em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;
  font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;
  font-family: sans-serif;
  page-break-before: always; page-break-inside: avoid; page-break-after: avoid;
}

FWIW, I think that the strong tags are really meant for text inside a paragraph, and not for titles, but I could certainly be wrong about that. If that is true though, you probably do not want to have your CSS start strong tags centered on a new page the way I have in my title tags?

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by jusmee

Someone posted a set of coolreader setup files here recently. I am using them, and just renaming epubs to fb2, and I am getting fast page turns and chapter headings in large bold font, different to body text. (using Lbook firmware)

If I know the ones you are referring to, they are .ini files used to define settings with Coolreader, such as default font size, spacing etc.

Originally Posted by Dave_S

So far, I have never been happy with the FB2 generated by Calibre, so I can not offer any Calibre specific information. In my FB2 files, all titles are surrounded by title /title tags, and I have a section in my fb2.css telling CoolReader how to render text within title tags. Since you are using strong tags, does your fb2.css have a section telling CoolReader how to render text bracketed by strong tags???

Here is my fb2.css telling CoolReader how to render text bracketed by title tags. My chapter titles are always displayed in bold with a slightly larger text size(130%), and my page changes are very rapid even with my 6" reader which has a much slower processor than the 5" reader.

title {
  color: #C00;
  text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;
  margin-top: 0.7em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;
  font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;
  font-family: sans-serif;
  page-break-before: always; page-break-inside: avoid; page-break-after: avoid;
}

FWIW, I think that the strong tags are really meant for text inside a paragraph, and not for titles, but I could certainly be wrong about that. If that is true though, you probably do not want to have your CSS start strong tags centered on a new page the way I have in my title tags?

Thanks for the info. BTW I am using the Astak March firmware. I did put in a fb2.css file into the crengine folder which did specify the strong /strong tags, however my page turns took 4-5 seconds each, when I deleted the fb2.css my page turns went back to normal (fraction of a second).

I had a look through the bugs for Calibre and someone pointed out the incorrect usage of tags, however this issue apparently isn't planned on being fixed in Calibre.

So I have two options, (1) write a fb2.css specifying ONLY the tags used by Calibre in the fb2 output in the hope of fixing the page turn issue, or (2) forget using Calibre right now for fb2 conversion. Sad thing is, Calibre is really nice in being able to perform a bulk convert from epub to fb2 without much hassle (especially good when converting 100+ files).

What software do you use for your fb2 creation?? I found rtf works a treat (other than no line space between the end of a chapter and the chapter title following).

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Thanks for the info. BTW I am using the Astak March firmware. I did put in a fb2.css file into the crengine folder which did specify the strong /strong tags, however my page turns took 4-5 seconds each, when I deleted the fb2.css my page turns went back to normal (fraction of a second).

I am currently using the experimental Lbook firmware, but that should not make any difference since both Astak and Lbook firmware are using CoolReader 3 with identical CSS support. I do not have any explanation for why your page turns are taking so long with the use of those "strong" tags for chapter titles. I think that the FB2 Schema seems to indicate that "title" tags be used for chapter identification though, and "strong" tags be used for emphasis within a paragraph or sentence.

Originally Posted by Solicitous

I had a look through the bugs for Calibre and someone pointed out the incorrect usage of tags, however this issue apparently isn't planned on being fixed in Calibre.

IMHO, it is really a shame that Calibre still does not follow the FB2 Schema properly when it outputs FB2 novels.

Originally Posted by Solicitous

So I have two options, (1) write a fb2.css specifying ONLY the tags used by Calibre in the fb2 output in the hope of fixing the page turn issue, or (2) forget using Calibre right now for fb2 conversion. Sad thing is, Calibre is really nice in being able to perform a bulk convert from epub to fb2 without much hassle (especially good when converting 100+ files).

Since Calibre does not seem to be following the FB2 Schema in generating FB2 files you may have considerable difficulty with option #1. I can sure see that a mass conversion capability does have it's attractions though. My process is to buy books in whatever format I can get them in and then convert them to FB2 immediately. For books that I previously purchased and want to re-read, I convert them before reading at the time I want to read them. All my older books are in eReader or MobiPocket format, since I have been reading novels on my PDA devices for quite a few years.

Originally Posted by Solicitous

What software do you use for your fb2 creation??

I use BookDesigner 5.0 mostly, but I am beginning to use OOoFBTools more as I get more experience with it. I think that both of them produce files that will pass the FB2 Validator, and follow the FB2 Schema correctly. IF I use Calibre in the conversion process, I have Calibre output an RTF file for input to my FB2 software.

Originally Posted by Solicitous

I found rtf works a treat (other than no line space between the end of a chapter and the chapter title following).

Isn't it possible to fix that in the rtf.css file in the /crengine folder? I really do not know, since I have never put an RTF file on my reader. I mainly use RTF as an intermediate format in my conversion process.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by jusmee

Someone posted a set of coolreader setup files here recently. I am using them, and just renaming epubs to fb2, and I am getting fast page turns and chapter headings in large bold font, different to body text. (using Lbook firmware)

they are also in the wiki and available for download.

Dale

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

IMHO, it is really a shame that Calibre still does not follow the FB2 Schema properly when it outputs FB2 novels.

It is, and I posted last night a question in the Calibre forum about specifying proper title /title tags rather than the strong /strong tags, but unfortunately with no time nor desire to implement this by the developers into Calibre (and programming being well above my capabilities), I think Calibre is going to be left aside for me with fb2 file conversion.

Originally Posted by Dave_S

I use BookDesigner 5.0 mostly, but I am beginning to use OOoFBTools more as I get more experience with it. I think that both of them produce files that will pass the FB2 Validator, and follow the FB2 Schema correctly. IF I use Calibre in the conversion process, I have Calibre output an RTF file for input to my FB2 software.

I have used BookDesigner4 in the past and the fb2 files have worked a charm (even worked on my PP just testing now with my fb2.css file). So in the interim I have gone back to epub (after manually editing a file and creating a css that works for me as I want it to display), and will revisit the fb2 issue when I get to end of semester break at uni.

Thanks for your help though, does look like my ultimate solution is BD.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Thanks for your help though, does look like my ultimate solution is BD.

If you are as picky about how you would like a book to look as I am, then either Book Designer or OOoFBTools are the way to go because you can make changes in much more detail. ANY2FB2 or Calibre both do everything for you but neither gets it exactly right, especially Calibre IMHO.

One parting thought, FWIW. I tried doing a MOBI to FB2 conversion in Calibre today, and then loaded up the resultant FB2 in my text editor. In the text editor I did a global search and replace for <strong>, changing it to <title>. I then repeated the S&R for </strong>, replacing with </title>. The result was surprisingly better, but not perfect because Calibre actually used the <strong> tag in a few places that it actually belonged. The whole area in the Calibre FB2 around chapter breaks is a little (lot?) screwed up, so CoolReader did not make it's own TOC of titles for some reason.