[Conversion Plugin] KFX Input

[Patrichor]

Originally Posted by Patrichor

Trying to convert B0BHPS3DK9, I get a bunch of nav_container representation has extra data errors.

Commenting out the check_empty() calls for nav_container and nav_container representation results in a seemingly valid ePub. Obviously that's a hack, but I wanted to confirm there weren't additional problems.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Patrichor

Trying to convert B0BHPS3DK9, I get a bunch of nav_container representation has extra data errors.

Thanks for the bug report. That book is unusual in that it has an enhanced table of contents with images and descriptions. (See the attached image from the Kindle for iOS app.) I have only ever seen that before in Kindle magazines. I am curious about how the authors were able to do that.

Originally Posted by Patrichor

Commenting out the check_empty() calls for nav_container and nav_container representation results in a seemingly valid ePub. Obviously that's a hack, but I wanted to confirm there weren't additional problems.

Your hack is fine since there is no EPUB equivalent to the Kindle enhanced TOC. I will update the plugin to ignore this data in the next release.

ADDED: I will update the plugin to create Kindle-specific markup in the NCX file with the descriptive text when producing an EPUB from this book so that nothing is lost. This extra data will be discarded by calibre unless the "From KFX" toolbar action is used.

[Jaws]

When converting a KFX to an Epub, most of the time the cover is marked correctly as the cover (as viewed in Calibre's editor), but sometimes there's a duplicate "cover" that's actually at the bottom of the file list. OK, fine: Publishers are, umm, technologically challenged and don't even handle this consistently in house.

That's only sometimes, though. Whether the table of contents will be "marked" as the table of contents appears to be completely random: I've done multiple KFX books from the same imprint of the same publisher, all released during the same month, and sometimes the table of contents is marked as a table of contents and sometimes it isn't -- regardless of what epub version it's converted to. This wasn't a problem with AZW or mobi inputs so far as I remember. But I'm not sure if this is:

A KFX Input thingy (bug, feature, you choose);

A general KFX thingy;

Random goofiness from the 'zon;

Publisher incompetence, especially when blindly creating e-book files from Adobe;

My computer getting drunk and just doing random stuff to annoy me;

More than one of the above.

Thoughts?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Jaws

When converting a KFX to an Epub, most of the time the cover is marked correctly as the cover (as viewed in Calibre's editor), but sometimes there's a duplicate "cover" that's actually at the bottom of the file list. OK, fine: Publishers are, umm, technologically challenged and don't even handle this consistently in house.

That might be caused by a mistake by the publisher or it could be an artifact left over from replacement of the original cover by calibre. If you can call out some of the books that exhibit this problem I can look into this further.

Originally Posted by Jaws

Whether the table of contents will be "marked" as the table of contents appears to be completely random: I've done multiple KFX books from the same imprint of the same publisher, all released during the same month, and sometimes the table of contents is marked as a table of contents and sometimes it isn't -- regardless of what epub version it's converted to. This wasn't a problem with AZW or mobi inputs so far as I remember.

In old versions of MOBI format there was a single table of contents that was part of the text of the book. It was important that the publisher mark where this occurred so that "Go to the TOC" would function properly on Kindles.

These days the important TOC is the logical one that is separate from the book's contents. Some publishers may have gotten sloppy about marking where the TOC that is part of the text of the book occurs since that link is not needed by the Kindle reading software.

Again some examples would be helpful in determining what is occurring in the cases you have experienced.

[matejdro]

Originally Posted by tomsem

If you are set up to download and de-DRM AZW3, you might try Kindle Unpack plugin. I have had some success creating ePub with it even where calibre fails (or at least I gave up after 5 hours on one I tried to convert today, Kindle Unpack took less than about 30 seconds). (and yes, this was in an Amazon fixed layout format)

Interestingly I have had no issues previously converting to ePub even for fixed layout formats with calibre, but had two of these just in last week. I think there are some older ones I need to check (I turned on automatic conversion to ePub on import only 2 or 3 months ago, so there are probably a number of them that remain in AZW3 only).

Kindle Unpack also exports images to a folder so it would be easy to covert to CBZ or PDF if that would work better.

Huge thanks, that helped a lot!