Touch Strange Book Behaviour

[Brianrh]

I am getting a strange thing happening with a book on my Touch N905C.

I download most of my books from my public library as an ascm then using ADE and Calibre I sideload them as epubs on the Touch.

I have one book where the main body of the story has everything underlined. I’ve checked the settings, changed the font, etc but still everything is underlined. If I look at the same epub in adifferent ereader and the Calibre Viewer everything looks normal. I deleted the book and re-sideloaded it and it was still the same. Any idea what’s going on?

Also while I’m here, is there a plugin or simple method of being able to scroll through books and not by flipping pages?

Thanks.

Brian

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Brianrh

I am getting a strange thing happening with a book on my Touch N905C.

I download most of my books from my public library as an ascm then using ADE and Calibre I sideload them as epubs on the Touch.

I have one book where the main body of the story has everything underlined. I’ve checked the settings, changed the font, etc but still everything is underlined. If I look at the same epub in adifferent ereader and the Calibre Viewer everything looks normal. I deleted the book and re-sideloaded it and it was still the same. Any idea what’s going on?

Not without looking at the code. Open the book in the calibre editor (unless it has DRM, in which case you can't) and look at what the css has for an ordinary paragraph/body text.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Brianrh

I am getting a strange thing happening with a book on my Touch N905C.

I download most of my books from my public library as an ascm then using ADE and Calibre I sideload them as epubs on the Touch.

I have one book where the main body of the story has everything underlined. I’ve checked the settings, changed the font, etc but still everything is underlined. If I look at the same epub in adifferent ereader and the Calibre Viewer everything looks normal. I deleted the book and re-sideloaded it and it was still the same. Any idea what’s going on?

Also while I’m here, is there a plugin or simple method of being able to scroll through books and not by flipping pages?

Thanks.

Brian

What book is it? If I can get it at the library, I can give it a try.

[DNSB]

I've seen that a couple of times. Once the body style included 'text-decoration: underline;' so pretty much everything in the book was underlined. The other time there was an id with an 'a' selector for every paragraph so the text looks like: <p><a id="xxx">paragraph text</a></p>

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I've seen that a couple of times. Once the body style included 'text-decoration: underline;' so pretty much everything in the book was underlined. The other time there was an id with an 'a' selector for every paragraph so the text looks like: <p><a id="xxx">paragraph text</a></p>

I've seen the latter as well. Don't remember what book it was.

[Brianrh]

The book I an having problems was Run For Home by Dan Latus. I thought originally I had downloaded it from a public library but checking it was a free download from Amazon at some point of time.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Brianrh

The book I an having problems was Run For Home by Dan Latus. I thought originally I had downloaded it from a public library but checking it was a free download from Amazon at some point of time.

One thing you can do is download it again in case it's been updated. Lots of eBooks get updated.

[bluepeter]

FWIW, out of curiosity I looked the book in question up on Amazon. I thought that it sounded like something I'd enjoy, and 99p isn't a lot. I bought it, downloaded it to Calibre, converted to Kepub and then sideloaded it onto my Clara BW. It looks fine here: the text isn't underlined.

[Brianrh]

I downloaded it again and got the same result.

However I think I may have mislead a little you earlier. I was getting some books to sideload on the Kobo Touch I had just acquired. Amoung the library epubs were the few books I had bought from Amazon and downloaded and this one was downloaded as an AZW3. I hadn't realised it wasn't an epub until I re-downloaded it again.

I used Calibre with the plugins to produce an epub from this AZW3 and it opens in several ebook readers ok but not on my Touch.

It's only one book and I can still read it alright but I was just interested why this is happening on the Touch.

Thanks for the help and interest, it's much appreciated.

[Sirtel]

I downloaded a sample and looked at the code. Yep, there's an <a id="xxx">paragraph text</a> inserted for every paragraph. Many apps and also the kepub reader on Kobos probably ignore this, but the epub reader apparently doesn't.

There are basically two solutions: fix it in the calibre editor or use kepub instead of epub.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I downloaded a sample and looked at the code. Yep, there's an <a id="xxx">paragraph text</a> inserted for every paragraph. Many apps and also the kepub reader on Kobos probably ignore this, but the epub reader apparently doesn't.

There are basically two solutions: fix it in the calibre editor or use kepub instead of epub.

Ah, yes. I said earlier that the Kepub looked fine on my Clara. I've just created an Epub version and sideloaded that. The text of that version is indeed underlined.

[Brianrh]

Thanks Sirtel for the investigation and explanation. I don't fully understand what it means but I can appreciate now what's causing the problem. I'm not that au fait with how to use the editor in Caliber but perhaps it's an opportune time for me to have a play.

Meanwhile I've found by trial and error that if I get Calibre to convert the offending AZW3 to a Mobi then that to an epub, the underlined text has gone. Not very scientific but it got the job done.

Thanks again guys.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by Brianrh

Meanwhile I've found by trial and error that if I get Calibre to convert the offending AZW3 to a Mobi then that to an epub, the underlined text has gone. Not very scientific but it got the job done.

That's a bit clunky

If you add the KePub Output plugin to Calibre, you can convert other file types directly to KePub and load those, rather than Epubs, onto your e-reader. FWIW, that's what I do.

If memory serves, KePub Output is one of the standard ones that Calibre will load for itself. All you need to do is go to Preferences/Plugins/Get new plugins (bottom left button), then filter by name, type KePub in the box, click on KePub Output and the Install button.

[Brianrh]

Can I ask another question about Calibre's ability to tweak ebooks?

I've noticed with the Touch that not every ebook allows chapter progress to be shown in the header and even in the Reading Settings Kobo states this.

Is this something that can be corrected on the ebooks that can't have the progress displayed?

[Brianrh]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

That's a bit clunky

If you add the KePub Output plugin to Calibre, you can convert other file types directly to KePub and load those, rather than Epubs, onto your e-reader. FWIW, that's what I do.

If memory serves, KePub Output is one of the standard ones that Calibre will load for itself. All you need to do is go to Preferences/Plugins/Get new plugins (bottom left button), then filter by name, type KePub in the box, click on KePub Output and the Install button.

Thanks bluepeter, I'll give that a go.