newbie calibre problem

klem · 06-25-2013, 08:53 PM

Am in the process of publishing my first e book. I am working with kobo. I prepared my manuscript in odt and submitted it to them. The first one came back needing compression of the title page acknowledgement page et al.. big spacing between paragraphs and the paragraph indentation didn't take... finally the figures I included needed compression as well...

Fair enough

the situation seemed manageable.

I made the changes best i could to see how far i progressed..

well this 30 page manuscript came back as a 205 page manuscript.. It seemed every paragraph and header merited a page

SO I contacted kobo

eventually they sent me to calibre

great

the manuscript reduced the pages back to their original number

but the paragraph spacing was now too tight and the paragraph indents were all gone

so as instructed i went to calibre aand hit convert books and then to the look and feel page... and hit the insert blank line between the paragraphs option....and reduced indent size to zero...

Hit the Ok button... was going to start with the paragraphs first

and waited until the spinning icon ended.. then went back to the e pub and nothing had changed except what i thought was a line had been inserted between the first and second paragraph

what am i missing here

Sabardeyn · 06-26-2013, 04:39 PM

Klem,
I'm not the best responder as I haven't gotten too deep into creating ebooks. However, their are some really tech savvy folks in these forums who might be able to respond with more information. Therefore I would suggest posting an image of the problems you're seeing. Better still would be a small sample (maybe the first page of a chapter or section, along with any CSS if you have one).

I will say that I'm not sure where or how calibre could have initiated the problem. Unless someone put your ebook through calibre at some point.

Otherwise my guess is that the ebook either has a problem with the inline mark-up within the text of the ebook, or with the CSS included within the ebook. It is very easy to make a small error that gets overlooked. It's much easier still to have something that works perfectly - but gets interpreted differently (see below).

Further complicating things is the fact that almost none of the various hardware or software ereaders will interprete mark-up in the exact same manner. So completely controlling the formatting or display of content (like you can on paper) is impossible. Besides interpretation problems, each device has a different resolution and users have their own preferred font face, font size and color scheme. Taken all together, it makes ebook publication a somewhat more difficult task than many people think.

Valkrider · 06-27-2013, 02:16 AM

Consider using a dedicated eBook editing programme like the free Sigil or the paid for Jutoh to get exactly what you want.

06-25-2013, 08:53 PM	#1
klem Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2013 Device: kobo	newbie calibre problem Am in the process of publishing my first e book. I am working with kobo. I prepared my manuscript in odt and submitted it to them. The first one came back needing compression of the title page acknowledgement page et al.. big spacing between paragraphs and the paragraph indentation didn't take... finally the figures I included needed compression as well... Fair enough the situation seemed manageable. I made the changes best i could to see how far i progressed.. well this 30 page manuscript came back as a 205 page manuscript.. It seemed every paragraph and header merited a page SO I contacted kobo eventually they sent me to calibre great the manuscript reduced the pages back to their original number but the paragraph spacing was now too tight and the paragraph indents were all gone so as instructed i went to calibre aand hit convert books and then to the look and feel page... and hit the insert blank line between the paragraphs option....and reduced indent size to zero... Hit the Ok button... was going to start with the paragraphs first and waited until the spinning icon ended.. then went back to the e pub and nothing had changed except what i thought was a line had been inserted between the first and second paragraph what am i missing here

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06-26-2013, 04:39 PM	#2
Sabardeyn Guru Posts: 644 Karma: 1242364 Join Date: May 2009 Location: The Right Coast Device: PC (Calibre), Nexus 7 2013 (Moon+ Pro), HTC HD2/Leo (Freda)	Klem, I'm not the best responder as I haven't gotten too deep into creating ebooks. However, their are some really tech savvy folks in these forums who might be able to respond with more information. Therefore I would suggest posting an image of the problems you're seeing. Better still would be a small sample (maybe the first page of a chapter or section, along with any CSS if you have one). I will say that I'm not sure where or how calibre could have initiated the problem. Unless someone put your ebook through calibre at some point. Otherwise my guess is that the ebook either has a problem with the inline mark-up within the text of the ebook, or with the CSS included within the ebook. It is very easy to make a small error that gets overlooked. It's much easier still to have something that works perfectly - but gets interpreted differently (see below). Further complicating things is the fact that almost none of the various hardware or software ereaders will interprete mark-up in the exact same manner. So completely controlling the formatting or display of content (like you can on paper) is impossible. Besides interpretation problems, each device has a different resolution and users have their own preferred font face, font size and color scheme. Taken all together, it makes ebook publication a somewhat more difficult task than many people think.

06-27-2013, 02:16 AM	#3
Valkrider Addict Posts: 302 Karma: 1250000 Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: UK Device: Kobo Libra, iPadAir2, PRS600, iPhone 6, iPod, Palm TX	Consider using a dedicated eBook editing programme like the free Sigil or the paid for Jutoh to get exactly what you want.

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