A minor annoyance, facing book editor noob

oj829 · 09-18-2018, 12:41 AM

Purchased Woodward's "Fear" from Kobo, and, trying to read it in the Calibre viewer (v3.31, 64bit) is near impossible. Every last word on every last page is in italics, and I mean extreeeeeeme, falling-over-drunk italics that make me dizzy.

I have zero experience with book editing, but I opened it up in Calibre editor anyway, and found four TrueType fonts in the Garamond family. I renamed the EBGaramond-Italic.ttf to something unprintable here (but which still rhymes with "Italic"), because I did not want to delete the font from the book, and that did not do the trick.

I didn't put a WHOLE lot of effort into it. I assumed all along that putting it on an e-reader - hardware or software - would give me the style and face control I needed, and, indeed, it is indeed living legibly on my Kobo GloHD.

Only bringing it up because allegedly a million people bought this thing in week 1.

Also, too, I applied the epub--epub converter in Calibre to it, (went from 17MB to <4 !!) and this still happened, on both versions of the book.

stumped · 09-18-2018, 12:57 AM

how does the book look on your Kobo ( I assume you have a kobo as you bought their version) .

if it is only messed up on Calibre viewer on your PC, then it may be an issue with your PC fonts?
A quick fix is to redo the original epub to epub conversion but this time tick the option to remove all fonts on the conversion screen options [ it is in look and feel- styling tab- tick remove fonts.] that will replace all the garamond stuff with generic fonts in the converted book , and the problem should go away
a million copies sold, as you say, so kobo should have sold a few thousand. if their source was corrupt there shoudl be more complaints?
PS checking chapter endings in the kindle version: I see no last word styling at chapter ends.

PPS converted book could be smaller because there are lots of pictures, and probably your settings are to shrink those

davidfor · 09-18-2018, 01:21 AM

Just had a look at preview version from Kobo. It doesn't have a problem with italics in calibre on my Linux work box. I cannot test on Windows at the moment. This doesn't have anything unusual in the code, but, the previews can be different to the full versions.

Which version are you looking at? The kepub version downloaded by the device or Kobo desktop app? Or the epub downloaded from the Kobo web site? Trying the other version might be give different results.

stumped · 09-18-2018, 06:19 AM

checking again , using the kindle free sample sent directly to kindle for PC. none of the last sentences in the early chapters end with an italic word.
do you see italic words on your Kobo Glo ?
also calibre viewer does not show books as "pages", it is a scrollable, resizeable window for entire chapters?

09-18-2018, 12:41 AM	#1
oj829 Groupie Posts: 191 Karma: 574940 Join Date: Jul 2012 Device: Kobo Touch, Kobo Glo, Kobo Arc(32GB), Kobo Arc 7HD, Kobo Glo HD,NookHD	A minor annoyance, facing book editor noob Purchased Woodward's "Fear" from Kobo, and, trying to read it in the Calibre viewer (v3.31, 64bit) is near impossible. Every last word on every last page is in italics, and I mean extreeeeeeme, falling-over-drunk italics that make me dizzy. I have zero experience with book editing, but I opened it up in Calibre editor anyway, and found four TrueType fonts in the Garamond family. I renamed the EBGaramond-Italic.ttf to something unprintable here (but which still rhymes with "Italic"), because I did not want to delete the font from the book, and that did not do the trick. I didn't put a WHOLE lot of effort into it. I assumed all along that putting it on an e-reader - hardware or software - would give me the style and face control I needed, and, indeed, it is indeed living legibly on my Kobo GloHD. Only bringing it up because allegedly a million people bought this thing in week 1. Also, too, I applied the epub--epub converter in Calibre to it, (went from 17MB to <4 !!) and this still happened, on both versions of the book.

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09-18-2018, 12:57 AM	#2
stumped Wizard Posts: 3,305 Karma: 10259306 Join Date: May 2016 Device: kobo forma, Kobo Libra, Huawei media Tab, fire HD10, PW3 HDX8.9,	how does the book look on your Kobo ( I assume you have a kobo as you bought their version) . if it is only messed up on Calibre viewer on your PC, then it may be an issue with your PC fonts? A quick fix is to redo the original epub to epub conversion but this time tick the option to remove all fonts on the conversion screen options [ it is in look and feel- styling tab- tick remove fonts.] that will replace all the garamond stuff with generic fonts in the converted book , and the problem should go away a million copies sold, as you say, so kobo should have sold a few thousand. if their source was corrupt there shoudl be more complaints? PS checking chapter endings in the kindle version: I see no last word styling at chapter ends. PPS converted book could be smaller because there are lots of pictures, and probably your settings are to shrink those

09-18-2018, 01:21 AM	#3
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,907 Karma: 47303748 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	Just had a look at preview version from Kobo. It doesn't have a problem with italics in calibre on my Linux work box. I cannot test on Windows at the moment. This doesn't have anything unusual in the code, but, the previews can be different to the full versions. Which version are you looking at? The kepub version downloaded by the device or Kobo desktop app? Or the epub downloaded from the Kobo web site? Trying the other version might be give different results.

09-18-2018, 06:19 AM	#4
stumped Wizard Posts: 3,305 Karma: 10259306 Join Date: May 2016 Device: kobo forma, Kobo Libra, Huawei media Tab, fire HD10, PW3 HDX8.9,	checking again , using the kindle free sample sent directly to kindle for PC. none of the last sentences in the early chapters end with an italic word. do you see italic words on your Kobo Glo ? also calibre viewer does not show books as "pages", it is a scrollable, resizeable window for entire chapters?

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