FB2 output and footnotes

valex · 04-20-2011, 11:47 PM

FB2 output doesn't support footnotes properly, it just puts e.g. [1] in the text and lists the footnotes themselves at the end of the file. So they need to be corrected manually (the [1] is replaced by proper link etc.) after the conversion. Is it planned to fix the problem?

Thanks.

Manichean · 04-21-2011, 03:27 AM

The second use case may be of interest to you.

user_none · 04-21-2011, 06:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by valex

FB2 output doesn't support footnotes properly, it just puts e.g. [1] in the text and lists the footnotes themselves at the end of the file. So they need to be corrected manually (the [1] is replaced by proper link etc.) after the conversion. Is it planned to fix the problem?

No. The input (OEB, the inside of EPUB) to FB2 does not support denoting a footnote (Okay it does but no one uses it). 99.999% of footnotes are interspersed in the document as a normal link. So there is no way for FB2 output to know if the link is a footnote or just a link. The [1] isn't added by the FB2 output as it just translates the OEB it's given into the FB2 format.

It would be possible to use a heuristic to detect [number] is a footnote but I have no plans to do this.

valex · 04-25-2011, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by user_none

It would be possible to use a heuristic to detect [number] is a footnote but I have no plans to do this.

I ended up doing exactly that. I use the following script to post-process fb2 file created by Calibre. It converts the [number]s to correct links and creates <body name="notes"> section with the footnotes' texts by applying three regular expressions to the file sequentially. The limitation is it does not support multi-paragraph footnotes and footnotes within footnotes but those are rare. My knowledge of Python is rather rudimentary. Is it possible to configure Calibre to call the script automatically after the conversion to fb2 is done? Is the Calibre's functionality allowing application of regexes limited to internal xhtml representation?

Code:

#!/usr/bin/python

import os
import re
import sys

def file_replace(fname, out_fname, regex, repl):
    tmp_fname = fname + ".tmp"
    out = open(tmp_fname, "w")

    for line in open(fname):
        out.write(re.sub(regex, repl, line))

    out.close()
    if os.path.exists(out_fname):
        os.remove(out_fname)    
    os.rename(tmp_fname, out_fname)


if len(sys.argv) != 3:
    u = "Usage: file_replace <file_name.fb2> <file_name_fixed.fb2>\n"
    sys.stderr.write(u)
    sys.exit(1)

file_replace(sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2], r'<p>\[1\]', r'</section></body><body name="notes"><section><p>[1]')
file_replace(sys.argv[2], sys.argv[2], r'<p>\[(\d+)\](.+)</p>', r'</section><section id="n_\1"><title><p>\1</p></title><p>\2</p>')
file_replace(sys.argv[2], sys.argv[2], r'\[(\d+)\]', r'<a xlink:href="#n_\1" type="note">[\1]</a>')

user_none · 04-25-2011, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by valex

Is it possible to configure Calibre to call the script automatically after the conversion to fb2 is done?

No. However since you've done the hard part I will look at integrating these regexes as an option.

04-20-2011, 11:47 PM	#1
valex Enthusiast Posts: 25 Karma: 26 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: IL, USA Device: kindle 3	FB2 output and footnotes FB2 output doesn't support footnotes properly, it just puts e.g. [1] in the text and lists the footnotes themselves at the end of the file. So they need to be corrected manually (the [1] is replaced by proper link etc.) after the conversion. Is it planned to fix the problem? Thanks.

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04-21-2011, 03:27 AM	#2
Manichean Wizard Posts: 3,130 Karma: 91256 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Germany Device: Cybook Gen3	The second use case may be of interest to you.

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