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Old 04-20-2012, 09:27 AM   #1
marshap
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Can you tell if an epub was converted from mobi or vice versa?
Is there a way to determine if an epub ebook is the original format, or if it was converted from mobi or some other format?
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Old 04-20-2012, 10:13 AM   #2
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Look at the timestamp on the files.
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Old 04-20-2012, 10:33 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by marshap View Post
Is there a way to determine if an epub ebook is the original format, or if it was converted from mobi or some other format?
If the time stamp does not help:
use Tweak to explode the book and look at the end of a chapter with an editor
if you see a line similar to this
Code:
<div class="mbppagebreak" id="calibre_pb_36"></div>
It probably was a (Calibre?) Mobi at some time in its life
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Old 04-20-2012, 11:06 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by theducks View Post
If the time stamp does not help:
use Tweak to explode the book and look at the end of a chapter with an editor
if you see a line similar to this
Code:
<div class="mbppagebreak" id="calibre_pb_36"></div>
It probably was a (Calibre?) Mobi at some time in its life
how reliable is that test?
I see those lines in lots of epubs, some of which also have drop cap styling at chapter start, which makes me think they are optimised epubs, not mobi conversions ?
am i right in thinking that those mbppagebreak lines do not do anything in epub format. I often remove them as they seem to have no effect ?
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Old 04-20-2012, 11:33 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cybmole View Post
...which makes me think they are optimised epubs, not mobi conversions ? ...
They are possibly both. They can very well be MOBI conversions that contain ePub optimizations added after conversion. On the other hand they can be original ePubs that were created for use as such that later had the MOBI specific tag added in preparation for conversion to MOBI
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Old 04-20-2012, 01:14 PM   #6
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Hmmm, your 2nd option seems more likely - I thought it was pretty much impossible to work in mobi as a source format - as there are no decent tools/editors.

thus most authors/publishers would do their styling in epub or in html & then-to-epub; & convert to mobi only to sell on amazon ?
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Old 04-20-2012, 05:13 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cybmole View Post
...
thus most authors/publishers would do their styling in epub or in html & then-to-epub; & convert to mobi only to sell on amazon ?
Yes, most MOBI ebooks a created from either ePub or HTML source files.

It is not possible to edit the MOBI format itself as it is a compiled file. To make changes you have to extract the contents by decompiling it or convert it to some other format. You can then edit the pieces and use the edited pieces to create a new MOBI.
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Old 04-20-2012, 05:24 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal View Post
Look at the timestamp on the files.
When the DRM is removed, an ePub can have the same date/timestamp. Same way a Calibre conversion can.
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