Kobo kepub Problems

[AmandaM]

Greetings All

I have created an ePub which works perfectly on desktop readers and correctly validates. If I copy this ePub onto my Kobo it also works perfectly. However, if rename this ePub to book.kepub.epub and then copy it onto my Kobo the css seems to get ignored. For example:

CSS:

p.CenterText {
text-indent:0;
text-align:center;
}

div.pagebreak {
page-break-after: always;
}

Body Code:

p class="CenterText">This text is centered</p>
div class="pagebreak"></div>
p class="CenterText">More Centered Text</p>

The above will be ignored and the text will be left aligned and on the same page.


I first discovered this problem after I submitted my perfectly functioning ePub to kobo, the resulting book after it became available for sale showed the problem.

Just to reiterate, this works perfectly when it is a straight ePub but not when a kePub. I can post real examples of my code if it helps.

Hope somebody can help

Many Thanks
Amanda

[JSWolf]

That's because it is an ePub and not a kepub. There's nothing wrong with it. There is a Calibre plugin that might help. have a look in the plugins section of the Calibre forum.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That's because it is an ePub and not a kepub. There's nothing wrong with it. There is a Calibre plugin that might help. have a look in the plugins section of the Calibre forum.

If its a valid ePub then in theory it should work as-is as a kEpub. Any chance you could just upload a test eBook that demonstrates this so we can all be testing with the exact same content?

All that the kEpub conversion does is to wrap sentences (and maybe other bits) in <span> tags, and I believe this is done to support their bookmarking.

You can see the specs for their support at https://github.com/kobolabs/epub-spec

[AmandaM]

Thanks for your replies thus far.

I will upload a test epub tomorrow. I don't think that this is a simple conversion problem because the actual book that was available on the Kobo store did not work correctly.

Amanda

[PeterT]

I should clarify that I meant the calibre plugins conversion is just the adding of span's.

[JSWolf]

I just noticed that the div is missing a <. That would cause a problem.

[PeterT]

@JSWolf: As are the p's missing a <. I *THINK* that is just a cut and paste error, and it's one reason I'd far rather see a test book than a code paste.

[AmandaM]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I just noticed that the div is missing a <. That would cause a problem.

Indeed, this was just a typo on the forum... Sorry!

[AmandaM]

I have put together and attached a test ePub which demonstrates my problem.

This ePub validates without problem and when I upload it to my Kobo it works as expected. However, if I rename it to *.kepub.epub and then upload it to my Kobo the CSS seems to be ignored.

I would be grateful for any help on this matter.

Many Thanks
Amanda

EDIT: I forgot to mention, the individual XHTML files also validate without problem.

[dgatwood]

IIRC, when in kepub mode, Kobo changes from using WebKit for rendering to using Adobe Digital Editions. When ADE encounters anything that it can't parse, it throws away the entire file. And unfortunately, in my experience, ADE doesn't like most @ rules, including @page and @media, along with some IE-specific CSS properties like filter.

As a general rule, with the exception of @font-face, you should segregate any rules starting with @ into a separate file. That way, when (not if) ADE breaks, it will ignore only those rules and not all of your other styles.

In your case, try moving the @page rule into a second CSS file and see if the misbehavior goes away.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

IIRC, when in kepub mode, Kobo changes from using WebKit for rendering to using Adobe Digital Editions. When ADE encounters anything that it can't parse, it throws away the entire file. And unfortunately, in my experience, ADE doesn't like most @ rules, including @page and @media, along with some IE-specific CSS properties like filter.

As a general rule, with the exception of @font-face, you should segregate any rules starting with @ into a separate file. That way, when (not if) ADE breaks, it will ignore only those rules and not all of your other styles.

In your case, try moving the @page rule into a second CSS file and see if the misbehavior goes away.

Nope.. EPub mode uses ADE, kEpub mode uses the NetFront ACCESS engine.

[AmandaM]

Hi

I tried removing the @page but still the same problem.

Any other ideas why this is not working?

Many Thanks
Amanda

[PeterT]

Lol. I thought I'd be smart and try the procedure documented in the Kobo ePub-Specs page @ GitHub --> Sideloading for Testing Purposes

Desktop

1. Open the Kobo Desktop app.
2. Make sure you have Adobe Digital Editions installed.
3. Select the Library tab and press CTRL+Shift+S on Windows or ⌘+SHIFT+S on a Mac. This will display any files in the “My Digital Editions” folder on your computer with the extension .kepub.epub or .fxl.kepub.epub

This resulted in Kobo Desktop displaying some icons for new material, followed by it crashing. And.... the crashes continue when I restart Desktop.

[PeterT]

You know what... I have a hunch that it's ADE is doing this incorrectly; page-break-before / after / inside appear in my reading to be intended to be used when a document is PRINTED; not when it is displayed on a screen.

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by PeterT

You know what... I have a hunch that it's ADE is doing this incorrectly; page-break-before / after / inside appear in my reading to be intended to be used when a document is PRINTED; not when it is displayed on a screen.

Not unless you wrapped it in an @media print rule.

The page-break-* properties apply to all paged media. In the web browser world, that means that it doesn't apply on the screen, because a web browser shows the text as a linear, scrollable flow without page breaks.

However, spec-compliant EPUB readers should always behave like paged media, because they always break the content up into (virtual) pages.

This is not to say that Kobo necessarily follows the spec mind you.