Any way to fix this?

[SuperDerpBro]

I am thinking about buying a Kindle (over a Kobo) because i like their store better. I do have a few epub books though. So i have been playing around with converting them. Using Kindle preview then Kindle unpack/Hyphenate this. Sometime i come across stuff like this..



.. I have no way to tell if that will be how it looks on an actual kindle. The dropcaps look ok in the Calibre reader but the other weird overlapping looks the same. If so.. is there a way to fix it?

Thanks

[NullNix]

The misplaced drop cap is probably the previewer getting things wrong (it does not use the same codebase as the Kindle itself and is exceedingly buggy, particularly in things like font size and positioning).

The image is probably the result of a wrong Calibre profile: Calibre thinks your Kindle's resolution is different. If I had a copy of Calibre on this machine with a non-broken preferences dialog I could tell you how to change it...

[SuperDerpBro]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I figured as much with the drop cap. The overlapping happens before the book ever gets to calibre. Though it also happens with a calibre conversion (I set the res for kindle voyage). The pic above is a straight Kindle previewer conversion. So far I dislike calibre conversions because it appears to change SO many things. Not a HUGE deal just kinda annoying since i wont buy that book from amazon until it gets enhanced typesetting.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by SuperDerpBro

So far I dislike calibre conversions because it appears to change SO many things.

Then it sounds like you need to spend more time learning about and changing your calibre conversion settings until you get the results you want.

[SuperDerpBro]

Seems like a lot of it is out of the users control. The books always look different in lots of different ways. Any suggestions?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by SuperDerpBro

Seems like a lot of it is out of the users control. The books always look different in lots of different ways. Any suggestions?

Learn how to edit a book manually (in the Calibre editor, for instance). That's actually not very difficult. There are many detailed instructions online. I learned how to edit the things conversion couldn't change purely with the help of internet and Google.

You can fix most of the things you are not satisfied with, editing the book yourself. Once you know what you're doing, it takes little time and effort (in most cases). Often I spend more time editing the metadata than editing the book itself.

I might add I have never seen such images as those in your first post on any of my Kindles. And I have converted hundreds of epub books. I've no idea what they look like in the Kindle Previewer, though.

[HarryT]

Moved to the Kindle file format forum, where you're much more likely to get effective help.

[Dr. Drib]

Moderator Notice

Please take a few moments to read our Posting Guidelines, in particular the part about the maximum image size allowed (600x600 pixels). Images that violate those guidelines will be deleted.

It is every member's responsibility to read our Posting Guidelines and follow them.

Thanks.

[SuperDerpBro]

fixed

[rashkae]

the drop cap placement is because Kindle does not allow Line Height of less than 1.2em, (or 120%.).

There are several older epubs that used Line Height of less than 1 as part of their css. it looks fine on a standard compliant viewer, such as most epub readers, but the Kindle will muss it up.

This has to be fixed manually.. In Calibre, you can edit the epub, find the css that corresponds to the drop cap letters, and modify it to have a line height of 1.2, then change the margins so placement and text flow looks correct.

I'm paraphrasing from memory, but css for drop caps that render properly on Kindle will look something like this:

float: left;
font-size: 3em;
line-height: 1.2em;
margin-top: -0.3em;
margin-bottom: -0.3em;
margin-right: 0.05em;

Edit:

Also, here are some changes you can made to Calibre conversion settings so it changes almost nothing of the book format:

In Look and Feel, check "Disable Font size Rescalling"
In Page Setup tab, change Output Profile to "Tablet"
In Structure Detection Tab: Change Chapter Mark to "None"
Change Insert Page Breaks Before to "/", (without the quotes.)
Heuristic Processing Tab, unchech "Enable Heuristic Processing"

The one big caveat: some books specify theit fontsizes with generic keywoards (small, medium, large.)... With font scaling disabled, Calibre will mistreat those badly, (changing them to fixed point sizes, very bad.)... you will usually know this if previewing the converted books and the font sizes have all become tiny. In that case, you will either have to enable font size re-scalling, or change those font sizes in the source epub manually.
In the case of enabling Font-size scaling, I prefer to use this font-size key,, It reduces the shrinkage of smaller text: Base font size "12 pt" Font Size Key: "10.5, 11.0, 11.5, 12.0, 13.5, 17.0, 20.0, 22.0, 24.0"

[SuperDerpBro]

Thanks. I'll try some of those things in bit

[SuperDerpBro]

Your suggestions worked great for making a conversion very close to the original. Thank you! I tried your drop cap settings and its the same and even noticeable in the calibre reader now heh :/

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by rashkae

the drop cap placement is because Kindle does not allow Line Height of less than 1.2em, (or 120%.).

There are several older epubs that used Line Height of less than 1 as part of their css. it looks fine on a standard compliant viewer, such as most epub readers, but the Kindle will muss it up.

Even better, IIRC, Kindle's interpretation of font height often differs from the norm thanks to what I think are bugs in WebKit-GTK, resulting in situations where—only with some fonts—a line height of 1.2 actually gets further expanded slightly on some devices and not on others....

[Notjohn]

I often have occasion to convert epub to mobi, because books are available to me from the university library but only in epub format, which obliges me to read on my desktop computer, with the stiff neck that that entails. So I feel justified in breaking the DRM, converting with Calibre, and putting the book onto my Fire tablet, to read at leisure as I go to sleep.

Naturally I am obsessive about obeying the ludicrous one-week reading period allowed to me.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

I often have occasion to convert epub to mobi, because books are available to me from the university library but only in epub format, which obliges me to read on my desktop computer, with the stiff neck that that entails. So I feel justified in breaking the DRM, converting with Calibre, and putting the book onto my Fire tablet, to read at leisure as I go to sleep.

Naturally I am obsessive about obeying the ludicrous one-week reading period allowed to me.

Why not read on your Fire Tablet with a ePub read app ?

Overdrive, BlueFire and many others.