ebook-convert problem with page_styles.css

[gogu1904]

Hello,

I use Calibre command lines with path correctly set. I am using ebook-convert and ebook-meta. I wish to get margins set to zero, remove font-family and get rid of the size descriptor from the @page rule in page_styles.css.

With ebook-convert when converting epub to epub, all is fine. But with ebook-convert when converting from html (generated from docx) to epub, the page_style.css file is not modified. With the same set of parameters.

In order to be able to modify the page_styles.css I need to work with --extra-css option (when converting from html to epub). Thus I can set the margin-top and margin-bottom descriptors to zero and add margin-left and margin-right. But I cannot remove the size descriptor. I can replace it to size: auto, but I do not know if this is all right.

These are the options I use:

ebook-convert epub->epub:
--margin-top 0 --margin-bottom 0 --margin-left 0 --margin-right 0
--remove-paragraph-spacing
--filter-css font-family,color,margin-left,margin-right,margin-top,margin-bottom

ebook-convert html->epub:
--margin-top 0 --margin-bottom 0 --margin-left 0 --margin-right 0
--remove-paragraph-spacing
--filter-css font-family,color,margin-left,margin-right,margin-top,margin-bottom
--extra-css page_styles.css

And page_styles.css is:

@page {
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-top: 0;
orphans: 0;
widows: 0;
size: auto;
}

Do you have an idea why ebook-convert works differently in the two cases, even with the same target? Where is my error?

[gogu1904]

I just verified the DOCX to ePub pathway. Curiously, the direct process, DOCX to ePub, works correctly.

[kovidgoyal]

That's because your input html file will have those. And filtering doesnt apply to @page rules. Dont convert via HTML, for best results convert docx directly

[gogu1904]

Thank you indeed.

On a different note, is the parameter --language necesary with ebook-convert, or in case of a DOCX conversion it can be taken from the language attribute of the actual text (via the Language option in the Review ribbon)?

[kovidgoyal]

I dont recall, I would guess yes it will use metadata from the docx file to set language. Try it and see.