Converting from Epub vs ORIGINAL_EPUB

[meghane_e]

I'm running Calibre 8.8 right now. I had an unusual conversion happening where it kept using the ORIGINAL_EPUB file to convert from and not the existing EPUB format.

After I removed the ORIGINAL_EPUB file, it converted correctly.

Just wanted to post this before I forget it ever happened. This seems like a bug. I'm updating to 8.9 Calibre now. I'll double-check that 8.9 converts as expected.

Thanks!

[PeterT]

Calibre will always use the ORIGINAL_EPUB file when reconverting.

See
Release: 0.8.11 [22 Jul, 2011]
New Features

When doing a conversion from some format to the same format, save the original file

When calibre does a conversion from the same format to the same format, for example, from EPUB to EPUB, the original file is saved as original_epub, so that in case the conversion is poor, you can change the settings and run it again. The original is automatically used every time you run a conversion with that format as input. If you want to disable this, there is a tweak that prevents calibre from saving the originals in Preferences->Tweaks. You can easily replace the converted version with the original in the Edit metadata dialog by right clicking on the list of formats in the top right corner.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Calibre will always use the ORIGINAL_EPUB file when reconverting.

See
Release: 0.8.11 [22 Jul, 2011]
New Features

When doing a conversion from some format to the same format, save the original file

When calibre does a conversion from the same format to the same format, for example, from EPUB to EPUB, the original file is saved as original_epub, so that in case the conversion is poor, you can change the settings and run it again. The original is automatically used every time you run a conversion with that format as input. If you want to disable this, there is a tweak that prevents calibre from saving the originals in Preferences->Tweaks. You can easily replace the converted version with the original in the Edit metadata dialog by right clicking on the list of formats in the top right corner.

Not always. When using the Modify ePub plugin, it will not use ORIGINAL_EPUB. But it will create one.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Calibre will always use the ORIGINAL_EPUB file when reconverting.

See
Release: 0.8.11 [22 Jul, 2011]
New Features

When doing a conversion from some format to the same format, save the original file

When calibre does a conversion from the same format to the same format, for example, from EPUB to EPUB, the original file is saved as original_epub, so that in case the conversion is poor, you can change the settings and run it again. The original is automatically used every time you run a conversion with that format as input. If you want to disable this, there is a tweak that prevents calibre from saving the originals in Preferences->Tweaks. You can easily replace the converted version with the original in the Edit metadata dialog by right clicking on the list of formats in the top right corner.

Curious: where did you get the release notes from 2011?

BR

[theducks]

Version 0.8
Does it have mold?
That is over 10 years old.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Curious: where did you get the release notes from 2011?



BR

I found another forum post discussing this and copied from there!

[kovidgoyal]

FYI, all release notes going back forever (version 0.6 IIRC) are available in the calibre repository in the file Changelog.old.txt

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

FYI, all release notes going back forever (version 0.6 IIRC) are available in the calibre repository in the file Changelog.old.txt

Which is at ==>> https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...ngelog.old.txt

[JSWolf]

Can we have an option to not automatically use ORIGINAL_EPUB and have it there as a safety backup?

[Quoth]

I always have a copy outside of Calibre on the same computer, so I delete "ORIGINAL_EPUB". Everything is backed up.

[fogice]

I went to:

Preferences / Tweaks / Save original file when converting/polishing from same format to same format

and set both options to False. Like Quoth, I can get back to the original version outside of Calibre if I need to.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by fogice

I went to:

Preferences / Tweaks / Save original file when converting/polishing from same format to same format

and set both options to False. Like Quoth, I can get back to the original version outside of Calibre if I need to.

I put the original into the Book's data folder irregardless of what I might then do or not do - i.e. convert, edit, modify, whatever. Preserves the original file name & modified timestamp, gets backed up on site daily, to cloud weekly, and I know where to find it.

BR

[meghane_e]

Just as an update and agreement:
Just updated to 8.16.1 recently. Was doing a conversion from EPUB to AZW3. The file ALSO had an ORIGIANAL_EPUB format in the folder. It was using the ORIGINAL_EPUB format to convert to AZW3.

If I have an EPUB file in a folder, the expected behavior is to use the EPUB format.
If Calibre is going to resort to using ORIGINAL_EPUB instead, it would be nice to at least have a notification pop up.

Generally speaking, I want to be able to keep the ORIGINAL_EPUB file in the folder because you just never know when something might go wrong (yes, mostly user error but since we have to buy these books, I would prefer the application err on safety and warn users of space limitations before committing errors).

It's also interesting when I can compare the size of my ORIGINAL_EPUB and current EPUB files to see if I saved space.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by meghane_e

Just as an update and agreement:
Just updated to 8.16.1 recently. Was doing a conversion from EPUB to AZW3. The file ALSO had an ORIGIANAL_EPUB format in the folder. It was using the ORIGINAL_EPUB format to convert to AZW3.

If I have an EPUB file in a folder, the expected behavior is to use the EPUB format.
If Calibre is going to resort to using ORIGINAL_EPUB instead, it would be nice to at least have a notification pop up.

Generally speaking, I want to be able to keep the ORIGINAL_EPUB file in the folder because you just never know when something might go wrong (yes, mostly user error but since we have to buy these books, I would prefer the application err on safety and warn users of space limitations before committing errors).

It's also interesting when I can compare the size of my ORIGINAL_EPUB and current EPUB files to see if I saved space.

Using Original is the expected (for a long time) if it exists

[meghane_e]

So, I'm doing a few conversions again. It seems to be a yearly thing in prepartion for Winter

The last reply here says that using the .original_epub version to convert from is the expected behavior? I'm a little confused by why this would be the desired conversion path? I would like to understand the reasoning behind this.

Here's an actual example of where it has become troublesome for me:
1. Downloaded story pages from a site I have a paid subscription to.
2. Extracted the HTML story body (used BeautifulSoup to do it) from the web pages to story_part00XX.html pages.
3. In Calibre, added an empty EPUB book.
4. In Calibre Epub Editor, opened the blank EPUB and imported the HTML files.
5. The result is, of course, an EPUB without any stylesheets.

6. So I converted the initial EPUB to EPUB using Calibre which generates stylesheets and substitutes calibre tags for all of the raw style code. It creates the EPUB file and an ORIGINAL_EPUB file.
7. I go through and make a few more clean ups on the CSS in the new EPUB (like making chapter headings more normal sized, making more reasonable margin settings, etc)

8. So when I'm ready to convert it for Kindle reading, it's using the ORIGINAL_EPUB. I can tell because the formatting is definitely off.

I don't want to delete the ORIGINAL_EPUB since conversions may lose original content or contextual formatting. But using the ORIGINAL_EPUB to convert from is sometimes significantly impacting the Kindle version.

What pathway should I be using to do this?
Thank you!!!