Missing symbol (divider) - MS Word to epub

[Denwayz]

I have been using a symbol as mid-chapter divider in a MS Word document, but Calibre conversion doesn't pick it up. The result is white space. I've attached an example. I'm new to epub conversion. Is there way to get the converter to see it (other than embedding it as an image)?

[kovidgoyal]

That does not render for me in Word 2007 either. But most likely you are using the Wingdings font, which is really not a good idea as its a non unicode font. Use a unicode symbol instead and you should be fine.

[JSWolf]

Can you please stop making a separate thread for each Word > ePub issue and just make one thread? It's rather annoying. Just ask the staff to merge all these threads or staff to delete them and make one thread.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can you please stop making a separate thread for each Word > ePub issue and just make one thread? It's rather annoying. Just ask the staff to merge all these threads or staff to delete them and make one thread.

I wont be merging them, single issue threads are much better when a user is searching for a solution, multi-issue threads are often hard to follow because the issues get entangled and conflated.

BR

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I wont be merging them, single issue threads are much better when a user is searching for a solution, multi-issue threads are often hard to follow because the issues get entangled and conflated.

Moderator Notice
Agreed.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

Moderator Notice
Agreed.

As it is/was Friday the 13th we should cut Jon a bit of slack today

BR

PS : does that translate ?

[Denwayz]

BetterRed:

I wont be merging them, single issue threads are much better when a user is searching for a solution, multi-issue threads are often hard to follow because the issues get entangled and conflated.

Which is why I keep them separate.

[Denwayz]

Thanks, kovidgoyal.
* For anyone who wants to find the unicode for a wingding, see
http://www.alanwood.net/demos/wingdings.html
* For anyone who wants to insert a unicode character into MsWord, see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aehbiJjsio

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

But most likely you are using the Wingdings font, which is really not a good idea as its a non unicode font. Use a unicode symbol instead and you should be fine.

Originally Posted by Denwayz

Thanks, kovidgoyal.
* For anyone who wants to find the unicode for a wingding, see
http://www.alanwood.net/demos/wingdings.html

I think Toxaris's site for it is the best organized:

http://toxaris.nl/glyphs/symbols.html

And it uses the Symbola font, so you could see what the Unicode specs meant.

(Within the past two years, Chrome/Firefox/other browsers have introduced built-in "color"/"emojified" font of a lot of the wingding characters, so the alanwood site became a bit harder to use. It is now harder to see how the characters would appear in your documents.)

Originally Posted by Denwayz

* For anyone who wants to insert a unicode character into MsWord, see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aehbiJjsio

If you have word documents using the legacy fonts:

• Symbol
• Webdings
• Wingdings
• Wingdings 2
• Wingdings 3

... Toxaris's EPUB Tools addon for Word is THE way to get those characters into Unicode after you export to EPUB.

I remember when I initially gave the idea to Toxaris too... it felt like yesterday:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...62#post3390162

Side Note: Would also be nice if Calibre had the above fonts -> Unicode functionality too. It has also done wonders for all those horrible books where people used the Symbol font and typed abc instead of actual Greek characters αβγ.

The above link points to more detailed research I did on the topic (Unicode 7.0 was when they introduced all those Wingdings characters into Unicode).

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

As it is/was Friday the 13th we should cut Jon a bit of slack today

BR

PS : does that translate ?

Only if we think that Jon's a Templar.

Now, about the wingding/fleuron: use an image. I mean, I hate to be ye olden cold bucket of water, but you cannot control whether or not the font you use or embed will be seen on the device. Even some of the (Shan't be Named, as Kovid Hates them, ha!) devices can and do override embedded fonts. Thus, you're somewhat screwed. You can't be certain that the Unicode will work, despite the name.

Using one small fleuron graphic, and calling it nine million times or whatever, adds virtually no weight to the book, so... why not? And yes, I know, someone's going to have a cow, and say that in night or sepia or green mode that the white background to the image is visible, and yes, so it is, but if you're "going wide" with distribution, you simply don't have the same type of control that you can, if you're converting the book for yourself.

Hitch

[Denwayz]

Thanks to all for your input.

Typography is an art. The letters themselves are elements of poetry. White/Black space (and the spectrum) is the ground of their emergence. Epub -- for reasons described above -- cannot presence this. That is not a bad thing -- this is a different medium. One never imagines that in transforming a book into a movie one is going to put a whole lot of text on the screen.

That said, I would draw your attention to a factor that strikes me as troubling. Great books are often transgressive. The works of Galileo, Abelard, Teilhard, and then Ulysses, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Lolita -- these all struggled to find the light of day, and would not have done so except for the insistence of writers and the courage of publishers prepared to break the structures of what was taken as 'acceptable'. Now, with the various epub protocols, we are faced with new kinds of Procrustean beds. It would be a great pity and loss if epub constraints prevented some great work of our time from reaching us. Just saying.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Denwayz

Thanks to all for your input.

Typography is an art. The letters themselves are elements of poetry. White/Black space (and the spectrum) is the ground of their emergence. Epub -- for reasons described above -- cannot presence this. That is not a bad thing -- this is a different medium. One never imagines that in transforming a book into a movie one is going to put a whole lot of text on the screen.

That said, I would draw your attention to a factor that strikes me as troubling. Great books are often transgressive. The works of Galileo, Abelard, Teilhard, and then Ulysses, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Lolita -- these all struggled to find the light of day, and would not have done so except for the insistence of writers and the courage of publishers prepared to break the structures of what was taken as 'acceptable'. Now, with the various epub protocols, we are faced with new kinds of Procrustean beds. It would be a great pity and loss if epub constraints prevented some great work of our time from reaching us. Just saying.

??? Why would it? There are myriad different ways for "art" to reach us, in this day and age. We all know that not every book is able to be digitized; for some the available digitization methods don't do the book justice. A compromise is used, specifically to ensure that the great work of art reaches that audience that wants it. And with all due respect, the works you mention, once we're talking the age of typography--Ulysses, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Lolita--had no impediment, certainly, due to typography.

In today's world it's simplicity itself to create and distribute a book, complete with its desired typography, in print, in pdf, in eBook format, or even on the web. There's nothing that will preclude some tortured, brilliant artist from ensuring that his work sees the light of day.

Spoiler:

Some people might argue that indeed, the biggest problem in publishing today is that "[t]here's nothing that will preclude some tortured, brilliant artist from ensuring that his work sees the light of day." How many of us have bemoaned the lack of gatekeepers--and even if you're not honest in the posts, be honest with yourselves--almost ALL of us.

My shop has done 3700+ eBooks. (yeah, that number boggles my brain, too.) I've given up arguing with people that accessibility is more important than (most) typography. What happens is a given author insists that the layout and typography (typically, font-switching and size-switching) are too important to the story to be sacrificed...and because of that (and because of what MOBI does with line-heights), we end up with the client insisting that the book be done in fixed-layout--which we do. So, now the book is reader-unfriendly, and onerous to read, but, bygod, the typography is preserved! Hallelujah, praise Jesus and pass the ammo.

There's a guy you should connect with, who's been posting on this forum, trying to bring his thousand-plus pages of book to the digital realm--but what he has, cannot be done in a reflowable layout. It could be done in fixed-layout, which I told him--but I aso told him what I just said here; that fixed-layout that requires/forces the reader to tap-zoom, pinch-zoom, pan-scan, read, pan-scan, read, page-slide, pan-scan, read, is to me, an abomination, and will result in readers that will be bloody unhappy. From a commercial standpoint, even blithely ignoring the much-put-upon-reader, those same unhappy folks will complain to Amazon--and that's a horse of a different color. Amazon will quickly deploy a KQN (Kindle Quality Notice), and put a warning on the book, on the sales page, advising all that the book has quality issues. I know from some of our clients that have received those (for as few as THREE typos, mind you), that sales will fall off a cliff, the moment said notice appears.

ANYway, yon author feels that his typography is also crucial.

Back on Topic:

NOW, it seems to me that this entire discussion, THIS thread, was about a fleuron, was it not? Is there some reason that the image method is wholly unacceptable?



Hitch

[gbm]

Originally Posted by Hitch

snip

My shop has done 3700+ eBooks. (yeah, that number boggles my brain, too.) I've given up arguing with people that accessibility is more important than (most) typography. What happens is a given author insists that the layout and typography (typically, font-switching and size-switching) are too important to the story to be sacrificed...and because of that (and because of what MOBI does with line-heights), we end up with the client insisting that the book be done in fixed-layout--which we do. So, now the book is reader-unfriendly, and onerous to read, but, bygod, the typography is preserved! Hallelujah, praise Jesus and pass the ammo.

snip

Hitch

Guarantees that to me the story is not worth my time.

bernie

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by gbm

Guarantees that to me the story is not worth my time.

bernie

Bernie:

Well, as I'm a maker of books, I don't have the luxury of opinions. Mine is not to reason why....


Hitch

[kovidgoyal]

@Tex2002ans There you go https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...778d33e61051ba