Troublesome epub for the kids

[Markismus]

I've downloaded a nice book for my daughter with little text and a lot of pictures. However, I have trouble displaying it on her Kobo Glo and my Onyx Boox Note Pro. The book is reupped [deleted]

So it doesn't display well on Linux for mupdf and Calibre 5.xxx, too. After conversion to PDF, the images display correctly, but the text is lost. However, Sigil and another ePub editor do display it prefectly in their preview.
So I rebooted to Windows 10 and Calibre 4.xx does display it correctly. MuPDF is still a rather sorry affair. Conversion to PDF with Calibre stays stuck at 47%, though.

I've ran into this kind of trouble before. I then take out all the images and create a cbz-file (zipped container for all the images) and reading goes fine. However, in this ePub the text is not part of the image, so it's lost. (A clue for what happened to the Calibre 5.x conversion, too.)

Does anyone have an inkling as what may be causing it and how to alleviate it?

[Jellby]

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[Markismus]

Sorry. If someone is willing, please PM me for a link.

Calibre crashes with:

Converting input as a text based book...
Python function terminated unexpectedly
  [Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'C:\\Users\\Debiel\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_iuphap\\whccep_plumber\\OEBPS/Fonts/f140.otf' (Error Code: 1)
 Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site.py", line 114, in main
  File "site.py", line 88, in run_entry_point
  File "site-packages\calibre\utils\ipc\worker.py", line 209, in main
  File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.py", line 43, in gui_convert_override
  File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.py", line 28, in gui_convert
  File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plumber.py", line 1275, in run
  File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plugins\pdf_output.py", line 188, in convert
  File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plugins\pdf_output.py", line 237, in convert_text
  File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plugins\pdf_output.py", line 208, in process_fonts
  File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\base.py", line 1035, in data
  File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\base.py", line 580, in read
  File "site-packages\calibre\startup.py", line 169, in local_open
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'C:\\Users\\Debiel\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_iuphap\\whccep_plumber\\OEBPS/Fonts/f140.otf'

Looking at the ePub, I see a lot of hardcoded lengths and widths and absolute positions. I would have to filter all those out and replace them with the exact screensize of my ereader or with relative sizes. It's really stupid. But it also explains why it doesn't work.

[Quoth]

export it as either docx or rtf and edit styles.

Perhaps it's intended as fixed layout, but conversion to PDF is rarely useful. I make PDFs only for paper / POD or big tablets and direct from the wordprocessor, though the Calibre viewer "print" creates decent PDF files from anything sensibly displayed in it.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Markismus

Looking at the ePub, I see a lot of hardcoded lengths and widths and absolute positions. I would have to filter all those out and replace them with the exact screensize of my ereader or with relative sizes. It's really stupid. But it also explains why it doesn't work.

That is a fixed layout EPUB. That format is not supported by calibre.

[Quoth]

Only really works on big eink or a big tablet with an app.

Really if something doesn't work as a real reflowable ebook they should pay for an app. PDFs, fixed epub etc are horrible to read electronically.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by jhowell

That is a fixed layout EPUB. That format is not supported by calibre.

Yup, took the words right out of my mouth. Not convertible to any other realistic format.

Fixed-layout ebooks only work on the devices for which they are specifically designed. If you have a Kobo, buy it on Kobo. If you have an iOS tablet, buy it on the Apple store. If you have a Kindle or Kindle reader, buy it there.

Don't try to move files from A to B. In the world of fixed-layout it simply does not work. Everything is set in X-Y coordinates targeted to a specific device, screen resolution, screen size, etc. It's ...it's not reverse-engineer-able.

Hitch

[DNSB]

Kobo's ereaders support fixed layout epub3 ebooks but you will need to have them on the ereader as filename.kepub.epub for newer firmware and filename.fxl.kepub.epub for older firmware. See Kobolabs on Github at Fixed Layout (FXL) Support. The issue I find with FLO epubs is much the same as with PDF in that if you don't have a large enough screen, the text is too small to view if the epub was not designed for a smaller screen device.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Kobo's ereaders support fixed layout epub3 ebooks but you will need to have them on the ereader as filename.kepub.epub for newer firmware and filename.fxl.kepub.epub for older firmware. See Kobolabs on Github at Fixed Layout (FXL) Support. The issue I find with FLO epubs is much the same as with PDF in that if you don't have a large enough screen, the text is too small to view if the epub was not designed for a smaller screen device.

Yes and if some dunderhead did it, it could not zoom properly, either. And trust me, boys and girls, Dunderheads abound in the world of eBook formatting! It's Dunder-riffic!

Hitch

[Markismus]

Thanks for the replies. I didn't get any emails, so I'm just now catching up.

Never heard about fixed layout epub before. I was wondering how you could relativize all the coordinates. Got rather confused.

However, with Perl is should be relatively easy to take inventory of the scales used and rescale to another fixed ePub.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Markismus

Thanks for the replies. I didn't get any emails, so I'm just now catching up.

Never heard about fixed layout epub before. I was wondering how you could relativize all the coordinates. Got rather confused.

However, with Perl is should be relatively easy to take inventory of the scales used and rescale to another fixed ePub.

So....your theory is that the new device, and the originally-intended device, have precisely--and I mean, precisely--the identical pixel-to-pixel, height-to-width aspect ratio?



Hitch

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Yes and if some dunderhead did it, it could not zoom properly, either. And trust me, boys and girls, Dunderheads abound in the world of eBook formatting! It's Dunder-riffic!

Hitch

That's being rather kind to some of the blunders out there for eBooks.