calibre 0.6.1 crashes when converting to epub

[hoops10]

I added an ebook in lit format and tried to convert to epub but it crashes everytime. I have tried it with and without a front page cover. Any idea? I have attached the detailed crash report that calibre gave me. Thanks for any help.

[kovidgoyal]

Looks like this LIT file is really a txt file inside a LIT container. Conversion is failing as there is no point to split the file into smaller chunks. Not much that can be done about that.

[hoops10]

Thanks for the reply. So what if it was just a regular txt file? Would conversion work then? Or does calibre not work with txt files? Thanks.

[kovidgoyal]

regular txt file work just fine. LIT based txt files consist of one big <pre> tag with all the txt in them

[hoops10]

Wow, thanks. I did try a txt file and it did convert to epub with no problems. But when I view it on my Sony 505, some of the words scroll off the page to the right and are not readable. Did I do something wrong when I converted it to epub? Thanks.

[kovidgoyal]

probably the txt has some markup that translates to non reflowable html. the simplest solution is to paste the txt file into Word (or whatever) and save as HTML. Then convert that.

[hoops10]

Ok, I'm getting there. I did what you said and pasted the txt file into NeoOffice (OfficeOffice for Mac OS X) and saved it as .html. Then I converted it to epub and sent it to the Sony 505. Now when I read it, all of the text is in the center of the page, with very wide blank margins on the left and right. Is there a way to get it to fill up the page? I tried zooming but that only makes the font bigger. Thanks for all your help so far.

[hoops10]

I managed to figure it out. I opened up the html file and found this:

@page { margin: 0.78in }


I changed it to:

@page { margin: 0.01in }

And now it fills the page perfect. Now I have to figure out how to edit the html file to make a chapter break, forcing the new chapter to start on a new page. If anyone knows, please let me know.

[Kostas]

If you're not familiar with html (my case), try to edit the file in rtf or html format with a word processor and save the result as html.
Thus, you can insert hard page breaks, change chapter title sizes, margins, indentation,...

[hoops10]

Wow, good call. Worked great. Now, do you happen to know how to create a table of contents so I can be able to jump to different chapter points?

[Kostas]

Well, I use a method for dummies like me. I'm sure that people with basic html knowledge can provide better solutions...

Anyway, I give you my experience with MS word, though I think that with openoffice things should be pretty much the same.

1) The easiest way to build a TOC in word is to use predefined heading styles for your chapter titles, namely "heading1", "heading2".
If you don't like the way these styles look, you can always modify them.

Having, done so, word can automatically generate a TOC in the place you want. Go:
Insert > Reference > Index and Tables > 2nd Tab (Table of Contents)
There you have to untick the "Show page numbers" box and have "Use hyperlinks..." ticked.
Click OK!
Done!

If you're using other styles for your headings click the options button to indicate on which styles should the TOC be built upon.

2) 2nd dummy method (manual).
For each entry you want in your TOC, select the heading text you want to appear in your TOC (chapter title) and click: insert > Bookmark (giving names to your bookmarks , i.e. b1, b2, ...).
Go where you want your TOC to appear:
Insert > Hyperlink > Place in this document
and select your bookmarks.

When you have finished, my personal advice is to save your file with the "save as html, filtered" option. It produces simpler html code. Otherwise, Word adds strange MS proprietary code to the html source that calibre doesn't seem to like.

[hoops10]

Kostas: I tried your auto method in OpenOffice and used Heading 1 for my chapters. It seems that, once saved as html (there was no option in OpenOffice for html, filtered), converted to epub and then sent to the reader that most of the chapters are listed as being on the wrong page. Maybe this is something that needs to be done in Word?

Also, should the Table of Contents be created at the very beginning of the ebook or at the very end? Thanks.

[Kostas]

Originally Posted by hoops10

most of the chapters are listed as being on the wrong page. Maybe this is something that needs to be done in Word?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
In ebooks, page numbers in a ToC are an irrelevant information.
The text is by definition formatted differently than on your pc and I don't think that ebook readers can handle dynamically this by changing the page number that appears on the right of a conventional ToC.
If you change the font size or orientation on your ebook reader, the text reflows and the displayed page numbers in the Toc should be modified, which I'm pretty sure doesn't happen.

The usefulleness of a ToC in ebooks is 1) to inform about the chapters of your book (not the page number that these chapters are located) 2) to allow you to jump directly to a chapter clicking on an entry of the ToC.
That's why I suggested to build a ToC without page numbers.
I don't know if openoffice offers such an option. I think it should.

Besides that, does the ToC created in your ePub allow to jump to the correct chapter by clicking on it?
If yes, the job is done, provided that you manage to get rid of the useless page number information.

If you cannot jump to chapters by clicking on a ToC entry, the process has failed and you have to try another method to generate a relevant ToC.

You could edit the html text with a html editor (like notepad++) and add heading tags to chapter titles. This should allow Calibre to automatically detect headings ang generate a relevant ToC. You have to enclose the chapter title text in heading tags <h1>....</h1>, <h2>....</h2>,... depending on the hierarchical level you want.
Calibre has also a detection method based on text (with regular expressions), even without tags. It should detect ToC entries each time it meets a paragraph starting with the words "chapter", "book", "section" or "part".
If this is the case in your ebook, you should try this Calibre feature.

Originally Posted by hoops10

Also, should the Table of Contents be created at the very beginning of the ebook or at the very end?

It really depends on what you like most. Personally, in ebooks I find more logical the ToC to be located a the beginning.