Writer's Haven > Formatter's Forge [Public]
Using Calibre to edit your Table of Contents
RPatton:
--- Quote from: B.L. Alley on February 13, 2020, 09:21:54 AM ---
--- Quote from: RPatton on February 13, 2020, 09:15:26 AM ---
--- Quote from: Jeff Tanyard on February 12, 2020, 07:13:16 PM ---
--- Quote from: RPatton on February 12, 2020, 06:06:21 PM ---Sigil won't change up the CSS styles. Calibre will sometimes consolidate styles. Which can cause problems in the long run. I have fixed more than my fair share of ebooks that got compiled or changed in Calibre. It's a good software, but easy to cause more problems if you aren't completely certain of what you're doing.
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What kind of problems? Genuinely curious.
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Sometimes a CSS will have the different names for a style that shares the same traits. There usually a reason for using different names, especially if you use a base style sheet and want to do some customization or branding. Calibree strips out the style names, gives it a new style. So now the copyright page uses the same style name as the acknowledgements page.
--- Quote from: B.L. Alley on February 12, 2020, 11:42:45 PM ---Sometimes Calibre will randomly assign multiple CC to the same formatting and toss in some errant nonsense. I'm sure it's due to a slight difference in the docx coding, which is why it works best when the docx has minimal formatting. Save the paperback styles and such for the paperback.
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Has absolutely nothing to do with paperback styles and everything to do with how Calibre treats styles. Calibre seems to ignore the style names and instead focus on the definitions. You might have a good reason for giving the same style two different names depending on how it's used, but Calibre doesn't care. It's fine for that first version, but going back in and updating that epub will take twice as long (if you're lucky) than if it had been checked in Sigil.
The point is, Calibre is a reader tool and what it does to the epubs is geared to the reader. Sigil is intended for epubs, creating and formatting them. It would be like using a ball-peen hammer instead of a claw hammer. Both will get the nail in the wood, but one is better suited for the job. Sometimes Calibre works great, but the one time you need it to work great, you're staring at a style sheet you didn't correct and no easy way to rename the styles in the HTML.
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You sound just like NotJohn referencing his outdated experience with Calibre. Calibre is absolutely an ebook creation tool and focuses on ePub for editing. Calibre will retain any formatting from the docx. It's not perfect, but close enough to only require minor tweaking as long as there isn't excessive formatting in the docx. The entire process from import to verified epub is less than an hour.
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I'm not referencing outdated experience, but thanks for that little insult.
And I'm tapping out. I know about CSS and epubs and print formatting and I've shared a lot of what I know with this forum. As I said, Calibre is a good tool, but there are better tools available for free. Same as Vellum. It's a good tool, but has its weaknesses. Blindly ignoring those weaknesses is just begging for a disaster at the worst possible moment. Good luck to you when that happens.
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