EPUB reflow problem

Gregor · Post by **Gregor** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 10:55 am

I got a problem when exporting a text document to EPUB.
I tried to pinpoint what exactly causes the problem. I think it is the use of quotation marks, brackets and bold and italic text, all in the same sentence.
The sentence right after all this doesn't reflow like it suppose to (see the screenshot).
I first thought it was my e-reader doing this. But after checking the same epub with Adobe Digital Editions....same thing happens.
Is this a bug or what?
I tried the new beta 1.6.5.1 ....... same problem.
Saving the epub with fonts imbedded doesn't help either.

Any help much appreciated!

Gregor · Post by **Gregor** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 11:01 am

Here's the text file for anyone interested checking for themself.
After saving it as epub,....resize the window to see how it reflows.

Post by **admin** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 12:35 pm

It is a bug of ADE. Most probably your eReader (Sony?) also uses the rendering engine from ADE. This is why the problem is reproducible in both readers.

„Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit” (formatted in bold) is followed by a non-bold space character in the source document. ADE fails to render this combination of formatting correctly. If you apply bold to this non-bold space character (see attached adjusted version of your original document), ADE would render it correctly.

It is one of many bugs still present in ADE and derivative readers. ADE has plenty of problems related to line wrapping.

Gregor · Post by **Gregor** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:11 pm

Thanks for the quick response!

Is there a way to automate this? Doing this by hand for every book, few hundreds or thousands pages is not doable.
I tried the replace function but that doesn't work.
Where can I find a list with all the bugs still present in ADE?

btw Yes I got a Sony!

Post by **admin** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:54 pm

Sorry, but no one has a complete list of ADE bugs.

Regrettably there is no way to create eBooks that would perfectly display in existing eReaders without actually testing them in all major eReaders. Any eBook should be tested first before publishing because existing eBook readers are very imperfect (not to say half-baked).

Sorry, but no automatic solution is possible here. There is actually nothing to automate. You need to open your eBook in target eBook readers, check it for possible display problems, and make some adjustments to the source document.

Gregor · Post by **Gregor** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:25 pm

I just spend two hours on fixing one book...uch.
Well at least I now know what the problem is!

Thanks for the help!

Post by **Robert** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:40 pm

Hi,
This is not fully automatic but it might save time and aggravation.

I am assuming that the problem lies with the sequences of “bold characters separated by a non-bold space character”. Here is what you could do to find such sequences more or less automatically:

1. Open the source document.
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+8 to display the special symbols. This will make sure the space characters are visible.
3. Choose a big zooming factor (150% or higher). Space characters are more visible this way.
4. Press Ctrl+Home.
5. Press Ctrl+F.
6. In the Find/Replace dialog, make sure the Find box is empty.
7. Still in the Find/Replace dialog, check the “Format” box.
8. In the Font Format dialog, check the box for the “Bold” effect.
9. OK out of the Font Format dialog.
10. Press the “Find and Select All” button.
11. Atlantis will find and highlight a number of sequences made up of bold characters.
12. Do not deselect that multiple selection, press Shift+Alt+B, then OK in the New Bookmark dialog. Atlantis will automatically create as many bookmarks as there are selected fragments. This will help you navigate from one found fragment to the next and also spot any non-bold space character separating 2 sequences of bold characters enclosed within bookmark brackets. Any non-bold space character separating 2 bookmarked sequences of bold characters should be as plain as the nose on your face.

Now you know what to do with these orphaned non-bold space characters: make them bold so that they fit in with the rest of the sequence.

HTH.
Cheers,
Robert

Gregor · Post by **Gregor** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 2:28 pm

Thanks for your input Robert.
I just tried what you said but Atlantis hung up on me right after making the bookmark. (tried it twice)
Looks like the program needs some serious debugging!

Post by **admin** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 3:28 pm

If you have thousands of selected fragments in your document, bookmarking them all might take minutes.

But actually there is not much sense in scanning your document for non-bold space characters. As I said above, there is no way to create a quality eBook without testing it in major eBook readers.

Post by **Robert** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 8:18 pm

Hi Gregor,
Here is another more simple approach:

1. Open the source document.
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+8 to display the special symbols. This will make sure the space characters are visible.
3. Choose a big zooming factor (150% or higher). Space characters are more visible this way.
4. Press Ctrl+Home.
5. Press Ctrl+F.
6. In the Find/Replace dialog, make sure the Find box is empty.
7. Still in the Find/Replace dialog, check the “Format” box.
8. In the Font Format dialog, check the box for the “Bold” effect.
9. OK out of the Font Format dialog.
10. Press the “Find Next” button.
11. Atlantis will find and highlight the first sequence of bold characters.
12. Close the Find/Replace dialog.
13. Press F3 to navigate to the next occurrence of a bold sequence. If it is separated from the previous sequence of bold characters by a single space character, and Atlantis jumped over that single space character without selecting it, you’ll know that it is a non-bold single space character.
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert