calibre

footnotes are lost when converting to fb2 format

Bug #1049878 reported by Odinokij Volk
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
calibre
Triaged
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

When I convert a book from fb2 to mobi the footnotes work fine in the mobi when I read the book in a kindle, but when I reconvert the mobi book to fb2 format, the footnotes are copied as normal text.

Example:

1) Original fb2 file:

<body>
bla bla bla strange_word<a type="note" l:href="#note1">[1]</a> bla bla
[...]
</body>
<body name="notes">
<section id="note1">
<p>[1] strange_word: definition.</p>
</section>
[...]
<body>

2) I convert this file to mobi and delete the original fb2 file. The mobi file has the footnotes ok.

3) I convert the mobi file to fb2 but the footnotes are codified as normal text:

<body>
bla bla bla strange_word<sup>[1]</sup> bla bla
[...]
<p>[1] strange_word: definition.</p>
[...]
<body>

Thank you very much for this wonderful application.

Tags: fb2-output
Revision history for this message
Odinokij Volk (odinokijvolk) wrote :

There's a mistake, the final <body> of points 1 and 3 should be </body>.

Thanks.

Revision history for this message
Odinokij Volk (odinokijvolk) wrote :

...and I forgot to write down my version:

Calibre 0.8.68 for Windows (XP)

Revision history for this message
Kovid Goyal (kovid) wrote : Re: calibre bug 1049878

Changing the component for this bug.

 assignee user-none
 tag fb2-output
 status triaged

Changed in calibre:
assignee: nobody → John Schember (user-none)
status: New → Triaged
Revision history for this message
John Schember (user-none) wrote :

It's converted exactly as the input has it. The footnotes in the MOBI are normal paragraph so it's being converted to FB2 as a normal paragraph. This is a situation where there is no direct equivalent of FB2 footnotes in other formats so an approximation is used. This is a lossy process and it is not possible to make it convert exactly into then out of and back into the original format.

Changed in calibre:
status: Triaged → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Odinokij Volk (odinokijvolk) wrote :

But in the mobi format the footnote number in the text has a link to the note at the end of the book, and when converted to fb2 this number is set to <sup> format but the link is lost. Is not possible to keep this link alive in the conversion?

Thank you.

Odinokij Volk (odinokijvolk)
Changed in calibre:
status: Invalid → New
Revision history for this message
John Schember (user-none) wrote :

You will need to provide the MOBI file so I can verify why the link is not retained.

Changed in calibre:
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Odinokij Volk (odinokijvolk) wrote :

Thank you for resuming this thread.

I attach you a zip file with the following books:

   1_Original FB2 with Links to Footnotes.fb2
   2_Mobi from Original FB2 with Links to Footnotes.mobi
   3_FB2 converted from Mobi WITHOUT Links to Footnotes.fb2

As their names autoexplain, I add book 1 to calibre, convert it to mobi format to get book 2, remove book 1 from calibre, and convert book 2 to fb2 format to obtain book 3.

To find an example of the lost links, you can search in the text for "los otros no tienen suficiente" so you will find:

   In book 1 (fb2): "los otros no tienen suficiente<a type="note" l:href="#n4">4</a>"
   In book 2 (mobi): "los otros no tienen suficiente" (followed by the link to footnote 4)
   In book 3 (fb2): "los otros no tienen suficiente<sup>4</sup>" (the link is lost)

Thank you again for your work,

   Odinokij Volk.

Kovid Goyal (kovid)
Changed in calibre:
status: Incomplete → Triaged
Michael Shulman (zmshulman239)
Changed in calibre:
assignee: John Schember (user-none) → Michael Shulman (zmshulman239)
assignee: Michael Shulman (zmshulman239) → nobody
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