Which of the following formats creates the best .epub output?

[faintdreams]

Ello :D

I have bought an ebook , and it was provided in the following formats: .lit, .pdf, .rtf, and .txt.

I know I can use Calibre to create a .epub file to read on my reader, but I was wondering if anyone knows which of the four formats will produce the best .epub ouput.

By best I mean the clearest, most readable layout with the least amount of weird / haphazard line breaks or unrecognised / garbled symbols.

I am also using osx (macintosh), so I know I could open the .rtf, and .txt. in Pages.app and save as epub, but in my (limited) experience this produces worse results than Calibre does.

I want to save to .epub because I have a Sony reader and find epubs display on it (in my opinion) the most clearly, and also supports font upscaling / text re-flow more accurately

Any help / advice much appreciated.

Comments

[jumpuphigh]

Either .lit or .rtf is the way to go. PDFs are rarely formatted well for ereaders and even less well for conversion. Txt just doesn't have enough data for a nice conversion. iirc, .lit is supposed to be the best but I, personally, have had better luck overall with .rtf. I'd say save both .rtf and .lit so that if you don't like the conversion, you can delete the epub and reconvert using the other format.

[samvara]

I second the vote for .rtf, I get the best results with it - the Calibre updates which are coming out delightfully regularly have improved PDF conversion but it's still not quite as nice.

I've only converted one .lit and it was average but alas, it was my only source.

[elf]

.lit or .rtf is going to be best; which one works better depends on how the original was formatted. A well-made .lit file with a table of contents and nicely-made chapter headers will convert well. A mediocre .lit file auto-converted without attention to its formatting options will lack those options in .epub.

.RTF has the option of opening it yourself in Word or Open Office and tweaking the formatting to allow for better .epub conversion.

(I'm lazy; I tend to just bump the font size of the .rtf up to 15 for the standard text, and throw that on my Sony as-is. I lose pictures and TOC options, but for novels, I don't much care.)

[ephemera]

thirding the .lit or .rtf votes - I've had good results with .lit files, but I realise that it depends on the source.

[yourlibrarian]

I have no answers myself but just wanted to chime in and say thanks for asking this because I ran into the same issue myself, before (though html was also an option) and just chose some forms at random.