Re: epub : footnote backlink character not rendered by Kobo fonts

[John MacFarlane <jgm-TVLZxgkOlNX2fBVCVOL8/A@public.gmane.org>]

That's great -- if you add your script to the discussion at

https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/3149

then perhaps others who could benefit from it will find it more easily.


Vin Cent <irakay17-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> writes:

> Thanks. Shell script written ; works like a charm.
> If that counts, I vote for the #3149 change/configure character approach :)
>
> If that can ease anybody's life, here is my shell script (more than 3 
> lines, but should be safe and leave no trace in case of failure) :
>
>
> #!/bin/sh
>
> FN="ebook.epub"
> ZIPNAME="ebook.zip"
> CWD=`pwd`
>
> if [ ! -f $FN ]; then
>   exit 1
> fi
>
> if [ ! -d $MYDIR ]; then
>   exit 2
> fi
>
> MYDIR=`mktemp -d`
> cleanup()
> {
>   cd $CWD
>   rm -rf $MYDIR
>   exit $1
> }
>
> mv $FN ${MYDIR}/${ZIPNAME} || cleanup 3
> cd $MYDIR || cleanup 4
> unzip $ZIPNAME || cleanup 5
> rm -f $ZIPNAME || cleanup 6
> cd EPUB/text || cleanup 7
> sed -i -e 's/>↩︎<\/a>/>‡<\/a>/g' *html || cleanup 8
> rm -f $ZIPNAME || cleanup 9
> cd ../.. || cleanup 10
> zip -8 -r ${CWD}/${ZIPNAME} * || cleanup 11
> cd $CWD || cleanup 12
> mv $ZIPNAME $FN || cleanup 13
> rm -rf $MYDIR
>
>
> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:40:14 PM UTC+2 John MacFarlane wrote:
>
>>
>> A custom writer is probably overkill. It would be easier to write
>> a small script that unzips the epub, does search and replace
>> on the xhtml files, and then zips it back up again. This could
>> be 3 lines of shell script.
>>
>> That said, this is a long standing issue and we might consider
>> using a different character or making it configurable:
>>
>> https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/3149
>>
>>
>> William Lupton <wlu...-QSt+ys/nuMyEUIsrzH9SikB+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org> writes:
>>
>> > This probably won't be the answer that you wanted, but you could use a
>> > custom writer, e.g., based on the provided sample.lua. See
>> > https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#custom-writers.
>> >
>> > Here's the relevant code (this isn't all the code relating to footnotes,
>> > but it's the bit that has the special character!):
>> >
>> > function Note(s)
>> > local num = #notes + 1
>> > -- insert the back reference right before the final closing tag.
>> > s = string.gsub(
>> > s, '(.*)</', '%1 <a href="#fnref' .. num .. '">&#8617;</a></')
>> > -- add a list item with the note to the note table.
>> > table.insert(notes, '<li id="fn' .. num .. '">' .. s .. '</li>')
>> > -- return the footnote reference, linked to the note.
>> > return '<a id="fnref' .. num .. '" href="#fn' .. num ..
>> > '"><sup>' .. num .. '</sup></a>'
>> > end
>> >
>> > On Tue, 21 Sept 2021 at 13:23, Vin Cent <irak...-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Ok, after some more reading, I'm still unsure how to proceed ; and I
>> >> actually don't see how I could to that with a filter.
>> >> I have dumped pandoc's native output format ; and the character I need 
>> to
>> >> replace is not part of it. I guess it is added at the time of pandoc's
>> >> writing the output document.
>> >> I don't know how how I can replace that character. Hopefully there is a
>> >> pandoc setting I can tune so that I won't need to replace it at some 
>> late
>> >> stage.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 10:42:14 AM UTC+2 Vin Cent wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Sorry for answering myself. I have RTFMed a bit in the while.
>> >>> I actually hint this can be simply done with a LUA filter.
>> >>> I will try to implement it as a self-exercice and report the result 
>> here.
>> >>>
>> >>> On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 9:34:26 AM UTC+2 Vin Cent wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> Hi,
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I am generating epub3 from latex source.
>> >>>> I was wondering why footnotes show a backlink to the original text 
>> when
>> >>>> I display the document in calibre, and why they do not when I display 
>> the
>> >>>> document on a kobo reader...
>> >>>>
>> >>>> ... until I found the backlink is indeed well present. It is "just" 
>> not
>> >>>> displayed by kobo because the character set (by pandoc, I think) has 
>> no
>> >>>> rendering on their font.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> The backlink character, copied and pasted from the .epub document
>> >>>> itself, seems to be "↩︎".
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I see two possible tricks here so that the link will appear on kobo :
>> >>>> 1. Change the character to another one that would be rendered by kobo.
>> >>>> 2. Change the default font of the document to one that has rendering 
>> for
>> >>>> that character.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I have tried all available fonts on my device. There are actually 
>> three
>> >>>> classes of them.
>> >>>> (Listing them all below, this might be of interest to somebody in the
>> >>>> future)
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Avenir Next ; Georgia ; Kobo Nickel : these fonts render absolutely
>> >>>> nothing for that character, leading the human to believe the backlink 
>> does
>> >>>> not exist. It is present, clickable, just not rendered.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Amasis ; Caecilia ; Gill Sans ; Malabar ; OpenDislexic : these fonts
>> >>>> render "__" for that character. I find it "better" than the first 
>> family,
>> >>>> but still not great. It is not obvious for a non-tehnical human that 
>> this
>> >>>> is a backlink to the text.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> AR UDJingxihei ; Kobo UD Kakugo ; Kobo Tsukishi Mincho : display
>> >>>> oriental character (I think this is chinese / japanese depending on 
>> font)
>> >>>> for the backlink character.
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Therefore, I tend to favor the first solution. Do you guys know of a 
>> way
>> >>>> to customize the "backlink ↩︎" character set by pandoc in epub ?
>> >>>> Or is there a third approach ?
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Thanks,
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Vincent
>> >>>>
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