the post i just made about calibre was quite objective,
which means that it was a bit difficult for me to write,
because i think the kid who does calibre is an asshole,
at least as _i_ experienced him, over on mobileread...

so it's even more difficult for me to come to his "defense"...

but my guess is that, if you get bad .epub output out of
calibre, it's because it appears to me that he's decided
that he's not gonna chase down all the inconsistencies
that present themselves due to different viewer-apps...

for instance, one machine only accepts such-and-such
a subset of c.s.s., and another machines only accepts
_another_completely_different_ subset, and on and on.

nope, he's gonna give you _one_ .epub file, probably
geared to be usable to the greatest number of people,
and everyone else will just have to suffer through it...

which is probably a wise decision, for his own sanity...

heck, just figuring out all the wrinkles in the various
versions of a.d.e. (adobe digital editions) would give
a person gray hair.  and when you throw in the ipad,
with all of its extensions to the format, forgetaboutit.
and we don't even need to talk about all of the _other_
crappy implementations of .epub viewer-programs...

of course, when the dingleberries who gave us .epub
neglected to provide any _reference_implementations_,
that's the legacy they bequeathed to us, unfortunately,
one that is marked by the same kinds of viewer-tool
inconsistencies that were such a nightmare during the
"browser wars" that are only just now finishing up...
(they _are_ finishing up, aren't they?  what's that, you
say, something about audio and video codecs?  really?)

even liz castro, who was the only person who seemed
motivated to track down all of the inconsistencies --
and only then because she was writing a book on them
-- has apparently given up on that despicable task and
decided to focus exclusively on the ipad these days...

-bowerbird