Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: "Carlos E. R." Newsgroups: comp.mobile.android,alt.os.linux,alt.comp.os.windows-10 Subject: Re: How to copy & read a huge zipped book with thousands of html & jpeg files Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2026 19:56:33 +0200 Lines: 109 Message-ID: References: <112c25r$2gt7$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <112cbas$1p57$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <112cd5q$9e5$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <112cgs7$86t$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <112ckmr$2ta8$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <112dnb9$143vq$1@dont-email.me> <112ed43$1cjg0$1@dont-email.me> <112fd4t$ua0$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <112gi25$k9h$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net zihrXAq1IiVk8tBb8Bv3TAIJWu2TnGIjxHTEIM9CYYp2JPMiSA Cancel-Lock: sha1:q49Z7UuYZTaQyZ8EF0Szs1cvsrM= sha256:AodfZCbtR6WGMl2BbPO50tkvI/BJv8hpB7conpHNVAc= User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Content-Language: en-GB In-Reply-To: <112gi25$k9h$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> Xref: csiph.com comp.mobile.android:154365 alt.os.linux:82919 alt.comp.os.windows-10:194312 On 2026-07-06 17:36, Maria Sophia wrote: > Carlos E. R. wrote: >>> I fed my 500MB zip file into Calibre and told it to convert it to an EPUB, >>> which took a few hours on my 2009 Windows 10 PC, but it worked beautifully. >> >> Wow. My laptop took a few seconds, but it was just a 2.5 MiB zip. > > My desktop is from 2009. It's still working well, but this stressed it. :) > >>> The resulting EPUB file was 400MB so it took a while for Calibre to load it >>> the first time (due to all the caching that Calibre does on first loading). >> >> I have never seen an epub that big. In my case, the book that I tested >> with can be purchased in epub format. Possibly the epub is available on >> the emule network or such (for testing, of course). > > My experience had been the same as yours. EPUBs are generally quite small. > This one has tens of thousands of separate images yet very little text. > >>> When I looked at the file inside of Thorium, I got an appreciation for why >>> HTML is an excellent medium, as there were tens of thousands of connected >>> pages and images, where an EPUB can handle it, but it's slow as all hell. >>> >>> Since the EPUB itself was 400MB, I didn't even bother copying to Android. >>> If it's slow on Windows, it's likely gonna be even slower on Android. >>> >>> The HTML is, by way of contrast, is virtually instant when clicking about. >>> >>> When I tried to convert the EPUB to a PDF, Calibre failed (with what seemed >>> like memory errors) after about an hour or two, so I gave up on the PDF. >> >> I don't like PDF for books, because it doesn't flow the text. It is >> fixed size. You need a display that matches the design size and >> resolution (or better). > > I agree that PDF isn't all that great for books in that, for me, my eyes > aren't so great and a PDF makes you sit and stare at it to read it. Maybe it would be easier to read in an ebook device, using epaper which doesn't shine. > > I prefer to convert the (text) PDF to audio using cross platform balabolka > freeware which then turns any (text) PDF into an audio book. > > It's not as good as a human reader for some books, e.g., when I converted > Einstein's 1916 (updated in 1922) book on relativity, calculations are > messed up when spoken by balabolka's conversion utilities. > > But now I'm one of the few non-physicists who understand gravity as a > result, since I was in a compression/decompression chamber for a month. > > As an aside, almost nobody understands gravity. One in a million I'd bet. > And even as I understand it to that level, there's still much I don't know. > >>> Looking into my c:\app\editor\epub directory, these seem to be most common >>> cross platform EPUB readers, where I've sorted by large file handling. >>> thorium >>> most stable & fastest for huge image-heavy epubs like textbooks >>> calibre >>> most powerful for conversion & repair of image-heavy epubs >>> redium desktop >>> sibling of thorium but less polished than thorium >>> okular >>> KDE document viewer with medium-level EPUB support via plugins >>> hamster >>> best for small epubs >>> lucidor >>> best for very small epubs >>> fbreader >>> suitable for smaller epubs >>> adobe digital editions >>> not suitable as the epub engine is old and fragile >>> sumatra pdf >>> fast for small epubs >>> >>> In summary, for certain kinds of references (such as highly cross-linked >>> highly imaged technical manuals and textbooks), a zip HTML is likely ideal. >> >> Seeing that calibre imports the html directory as a zip file, it is >> possible that there is software out there that directly renders readable >> those ZIP files. Or even hardware. > > I agree that Calibre had no problem importing the single 500MB zip file. > It just took a long time, but Calibre didn't even blink on the contents. > > It's just that my circa 2009 PC runs slowly when it's time to crunch it. > > I've learned there's a good reason highly cross-linked documents filled > with images and almost no text are supplied in a zip file HTML format. > > It's amazing how fast HTML is compared to the EPUB, although the epub has > the distinct advantage of a fantastic search mechanism that shocked me. > > With EPUB, when you search, you get every instance but every line of every > instance (much like you'd get with a (text) PDF, so that was really nice. Yes, my kobo reader does search easily, I noticed. > > So if you need to search a huge 500MB HTML document containing tens of > thousands of files, converting it to a 400MB EPUB allows that fantastic > search, but if you need to actually navigate it, an HTML server wins out. -- Cheers, Carlos E.R. ES🇪🇸, EU🇪🇺;