Zoboko

[O_P_T]

OK, I started browsing the site and I'm not sure exactly what has changed.

I've seen books I hadn't seen before, and some I have.

About 30 odd pages in I got the black bar downloading issue.

There were some books that previously I could only get a PDF version of (the epub was 3 Kb), that now do download epubs. Anfisa Lovelace is one example

Maybe that's why some books that I've seen before showed up, they fixed the epub.

 

[Borfberg]

OK, I started browsing the site and I'm not sure exactly what has changed.

I've seen books I hadn't seen before, and some I have.

About 30 odd pages in I got the black bar downloading issue.

There were some books that previously I could only get a PDF version of (the epub was 3 Kb), that now do download epubs. Anfisa Lovelace is one example

Maybe that's why some books that I've seen before showed up, they fixed the epub.

I found this author:
https://forum.allporncomix.com/threads/choker-guy-gender-swap-bimbo-mind-control.5334/

I don't think i've seen them there before.

 

[Kingtom]

I found this author:
https://forum.allporncomix.com/threads/choker-guy-gender-swap-bimbo-mind-control.5334/

I don't think i've seen them there before.

I put them there yesterday.

 

[Fran718]

I have a general question about Zoboko.

I noticed when viewing a book with their online reader that the text in italics seem to show up properly, whether the whole paragraph is in italics or just a subset of a paragraph (single word, phrase, sentence, etc.).

But as soon as I download one to EPUB (or PDF), the paragraphs that are entirely in italics show up but the rest of the italics are lost in the file generation and revert to normal text (no italics).

Is this normal and a limitation of their website? Or am I doing something wrong? I seem to recall this being the case in the past. Thanks.

 

[Fran718]

I have a general question about Zoboko.

I noticed when viewing a book with their online reader that the text in italics seem to show up properly, whether the whole paragraph is in italics or just a subset of a paragraph (single word, phrase, sentence, etc.).

But as soon as I download one to EPUB (or PDF), the paragraphs that are entirely in italics show up but the rest of the italics are lost in the file generation and revert to normal text (no italics).

Is this normal and a limitation of their website? Or am I doing something wrong? I seem to recall this being the case in the past. Thanks.

Taking this one step further, if the original book (online viewer) has a paragraph start with a word in italics, the entire paragraph (downloaded EPUB/PDF) will be displayed in italics. All non-italic text in that paragraph will be converted to italics. That is even more annoying than losing the words/phrases/sentences that should be italics but aren't.

 

[O_P_T]

Taking this one step further, if the original book (online viewer) has a paragraph start with a word in italics, the entire paragraph (downloaded EPUB/PDF) will be displayed in italics. All non-italic text in that paragraph will be converted to italics. That is even more annoying than losing the words/phrases/sentences that should be italics but aren't.

I've not compared online to downloaded Zoboko books, but what you describe seems similar to what I've seen with calibre when I convert books with that program.

The problem also seems to match the discussion we had in the Arnica Butler thread here

 

[Fran718]

I've not compared online to downloaded Zoboko books, but what you describe seems similar to what I've seen with calibre when I convert books with that program.

The problem also seems to match the discussion we had in the Arnica Butler thread here

Oh, yeah. That link does bring back the memory of our discussion.

I'm guessing there is little that can be done about it unless Zoboko is unaware. I suspect they know. Something like this would have been addressed a long time ago.

With books having very little italics (a few cases I've seen bold-italics), the EPUB can be corrected, although this requires scanning the entire book in the online viewer.

But some authors are heavy-handed with the italics, and those get messed up big time with Zoboko's downloads. Thankfully, there aren't a lot of downloads I am dealing with from them.

 

[Fran718]

As expected, I did not get a response from Zoboko regarding the issue with italics. I have since determine this can be an issue with bold text and bold-italics text.

The internal files that are used to display text in their online viewer have the words properly tagged, although it is done inefficiently. Each word in a non-regular text has a span style. So, if there is a phrase of more than one word together than are in italics, each word in that phrase has a <span style="font-style: italic">{word}</span> tagging. Ugh. But it is correct.

When downloading the book to EPUB or PDF from Zoboko, it is sent to https://compress-pdf.murm.info. This website converts the pages from Zoboko into EPUB or PDF files. I am not sure if the website has a limitation or if it can't handle with how Zoboko formats their files as described above.

In short, murm.info will extract the first style class in a paragraph and apply it to the whole paragraph. So, if the paragraph starts with a word in regular text, the whole paragraph will be in regular text. It will ignore all italics/bold/bold-italics labeling through the rest of that paragraph. If a paragraph starts with a word in italics text, the whole paragraph will be in italics text, even if it is not supposed to be.

I challenge anyone to find a book they downloaded from Zoboko into EPUB or PDF where a paragraph has a mix of regular and italics text. I'm guessing they won't find an instance. This may not be an issue for some readers, but this drives me up the wall. I like reading what an author emphasized in their books.

 

[O_P_T]

As expected, I did not get a response from Zoboko regarding the issue with italics. I have since determine this can be an issue with bold text and bold-italics text.

The internal files that are used to display text in their online viewer have the words properly tagged, although it is done inefficiently. Each word in a non-regular text has a span style. So, if there is a phrase of more than one word together than are in italics, each word in that phrase has a <span style="font-style: italic">{word}</span> tagging. Ugh. But it is correct.

When downloading the book to EPUB or PDF from Zoboko, it is sent to https://compress-pdf.murm.info. This website converts the pages from Zoboko into EPUB or PDF files. I am not sure if the website has a limitation or if it can't handle with how Zoboko formats their files as described above.

In short, murm.info will extract the first style class in a paragraph and apply it to the whole paragraph. So, if the paragraph starts with a word in regular text, the whole paragraph will be in regular text. It will ignore all italics/bold/bold-italics labeling through the rest of that paragraph. If a paragraph starts with a word in italics text, the whole paragraph will be in italics text, even if it is not supposed to be.

I challenge anyone to find a book they downloaded from Zoboko into EPUB or PDF where a paragraph has a mix of regular and italics text. I'm guessing they won't find an instance. This may not be an issue for some readers, but this drives me up the wall. I like reading what an author emphasized in their books.

That sounds just like the issue we were discussing in the Arnica Butler thread. Not sure if the books that had the issue there came from Zoboko, or some other source.

I've also noted he same paragraph based formatting when converting to Word format in calibre.

However, sometimes, calibre will apply an italicized paragraph style, and then apply an italicized text style to the words that were originally not italicized in the source. Applying an italicized text style cancels out the paragraph italicization, so it all looks as it should. Kinda like a double negative.

 

[solas]

Does anyone know if there is some type of archive for Zoboko books?
If I have Zoboko id's for several books that have been removed from the site, is there an alternative source?
Thanks

 

[Fran718]

That sounds just like the issue we were discussing in the Arnica Butler thread. Not sure if the books that had the issue there came from Zoboko, or some other source.

I've also noted he same paragraph based formatting when converting to Word format in calibre.

However, sometimes, calibre will apply an italicized paragraph style, and then apply an italicized text style to the words that were originally not italicized in the source. Applying an italicized text style cancels out the paragraph italicization, so it all looks as it should. Kinda like a double negative.

I believe this problem is site wide on Zoboko. I was on the L.M. Gregory thread on APC, and some of the books posted there I already had. My copies were from a source other than Zoboko. The italics look correct in my copies.

Some of the books posted are the same ones I have. Many others are not, and those copies have lost the proper italics. I would bet the farm they came from Zoboko. I wish posters would indicate that their copies came from Zoboko. I could then make the conscious decision whether to download them or find another source.

Losing the author's original italics (or bold or bold-italics or underlining) is one of the few OCD issues I have with eBooks, and for me, totally maddening.

If the individual html files for each chapter are downloaded from Zoboko, the proper book formatting can be retrieved from those html files. But it is not trivial. I needed to write some AWK routines to process the files and fix the tagging I mentioned before. Any that are downloaded from Zoboko (EPUB or PDF) are likely to be garbage. But for some, they are willing to make that sacrifice for free. In my case, I go purchase the eBook.

 

[O_P_T]

I believe this problem is site wide on Zoboko. I was on the L.M. Gregory thread on APC, and some of the books posted there I already had. My copies were from a source other than Zoboko. The italics look correct in my copies.

Some of the books posted are the same ones I have. Many others are not, and those copies have lost the proper italics. I would bet the farm they came from Zoboko. I wish posters would indicate that their copies came from Zoboko. I could then make the conscious decision whether to download them or find another source.

Losing the author's original italics (or bold or bold-italics or underlining) is one of the few OCD issues I have with eBooks, and for me, totally maddening.

If the individual html files for each chapter are downloaded from Zoboko, the proper book formatting can be retrieved from those html files. But it is not trivial. I needed to write some AWK routines to process the files and fix the tagging I mentioned before. Any that are downloaded from Zoboko (EPUB or PDF) are likely to be garbage. But for some, they are willing to make that sacrifice for free. In my case, I go purchase the eBook.

I agree it's probably something inherent in their "conversion" process, since as I said, I've seen similar issues when I convert books to Word in calibre.

Of course, this raises the question does the FanFicFare plugin in calibre or EpubPresX plugin for Chrome have a similar issue?

I'll have to do some experimenting to check that out. The issue is that much of the stuff on literotica, Kemeno, Lush Stories, or other free story sites, that I would use those tools typically don't have a lot of formatting in the on line version.

 

[O_P_T]

Well, it's having some weirdness again.

There is some sort of "PHP error" and some books are getting that black bar problem. Two books by J.D. Masterly: A Poolside Seduction & Bred at the Free Spirit Festival

 

[O_P_T]

FYI, Zoboko appears to be back from the most recent hiatus.

In addition, books that previously had the black bar error described above seemed to have been fixed.

 

[RodinParis]

Anna’s Archive seems to be out now

 

[O_P_T]

Anna’s Archive seems to be out now

As is Library Genesis. Not sure if that's related or not.

As I recall, Anna's Archive pooled a bunch of other sites, including Library Genesis.

 

[O_P_T]

Well it looks like the black bar bug is back

 

[Frankenberry]

anyone able to get books from Zoboko to download? i just get an endless bar.

 

[O_P_T]

anyone able to get books from Zoboko to download? i just get an endless bar.

The bug seems random. I was able to get Campus Chick yesterday, but the others I tried were all black bar.

 

[O_P_T]

FYI, I normally use Chrome as my browser so I tried using MS Edge and got the same black bar.

I also tried Tor, and it took about 10 cycles through identifying stuff in pictures before the captcha was satisfied, then when I clicked on download, it gave me "opera.exe" in a standard windows download file window.