Smallcaps disappearing in tex4ebook compilation

Question

I am using smallcaps to mark certain direct speech (essentially uttered by non-human entities).

I use it almost exclusively through the following macro:

\usepackage{quotmark}
\newcommand{\gqt}[1]{\tqt{\scshape #1}}

This works as expected in plain LaTeX (memoir), but completely (and silently) disappears when I compile with tex4ebook (i.e.: content is there, but no font change).

Note: use of SmallCaps is not mandatory, I just need a way to graphycally differentiate certain parts and I cannot use standard bold/italic because that effect is already used for other (orthogonal) visual enhancements. Switch to a very different font (gothic?) would suffice.

UPDATE: I am experimenting with different font changes, but I consistently get no fonts in html/epub. What follows is current status:

Full header of my file.tex (I removed only comments):

\documentclass[10pt,ebook,italian,onecolumn,oneside,titlepage,extrafontsizes]{memoir}
\usepackage[italian]{babel}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{ucs}
\usepackage{makeidx}
\usepackage{quotmark}
\newcommand{\gqt}[1]{\tqt{\fontfamily{pzc}\selectfont #1}}
\newcommand{\stars}{\begin{center} * * *\\ \end{center}}
\makeatletter
\def\@partimage{}
\newcommand{\partimage}[2][]{\gdef\@partimage{\includegraphics[#1]{#2}}}
\renewcommand{\printparttitle}[1]{\parttitlefont #1\vfil\@partimage\vfil\gdef\@partimage{}}
\makeatother
\setlength\cftpartnumwidth{2em}
\author{Mauro Condarelli}
\title{Cronache della Nuova Terra}
\begin{document}
\frontmatter
\maketitle
\mainmatter
\chapterstyle{companion}
\tableofcontents
\partimage[width=210pt]{old_mage.png}
\part{In cerca di un Mondo Nuovo}
\chapter{La Missione}
...
\gqt{Perché sei così triste? Erano secoli che non mi divertivo tanto. Vieni ad abbracciarmi, figlio mio!}\\
Audagor si girò e in un lampo volò fra le braccia del suo Dio.\\
\gqt{Da oggi sarai conosciuto anche come "\textit{guds morder}": uccisore di Dei}, furono le ultime parole che sentì.\par
...
\backmatter
\appendix
\end{document}

This is a TeXstudio snapshot showing font change in .PDF

My full tex4ebook.cfg is:

\Preamble{xhtml}
\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.svg,.png,.jpg,.pdf}
\CoverMetadata{thano.png}
\Configure{AddCss}{blitz-lite.css}
\makeatletter
\Configure{part}
{\ifvmode\IgnorePar\fi\EndP\HCode{<h1 class="partHead"><span class="titlemark">}\partname \ \thepart \HCode{</span>}}
{}
{\ifvmode\IgnorePar\fi\EndP\HCode{<aside class="partimage">}\@partimage\HCode{</aside>}}
{\HCode{</h1>}\IgnoreIndent\par\OpfRegisterFile}
\makeatother
\Css{.partimage{margin:0 auto;text-align:center;}}
\Css{.partimage img{max-width:100\%;}}
\Css{.partHead .titlemark{display:block;}}
\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.svg,.png,.jpg,.pdf}
\begin{document}
\EndPreamble

Compilation is done with a rather terse tex4ebook -c tex4book.cfg Cronache_della_Nuova_Terra.tex.

The same page, in ebook-viewer does not show any font change, but has some "strange artifacts" (no close guillemots and other char substitutions):

This is completely consistent with what I see if I open the .html version of the chapter in Firefox. Generated HTML is:

</p><!--l. 89--><p class="indent" >   Da sotto di un masso particolarmente grosso spuntava una mano e
una lacera manica rossa.<br 
class="newline" />Audagor crollò in ginocchio.<br 
class="newline" />Aveva veramente ucciso il suo Dio?<br 
class="newline" />Gli occhi gli si velarono di lacrime.<br 
class="newline" />Com’era possibile?
</p><!--l. 95--><p class="indent" >   «<span 
class="pzcmi8t-">Perch</span><span 
class="pzcmi8t-">é</span> <span 
class="pzcmi8t-">sei cos</span><span 
class="pzcmi8t-">ì</span> <span 
class="pzcmi8t-">triste? Erano secoli che non mi divertivo tanto. Vieni ad</span>
<span 
class="pzcmi8t-">abbracciarmi, øglio mio!ˇ</span><br 
class="newline" />Audagor si girò e in un lampo volò fra le braccia del suo Dio.<br 
class="newline" />«<span 
class="pzcmi8t-">Da oggi sarai conosciuto anche come ”guds morder”: uccisore di Deiˇ</span>, furono le
ultime parole che sentì.
</p><!--l. 99--><p class="indent" >   I suoi amici rovesciarono ogni masso, in quel canalone devastato, ma
non trovarono nulla.<br 
class="newline" />Dovettero fare il funerale all’unica cosa che era rimasta: il suo mantello.
</p>

"Strange artifacts" are already in place and relevant lines have attribute class="pzcmi8t-"... which does not appear in any .css.

I am available to do any required test.

As said I have no problem in using other means to use different means to visually differentiate direct speech from "normal" people from that uttered by "non-humans".

Any hint welcome!

Answer 1

It is better to use custom tags in this case. It will give you a full control over the formatting. In this case, I would just simply redefine the \qgt command in the configuration file:

\renewcommand\gqt[1]{\HCode{<span class="smallcaps">}\tqt{#1}\HCode{</span>}} 

as you can see the HTML tags are inserted directly around the whole contents passed to the redefined command. It needs to be configured using CSS then:

\Css{.smallcaps{font-variant:small-caps;}}  

The full config file:

\Preamble{xhtml}
\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.svg,.png,.jpg,.pdf}
\CoverMetadata{thano.png}
\renewcommand\gqt[1]{\HCode{<span class="smallcaps">}\tqt{#1}\HCode{</span>}}
\Css{.smallcaps{font-variant:small-caps;}}
\Configure{AddCss}{blitz-lite.css}
\makeatletter
\Configure{part}
{\ifvmode\IgnorePar\fi\EndP\HCode{<h1 class="partHead"><span class="titlemark">}\partname \ \thepart \HCode{</span>}}
{}
{\ifvmode\IgnorePar\fi\EndP\HCode{<aside class="partimage">}\@partimage\HCode{</aside>}}
{\HCode{</h1>}\IgnoreIndent\par\OpfRegisterFile}
\makeatother
\Css{.partimage{margin:0 auto;text-align:center;}}
\Css{.partimage img{max-width:100\%;}}
\Css{.partHead .titlemark{display:block;}}
\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.svg,.png,.jpg,.pdf}
\begin{document}
\EndPreamble

This is the result: