Metadata Editor Question

[locomouse]

Good evening to all. I would really appreciate it if someone could guide me on what to type into the "File-As:" box in Sigil's Metadata Editor.

Thanks in advance...

Helen

[exaltedwombat]

Author: Agatha Christie
File-As: Christie, Agatha.

The other, perfectly good, option is to enter nothing.

[locomouse]

The other, perfectly good, option is to enter nothing.

exaltedwombat... thank you so very much. I will definitely go with the other option.

:-)

Helen

[locomouse]

Okay... maybe this is not the proper thread... but after trying to upload my .ePub Sigil file to Smashwords I get this error message:

File 'iTunesMetadata.plist' in EPUB not listed in manifest!

And I have no idea what an ITunesMetadata.plish file might be.

You know... one would think it would be a simple matter when one is giving their book away for free. But no. Can't use iTunes Producer unless you have a Mac. And yet they (Apple) have no problems with one purchasing their wares via a PC.

Not gonna rant.... but whoaaaa.... !

If anyone has successfully uploaded an ePub file to Smashwords (it's in Beta, yes, but it should be possible), I'd surely appreciate knowing how you jumped through the hoops to do so.

I'm not usually this much trouble... but I'm at my wits end.

Thanks ever so much.

Helen

[theducks]

Originally Posted by locomouse

Okay... maybe this is not the proper thread... but after trying to upload my .ePub Sigil file to Smashwords I get this error message:

File 'iTunesMetadata.plist' in EPUB not listed in manifest!

And I have no idea what an ITunesMetadata.plish file might be.

You know... one would think it would be a simple matter when one is giving their book away for free. But no. Can't use iTunes Producer unless you have a Mac. And yet they (Apple) have no problems with one purchasing their wares via a PC.

Not gonna rant.... but whoaaaa.... !

If anyone has successfully uploaded an ePub file to Smashwords (it's in Beta, yes, but it should be possible), I'd surely appreciate knowing how you jumped through the hoops to do so.

I'm not usually this much trouble... but I'm at my wits end.

Thanks ever so much.

Helen

You opened that file with itunes before you shipped it off
I tunes inserts the file.
Open the book with Sigil, it will be there somewhere in the list
Save: Don't use Itunes before you send
(Stupid Smashwords. They know what the file is and could strip it out.)

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by locomouse

Okay... maybe this is not the proper thread... but after trying to upload my .ePub Sigil file to Smashwords I get this error message:

File 'iTunesMetadata.plist' in EPUB not listed in manifest!

And I have no idea what an ITunesMetadata.plish file might be.

You know... one would think it would be a simple matter when one is giving their book away for free. But no. Can't use iTunes Producer unless you have a Mac. And yet they (Apple) have no problems with one purchasing their wares via a PC.

Not gonna rant.... but whoaaaa.... !

If anyone has successfully uploaded an ePub file to Smashwords (it's in Beta, yes, but it should be possible), I'd surely appreciate knowing how you jumped through the hoops to do so.

I'm not usually this much trouble... but I'm at my wits end.

Thanks ever so much.

Helen

Hi, Helen:

Well, the dreaded itunesplist file is a notorious issue--I'm very surprised that you didn't get any search results here on MR, when you searched with that, as it's been discussed a lot of times! Just don't open your files on any Apple device before you ship them, as our Ducky mentioned.

As far as the Smashwords-ePUB Beta, there's also a thread somewhere around here, in which I participated and outlined the not-less-than-seven attempts a client of ours made to get his ePUB (that we made for him) accepted at Smashwords. We finally decided that making him Word files from his final ePUBs, and sending them to him, was easier than trying to deal with the black hole of Smashwords' unhelpful error messages, all of which seemed to be centered around them getting their publisher's credit on the TITLE PAGE, and little else. When the seventh ePUB was rejected, even though I had copy-and-pasted the requisite text from the SW Style Guide itself, I told my client I wasn't willing to jump through any further hoops, as we're bookmakers, not at-will secretarial services, trying to hit an ever-moving and never-defined goal, making ePUB after ePUB in some futile attempt. If and when Mark Coker gets his act together, and the ePUB intake is more sophisticated, I'm sure we'll get more requests from our clients--perhaps--as we only get asked for files for Smashwords around 2-3 times a year, out of the 800+ books that we make annually.

If you'll try searching on Smashwords and ePUB, I'm quite sure you'll find that thread.

Hitch

[locomouse]

Originally Posted by theducks

You opened that file with itunes before you shipped it off
I tunes inserts the file.
Open the book with Sigil, it will be there somewhere in the list
Save: Don't use Itunes before you send
(Stupid Smashwords. They know what the file is and could strip it out.)

Thankyou very much for this information. I have looked through every inch of code in Sigil and cannot find the .plist file.

Can you give me a hint as to what it might look like... or where it might be hiding?

Here is my metadata...

<metadata xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlnspf="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf">
<dc:identifier id="BookId" opf:scheme="UUID">urn:uuid:fefb3e7a-13e0-4630-96da-0b119a1a12f9</dc:identifier>
<dc:title>Mildred Is Serving Her Golden Years ... One Sentence At A Time</dc:title>
<dc:creator opf:role="aut">Helen Madill</dc:creator>
<dc:language>en</dc:language>
<dc:date opf:event="modification">2013-02-13</dc:date>
<meta content="0.6.2" name="Sigil version"/>
<meta content="next.cover.png" name="cover"/>
</metadata>

Is it in there? I am not using styles... that folder is empty.

Wow... one more reason to despise iTunes!

Thanks again for your help, I surely appreciate it!

Helen

[theducks]

It is a file (Not in Manifest items are Files)

It should be somewhere in the Book Browser file list. Like Misc (I don't do Apple )


Hitch points out, Anything Apple will create this.

[Gunnerp245]

I think the calibre plug-in 'modify epub' can be used to remove 'itunes', as well as, many other items without having to re-convert the file.

[locomouse]

I thank you all for your help with this.

Hitch... your experience with Smashwords is not very encouraging, but thanks for sharing some history.

theducks... thank you... and I know it sounds insane, but there are no files created by iTunes in the book. All folders are empty with the exception of Images which contains one cover image... and the Text folder which holds everything else. I've tried searching the computer with every possible connotation of iTunesMetadata.plist and nothing is being found. I give up. I'll have to rebuild the book and never set foot in iTunes again.

Gunnerp245... thanks for your suggestion. I've had a look at the 'modify epub' plug-in for calibre but I'm too stupid to understand how it works.

Again... many thanks to all.

Helen

[meme]

The file iTunesMetadata.plist may be in the EPUB - but I don't think Sigil will display it. It doesn't 'see' it since it's not supposed to be there.

You can look for it by unzipping the epub (an epub is just a zip file) using your unzip or unarchiving software. You may need to rename it to file.zip to be able to unzip it.

You can then remove the file and zip it back up. This is what the modify epub plugin can do.


I would be interested to know if anyone using the 0.6.902 beta can test out an epub with the .plist file to confirm. In a brief test of creating an epub with a fake iTunesMetadata.plist in the top level directory, when I open it, the file is not visible in the folders. And after I save the epub, and later unzip it, the .plist file is gone. I don't know if 0.6.2 behaved the same way.

[locomouse]

Originally Posted by meme

The file iTunesMetadata.plist may be in the EPUB - but I don't think Sigil will display it. It doesn't 'see' it since it's not supposed to be there.

You can look for it by unzipping the epub (an epub is just a zip file) using your unzip or unarchiving software. You may need to rename it to file.zip to be able to unzip it.

You can then remove the file and zip it back up. This is what the modify epub plugin can do.


I would be interested to know if anyone using the 0.6.902 beta can test out an epub with the .plist file to confirm. In a brief test of creating an epub with a fake iTunesMetadata.plist in the top level directory, when I open it, the file is not visible in the folders. And after I save the epub, and later unzip it, the .plist file is gone. I don't know if 0.6.2 behaved the same way.

Thank you, meme. I renamed the file to a zip file and removed all the files. I found:

META-INF which has the file "container.xml"
OEBS which has the Images folder (only one .png in there) and the Text folder which contains all of the .html files and then there is "content.opf" and "toc.ncx".

No mysterious extra files lurking in there.

Thank you for your help, though!

Helen

[Hitch]

Guys:

I just use ePUBtweak, which I grabbed from the folks over at AWP (Atlantic Word Processor). I find it invaluable for just this type of thing, plus switching out "new" fonts from Toxaris' Fontshrinker tool. It's just the thing.

Hitch

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by locomouse

But no. Can't use iTunes Producer unless you have a Mac.

If you Google "virtual Mac" or "virtual Apple IOS" or something on that line, you will find just such a provider. The "Producer" app is already loaded thereon. As I recall, it's a dollar every time you use it, or $20 a month.

[locomouse]

Thanks for the tips Hitch and Notjohn. I've managed to get my book published at Smashwords, however there is trouble with the cover image and they require me to modify (recify) the situation but I'm not sure what is required.

The first cover image I uploaded (and coded into Sigil) was too small so I created another one and used the recommended dimensions on Smashwords site which is 1600 x 2400. I revised the book and re-uploaded the file.

Now I'm getting this notice:

"Please make sure the cover image is the first item in your EPUB and that it is sized correctly. Currently, if you take a look at it in Adode Digital Editions, you will see that much of the cover is cropped. Many eReaders base their software upon Adobe, so your cover will appear poorly on some of them."

And it's very true... in Adobe Digital Editions there is only about the top quarter of the cover image showing. And yet it seems to resize nicely when I preview the book in iBook reader.

Is there some coding I'm missing where it might pertain to image size? I'm not using a style sheet because the cover is the only image in the book and every chapter is written in its own html file.

Does anyone know the magic formula to make the image behave across all platforms?

Thanks again for your time and help with this.

Helen