Errors in LuLu and some questions

[ralphiedee]

This is the place for all my answers as you guys have been a MOJOR help navigating thru this ever changing world of epubs. In this case I have an epub which was originally designed in InDesign CS5.5 by a client of mine for print. I re did the files using the articles panel, cleaned up the css and thought I had a slam dunk when I got no problems found after the clean up in Sigil.

My client sent me a list of errors he received from trying to upload the book to LuLu. Before I list the errors I just want to make sure that my routine for doing epubs is correct as it seems that Sigil does NOT catch certain errors.

Skipping the preliminaries, lets just say I 'm in Sigil and I get a "no problems found" msg. I thought I was good to go but after reading I had a choice of EPub validators to use for a second check. I stood away from the command line apps when I saw "epub checker" I'm in OS X so it made perfect sense to me but as I tried to correct any errors e pub checker found I got the " no errors or warnings found" msg and thought I was good. But now my next step is logical, if the epub in question validates thru LuLu it would validate for ITunes and Nook.

So I uploaded the epub file I thought was error free after checking thru e pub checker and LuLu gives me the following error

Oops! You uploaded an invalid EPUB file. Details...
The following issues were found with your EPUB, which can effect its eligibility for certain channels:

Contains invalid images. (the iBookstore and Barnes & Noble)
The table of contents contains one or more links without text. (the iBookstore and Barnes & Noble)
Contains invalid creator XML. (Barnes & Noble)
Contains invalid publisher XML. (Barnes & Noble)

So I need to know two things:

Is the way I'm going about this correct?
Obviously E Pub Checker is NOT reliable

I need to have the errors explained and how to correct.

thanks to you guys I got this far and I learn more everyday.

any help?

Forgot, I also used FlightCrew and the epub file that LuLu rejected FlightCrew displayed " No Problems Found" So I guess FlightCrew is OUT?

thx

rd

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ralphiedee

Contains invalid images. (the iBookstore and Barnes & Noble)
The table of contents contains one or more links without text. (the iBookstore and Barnes & Noble)
Contains invalid creator XML. (Barnes & Noble)
Contains invalid publisher XML. (Barnes & Noble)[/COLOR]

So I need to know two things:

Is the way I'm going about this correct?
Obviously E Pub Checker is NOT reliable

I need to have the errors explained and how to correct.

Epub checker isn't at fault for any of those messages. It's just that some retailers impose additional restrictions.

The invalid images error: Presumably some images are in a format that the iBookStore and B&N don't support - possibly TIFF or too big. Try converting them to JPEG.

The Table of contents error: check that the links from the table of conents all have some text

Creator/Publisher errors: Make sure you add this metadata to the ePub.

[ralphiedee]

Thanks for the reply and the info about the errors. But I still need to know is the routine I use, Sigil validate, EPub Checker validate then upload to LuLu and if I get no error its safe to say that the epub is fine?

RD

[Toxaris]

Yes. In this case there are additional rules imposed, but they are not related to the correctness if the book. It might be that your cover image is too small.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ralphiedee

Thanks for the reply and the info about the errors. But I still need to know is the routine I use, Sigil validate, EPub Checker validate then upload to LuLu and if I get no error its safe to say that the epub is fine?

RD

That depends on what you mean by "fine".

If it comes from Sigil and passes ePub Checker, then it probably meets the ePub specifications. If it doesn't give any errors when uploaded to Lulu, then it probably meets any additional requirements from the retailers Lulu supplies.

But it still might not work on some reading devices (e.g., early Sony ePub readers require HTML files all the be less than (IIRC) 300KB or so) and it might well have formatting errors - errors in the sense that the text won't look good on a page, not technical errors in the tags.

And, of course, all that says nothing about typos or grammatical errors.