MobileRead Forums - Two questions

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- Sigil (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=203)

- - Two questions (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=311744)

1) How come some of the chapters in my novels in Sigil have the book title in the title tags on every file and others don't? (I've made them identically and not manually added anything to the title tags.) Does it matter if the title is in those chapter files?

2) I have removed the language ending of that tag that begins <html xmlns... and I have also removed the language stuff from the <body> tag. Is this okay the way I have it? Thanks.https://i.postimg.cc/bw62VRSC/Selection-048.png

First, I wanted to point out KevinH's Sigil Plugin, "Access-Aide".

It helps fill blank <title>s (using the first heading in the document) + add lang + xml:lang to your <html>.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell (Post 3763067)

Did you convert using Calibre or something else?

Sometimes the tools put gibberish in the <title> (like InDesign puts the filenames... you can safely delete those):

Code:

<title>Chapter_1.xhtml</title>

<title>abc123456890_book_EPUB.epub</title>

Sometimes tools will put some info (like Book Title, Chapter Title, Author, [...]):

Code:

<title>Gregg Bell - Dupes-A-Navy: Chapter 1</title>

:thumbsup:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell (Post 3763067)

Does it matter if the title is in those chapter files?

It doesn't hurt if it's blank, but it could be helpful IF there is meaningful info in the <title>.

Something like:

Code:

<head>

        <title>Chapter One: The Beginning</title>

        <link href="../Styles/stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

</head>



<body>

  <h2>Chapter One: The Beginning</h2>

would be helpful for Accessibility reasons:

If that HTML gets opened up in a browser, the <title> is what shows in the tab.
If being read by a screenreader, the person may have the <title> spoken out loud.
Some ereaders might display that as the header/footer (don't know of any that do).

Spoiler:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell (Post 3763067)

2) I have removed the language ending of that tag that begins <html xmlns... and I have also removed the language stuff from the <body> tag. Is this okay the way I have it?

Again, having the lang + xml:lang there doesn't hurt.

An EPUB Reader should be able to still pull the book's language from the EPUB's Metadata (Tools > Metadata Editor), and grab your dc:language (in your case, "en" (English) or "en-US" (English (United States)).

BUT, again, think screen reader or someone converting to a different format. They may pull the HTML out separately and read it elsewhere.

So you may want to add the lang + xml:lang to your HTML as well.

This doesn't hurt:

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

but this could be made more helpful:

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US">

Spoiler:

So it could help:

Braille conversion
TTS
Dictionary support
Automatic Translation
- Think Google Translate
Spellchecking
- Calibre has Multi-Language Spellchecking
Hyphenation
[...]

Again, an EPUB Reader SHOULD still be able to pull it from the EPUB Metadata... but not all tools will be reading your EPUB in EPUB. :P

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans (Post 3763087)

First, I wanted to point out KevinH's Sigil Plugin, "Access-Aide".

It helps fill blank <title>s (using the first heading in the document) + add lang + xml:lang to your <html>.

Did you convert using Calibre or something else?

Sometimes the tools put gibberish (like InDesign puts the filenames in there... you can safely delete those):

Code:

<title>Chapter_1.xhtml</title>

<title>abc123456890_book_EPUB.epub</title>

Sometimes tools will put some info (like Book Title, Chapter Title, Author, [...]) in the <title></title>:

Code:

<title>Gregg Bell - Dupes-A-Navy: Chapter 1</title>

:thumbsup:

It doesn't hurt if it's blank, but it could be helpful IF there is meaningful info in the <title>.

Something like:

Code:

<head>

        <title>Chapter One: The Beginning</title>

        <link href="../Styles/stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

</head>



<body>

  <h2>Chapter One: The Beginning</h2>

would be helpful for Accessibility reasons:

If that HTML gets opened up in a browser, the <title> is what shows in the tab.
If being read by a screenreader, the person may have the <title> spoken out loud.
Some ereaders might display that as the header/footer (don't know of any that do).

Technical Side Note: WCAG has a few articles on how to create good <title>s:

G88: Providing descriptive titles for Web pages
H25: Providing a title using the title element
Understanding SC 2.4.2

For example, G88 gives this reasoning/recommendation for good <title>s:

Again, having the lang + xml:lang there doesn't hurt.

An EPUB Reader should be able to still pull the book's language from the EPUB's Metadata (Tools > Metadata Editor), and grab your dc:language (in your case, "en" (English) or "en-US" (English (United States)).

BUT, again, think screen reader or someone converting to a different format. They may pull the HTML out separately and read it elsewhere.

So you may want to add the lang + xml:lang to your HTML as well.

This doesn't hurt:

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

but this could be made more helpful:

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US">

Another way of explaining: The EPUB Metadata tells the reader "This EPUB is in US English", while the HTML tells the reader "This specific HTML page is in US English".

(Imagine there could be a US English book, but it has a British English chapter within it.)

Technical Side Note:

H57: Using language attributes on the html element

H57 explains why lang + xml:lang on <html> are important:

So it could help Braille conversion, TTS, Dictionary support, Automatic Translation, [...].

Again, an EPUB Reader SHOULD still be able to pull it from the EPUB Metadata... but not all tools will be reading your EPUB in EPUB. :P

Wow. Super post. Thanks a ton, Tex. I really appreciate it! :thanks:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell (Post 3763092)

Wow. Super post.

Seconded. :)

One reason not to use both 'lang' and 'xml:lang' is that FlightCrew will flag 'lang' as an error.

Quote:

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat (Post 3763384)

One reason not to use both 'lang' and 'xml:lang' is that FlightCrew will flag 'lang' as an error.

Flightcrew is hopelessly outdated. Besides, the DAISY Consortium recommends using both attributes for epub2 and epub3 books.

Has someone told Lulu? (I think it was Lulu who bounced epubs that didn't pass FlightCrew?)

As this relates to FlightCrew, it is the xml schema that determines if an attribute is allowed or not. The vast part of validating an epub2 is done against that schema. As far as I know these schema in Flightcrew are the most recent published for epub2. So the spec for epub2 has evolved but without a proper updated schema, there is not much I can do. I will look again to see if there are newer xml schemas for epub2 that are old enough to not add or allow epub3 only language features.

Quote:

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat (Post 3763486)

Has someone told Lulu? (I think it was Lulu who bounced epubs that didn't pass FlightCrew?)

According to Lulu:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lulu

File must be EPUB 2 and validated against EPUBCheck 3.0.1

I'm using 0.9.9 Sigil. I got confused re-reading this post. (There were just too many details and it seemed contradictory information.) If somebody can please make this very simple for me I'd really appreciate it. I just want to know what's the best way to do this for an ebook that is a novel (to go on Amazon).

I'm analyzing two ebooks. The first screenshot is of my last book, which I'll post here. Both books passed Epubchek with no issues. Flightcrew has issues with both. (And I'm not concerned about the first warning about the OPF not being reachable. That's just because the cover isn't there.)

https://i.postimg.cc/zffF8BZT/DupeA.png

This next one is the book I just formatted. Now this is just the default that Sigil provided. (I of course chose US english as the language in the metadata editor.)

https://i.postimg.cc/m22DdFQ3/OneSlip.png

So in the first screenshot I used

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-US">

instead of

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

And I deleted

lang="en-US" dir="ltr"

from the <body> tag.

I can do either or something different. What's the best way to go? This is a simple ebook. No video or anything like that. A cover, some backmatter images and text.

If it matters, this is the way the plugins look. (I'm running xubuntu 18.04LTS.)

https://i.postimg.cc/j5BjC8WR/preferences.png

Thanks!

Flightcrew doesn't like the 'lang' item. Use just 'xml:lang'.

Quote:

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat (Post 3847972)

Flightcrew doesn't like the 'lang' item. Use just 'xml:lang'.

Thanks wombat. So use:

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-US">

and

Code:

<body>

?

Because when I used

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-US">

and

Code:

<body lang="en-US" dir="ltr">

flightcrew complained again.

Yes, you seem to have correctly worked out how to satisfy Flightcrew!

Of course, if the book is heading for Amazon, the errors that matter are any thrown up when converting to mobi format in Kindle Previewer. You could also install the KPD Validator plugin for a quick pre-check while still working in Sigil.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell (Post 3847959)

If somebody can please make this very simple for me I'd really appreciate it. I just want to know what's the best way to do this for an ebook that is a novel (to go on Amazon).

Did your previous books work? Copy what you know works...

This is what you'll want:

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US">



<body>

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell (Post 3847959)

Both books passed Epubchek with no issues. Flightcrew has issues with both.

Epubcheck >>> Flightcrew.

Epubcheck is THE important one (it's what the storefronts use for sale).

If epubcheck says the book is fine, the book is fine.

Flightcrew is older/outdated, and was really only there as an easy GUI in Sigil to quickly check some basic code issues. It squaks at some things that are correct because it hasn't been updated to handle such cases.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell (Post 3847959)

This next one is the book I just formatted.

[...]

So in the first screenshot I used

Note: In the future, attach images using MobileRead's built-in attachments. When you post, the icon looks like a little paper clip. This makes it so appear within posts fine, and makes sure they don't break the layout:

Attachment 171572

Also has the advantage of not disappearing if those external image sites die. So many older topics have busted images, and the information gets lost.

Quote:

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat (Post 3847981)

Thanks wombat. Yeah, flightcrew is finally appeased. And thanks for turning me on to KDP Validator. But how do I check errors that might occur in the conversion to mobi? (And I do the conversion in the linux terminal (although I have a Windows computer with Kindle Previewer on it. Does it make a difference where I convert it? I've never had any problems (at least that KDP has told me about) converting it in the terminal).