Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
With all due respect, are you being paid to produce this book?
You refer to "my client" and a complicated layout. Are you charging this person to "convert" a book with Calibre that you can't get to work on a Nook? I mean...of all the e-readers, Nook is probably the easiest to get to work. And with all due respect to Liz--whom I know, and whose book I recommend frequently--that was then and this is now. Nook does not override any legitimate styles.
Your "not found" error is because you split a section, have a reference somewhere else to that formerly-split chapter, and didn't clean it up (the references) when you re-merged them.
And I don't think I can speak adequately to the idea of creating a mobi first, and then creating an ePUB, again, using Calibre, from a converted mobi. I suppose that there are some people who would do this, but this is utterly and completely backwards. And if you are charging someone to do ebook conversion work, you most certainly should not be using Calibre to do it. And if you don't know what the errata are in your classes....
I don't mean to sound like I must sound, but as a commercial eBookmaker, this is the type of stuff that gives me the willies. This is the type of ebook that shows up at my shop later with someone asking for changes to what is (let's say, in another case), a giant steaming pile of you-know-what. Of more importance to me, the unhappy author/publisher starts telling stories about how "all" ebook-makers are inept or worse, ripping them off.
I can tell you without any hesitation whatsoever that even my most rudimentary stylesheets, when I started out--even those that have what I would now consider errors (y'know, setting font sizes in points, say, rather than ems, back in '08 or so), were never overriden by Nook. I know because I used to buy and download the books to my Nook, when I was starting out. I don't know what you are doing that's screwing up your files, but now you're using "online-convert.com?"
Did you get stuck with this book somehow? Did you make the print edition, and now your client is insisting you make the digital version? ???? I know your "title" says, "just learnin'," but can you clarify your situation?
Hitch
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I completely understand what you are saying and yes, I would have told my client that things were not working and someone else might do a better job. Let me try to explain the whole situation--maybe I was unclear when I was saying the Nook "didn't work." What didn't work was it would not display the book in the client's layout and according to the stylesheet. (I was able, by the way, to fix that "split" section thing. thanks.)
First: The client's book uses a very complex layout, something much more suited to a print book--over 300 pages with over 200 images (mostly photos, some b/w that were taken in 1937. I tried to counsel her away from an ebook but she insisted. The layout involves major sections, divided into parts, divided into what she calls chapters. (I consider her sections to be parts, her parts to be chapters, and her chapters to be simply subheadings within the chapter--at least she wasn't beginning every one on a new page and some were only a paragraph or two long, but she insisted they were chapters.)
She has very large selections of text in each "chapter," which are done in italics--sans-serif font, while the main text is serif font. She appropriately uses no indent first paragraph, indent subsequent paragraphs, no spaces between paragraphs, but includes spaces between italicized paragraphs and non-italicized paragraphs. She repeats the indent pattern within the italicized selections as well as after italicized selections even though a new chapter is not starting. Then there is picture placement--thankfully, she is happy with centering each picture without text wrapping. (I won't even go into the mess she had made of many of the pictures that I had to fix . . .) I did have to persuade her that depending on the font size chosen by a reader, there would be sometimes large blank spaces at the bottom of the page when the image would not fit. She was okay with that.
Second: I could successfully create the epub with Sigil. It would pass Sigil validation, pass epub check validation and properly convert to mobi via Kindle Previewer--beautiful--every space every indent every serif or sans serif working perfectly--in every view and every device. Load it into my Kindle Paperwhite--beautiful, exactly as laid out, except all photos are b/w and small, but the zoom feature works well. (The successful conversion to mobi suggests to me that the epub was good.)
Third: Load the epub as produced by Sigil before conversion to mobi into my Nook Color or in Adobe Digital Editions. All paragraphs are indented with a space between each one. All text is serif. The client is not happy with this. (I have, by the way, run multiple versions past her for her approval and for identifying errors--hers and mine--followed by additional editing and revising stylesheet.)
Fourth: Take a shot at converting the mobi to epub using online-converter.com with Nook Color as the target device. Load the new epub into Nook Color (and ADE) and all paragraphing and spacing is perfect. The only issue remaining is that there is no sans-serif font anywhere. I tried Liz Castro's advice of adding "!important" in the stylesheet between "sans-serif" and the semi-colon. It didn't change it. (The client has decided that she can live with that on Nook and is very happy with the Kindle displays.)
Fifth: Put the new epub back into Sigil and do a validation. This results in the following message: "attribute 'data-AmznRemoved' is not declared for element (ID specific element)" which is apparently part of their conversion process). I remove all of these references in the code, save and validate with Sigil and with epub check. All is well. Load it into Nook Color and it looks exactly as it did before removing the AmznRemoved codes. It displays the layout with proper paragraph indents and spacing--the only thing is the absence of any sans-serif font.
Next: Use online-convert to convert for Kobo e-reader. Also a successful conversion. Loaded into my tablet's Kobo e-reader, there were similar layout issues with spacing, but when I turned off Kobo Styling, the paragraphing layout was good, but like Nook, all text was serif.
Finally: The files have been passed along to the client and our agreement is that if any of them fail in the upload to Nook Press or KDP, I will not be paid until they are successfully uploaded and accepted, and if I can't manage the repairs, I will hire someone to do it for me. I'm fine with that.
I know what my limitations are with writing CSS and my stylesheet for this work got complex in order to create her layout. For example, I had to create p styles for non-italicized, serif font first paragraphs (with padding above), middle paragraphs (no padding), and last paragraphs (with padding below), then p styles for italicized, sans-serif font first paragraphs, middle paragraphs, and last paragraphs in order to make sure that padding between paragraphs was either there or not, depending on the exact position of the paragraph relative to other paragraphs.
By the way, now she wants the print book, which I wanted to do in the first place. It should be a piece of cake. I really appreciate all of the ideas and advice you all have given me while I've stumbled along. My learning curve was steep and I know I've not reached the top, but I feel good about what I've produced at this point. I know I will get better as I continue to learn.