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Originally Posted by slowsmile
@Kevin...It's certainly true enough what you say if you are talking about Sigil only -- because the only way that you can insert a TOC and create the relevant and associated XML structure in Sigil is by formatting and marking all TOC headers with h1, h2, h3 etc. But this is not the only way to create a TOC and xml structure in an epub.
You certainly don't have to format headers with html heading styles with certain other apps like Scrivener. Scrivener will generally output all text and headers with a simple indexed CSS text style name like scrivener15. There are no html header definitions in the scriv-generated css. The Scrivener-generated CSS doesn't even distinguish between headers, spans or para styling. Scrivener can do this because, on export to epub, it always creates toc and xml structure using a different method that is entirely based upon the scriv Binder structure and the pre-compiler Contents settings.
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Scrivener is a
writing program. That's not the same thing as an XML-checker, or an ePUBchecker, etc. Its job isn't the same as that which is needed or expected or used by a program like Sigil. Sigil is an ePUB-generation program, for experienced users who know how to work in HTML and CSS. Worlds apart.
But why would anyone want to avoid html heading styles in their epub? Using html heading styles in your epub can and will cause strange header spacing problems on conversion to Kindle within the Look Inside version. This is well known on forums like the KDP Forum -- lots of indie authors complaining about the Look Inside header spacing problems there. These header spacing problems -- as well as Look Inside text align and text indent issues -- are all caused by Kindle overrides(via cascading stylesheets) overriding your styling within the CSS. So that's really why it is advisable to use simple para styles for all your headers for Kindle conversions because the Kindle overrides will not be able touch or change the spacing attributes on your para styles in the Look Inside html version. Lots of mainstream publishers are now also adopting this same formatting tactic in order to particularly avoid these header spacing problems in Kindle's Look Inside.[/quote]
No. I'm sorry, that's wrong. It's not a "well-known" problem on the KDP forums. The idea that the use of headings, as opposed to paragraph styles, creates problems with the LI
is a theory that is promulgated by ONE POSTER over there. A theory shown to be incorrect.
Repeatedly. And just because a BPH puts out an eBook with paragraph styles used incorrectly as headings is no reason to jump off the same cliff. ALL the BPH's outsource their eBook work to India, and take the fastest, least-expensive results. This isn't rumor or other nonsense, it's fact.
Is it possible, if someone just uses whatever H1 style that comes along, that the resulting heading display could be weird? Yes, of course. But
we've done thousands of books, all with
heading styles, and somehow, they don't have mangled headings in the LITB.
Because there are some folks over at the KDP that are lemmings, they are repeating this as though it's gospel, but just recently, that same poster finally agreed--after MONTHS of angrily disagreeing with another long-time author there, that he was completely and utterly wrong about the different "dpi" of images. So...as we are all human, we are all imperfect. Yes, HIS headings may have had issues at the LITB, but...that doesn't mean it's a bug, or a glitch. It means simply that HE had problems.
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And please don't get me wrong, I really love Sigil like no other app. IMHI it's simply the best epub app out there bar none. I always use it, in the final stage, to fix errors and to put on the final touches to my epub styling.
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What Scrivener uses, or doesn't, really has nothing to do with this discussion. It's comparing apples and oranges. Scrivener's job isn't to ensure that an eBook is properly created; its job is to do the best it can to give a DIYer a viable eBook that can be uploaded.
Whether or not a writing plrogram uses headings, versus a program dedicated to XHTML...that's not the same thing. Scrivener only cares about getting you something you can use. The Sigil guys like to try to make sure that the files are coded correctly.
As mentioned earlier in this thread, you can build an NCX or TOC manually, by going through it and indicating which pages, with what paragraph-faux-heading, you want in the NCX/TOC.
And folks should bear in mind--when accessibility starts being checked by Amazon--which most surely, sometime soon, they will start to do--you can bet your booties that using the wrong class of element, to do a job, is going to become a problem about which the self-pubs
will come to care. Just like the fact that typos, poor formatting, etc., all of which was blown off, before, have now come home to roost with the far-more-stringent Kindle Quality standards.
Hitch