Sigil fails on KDP website.

[spike1]

I've been wrestling with problem after problem for the past few days.

My first problem was getting a logical TOC to work. I'm using LibreOffice. Convert to word, either doc or docx and the only thing that comes up for the device menu is "Cover."

So, someone suggested sigil. That worked.

Then, I realised it didn't look too good. I'd been using block paragraphs and decided to do it properly, indenting.

That's where LibreOffice failed me.I was on V5, Ubuntu 16.04LTS and saving as HTML, doc or docx lost the indentation... So...

Bite the bullet, upgrade to 18.10LTS and bingo, indentation now saved correctly.

Only problem now is, sigil no longer works. The epub file now fails to load into KDP producing the oh so helpful....

We couldn't convert your HTML file to Kindle format. Please make sure your file is properly structured. If the problem persists, try uploading your book in a different format. Refer to our formatting guide for more information.

message.

HELP! I'm so close. Why is it suddenly failing? What setting do I need to set to get it to work? I've tried switching from epub2 to 3 and back with no joy.

What's happened to this program that suddenly it fails?

Oh, version number... Version I'm failing to use now... 0.99.
Sorry, didn't note down the old version that did.

[KevinH]

It doesn't fail.
Sigil's role is to edit epub ebooks not KDP. There are many tags not supported in KDP and they like their input formatted in specific ways.

Have you read and followed the Kindle Publishing Guidelines?

Perhaps an ebook converter and editor like calibre will do what you want?

If you decide to stick with Sigil then allowing Sigil to Mend your code might be a good starting point. Then using the epubcheck plugin in Sigil to validate your epub. Fix any validation errors.

Once you have a valid epub2 or epub3, you should be able to use calibre, or kindlegen or KindlePreviewer to convert your valid epub to their format.

[spike1]

Originally Posted by KevinH

It doesn't fail.
If you decide to stick with Sigil then allowing Sigil to Mend your code might be a good starting point. Then using the epubcheck plugin in Sigil to validate your epub. Fix any validation errors.

I'm not coding anything. All I did was open the HTML, generate the toc by clicking the toc button and attempt to save the epub.

It's doing something different from the older version that breaks it for KDP.

The old version following exactly the same procedure worked.

I'm not delving into CSS or HTML.

What I asked was quite reasonable. Has anyone else encountered this issue and if so, did they find a workaround without resorting to even more messing about with other programs?

What settings are required to make it work or does it need another upgrade?

[KevinH]

Sorry but if you do not know html and css, and are targeting a Kindle ebook not an epub, and did not read or follow Kindle's Publishing Guidelines, and can not provide a real error message, then we simply can not help.

There could be a million things wrong with your code that Kindle may not like. It could be missing author or title or language metadata, or it uses tags Kindle's do not like. How are we supposed to tell? Sigil is an epub editor and is meant for people who understand html and css and the epub format.

You could try running your epub through the kindlegen program or the KindlePreviewer and perhaps one of those would give you a better error message that might give someone here a hint of what is making KDP unhappy.

FWIW, just importing html into Sigil without any additional work, will never create a perfectly valid epub (no version of Sigil does that).

[spike1]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Sorry but if you do not know html and css, and are targeting a Kindle ebook not an epub, and did not read or follow Kindle's Publishing Guidelines, and can not provide a real error message, then we simply can not help.

There could be a million things wrong with your code that Kindle may not like. It could be missing author or title or language metadata, or it uses tags Kindle's do not like. How are we supposed to tell? Sigil is an epub editor and is meant for people who understand html and css and the epub format.

You could try running your epub through the kindlegen program or the KindlePreviewer and perhaps one of those would give you a better error message that might give someone here a hint of what is making KDP unhappy.

FWIW, just importing html into Sigil without any additional work, will never create a perfectly valid epub (no version of Sigil does that).

KDP's supposed to do the brunt of the work. If it wasn't for the lack of a logical table of contents, simply uploading the doc file would be enough.

Unfortunately, the lack of TOC is the issue. I've not done ANYTHING different from the old version of sigil, unless the indents are causing the problem?

That can't be it, can it?

You keep mentioning programs but I've got no idea if they're even available for Linux. I know for a fact KDP create isn't. I did run it through calibre and that seemed to fix the upload issue but then when I opened it, formatting problems. A chapter heading at the top of one page, the rest blank and then, the chapter itself on the next.

I'm a writer, not a web designer, Jim.

I'm trying to abide by the publishing guidelines by HAVING a logical TOC.
If I junked that idea, I could just upload the word file direct to KDP and have done with it.

As for lack of error messages, that's amazon being deliberately opaque.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by spike1

My first problem was getting a logical TOC to work. I'm using LibreOffice. Convert to word, either doc or docx and the only thing that comes up for the device menu is "Cover."

The Calibre docx-to-epub converter generally produces excellent results.

Try the following:

1. Save the book as a .docx file and convert it to an epub with Calibre.
2. Right-click the book in Calibre, select Edit book and click the bug icon or press F7.
3. Click Try to correct all fixable errors automatically
4. Save the epub and open it with Sigil.
5. Delete the existing HTML TOC.
6. Select Tools > Table of Contents > Generate Table of Contents.
7. Select Tools > Table of Contents > Create HTML Table of Contents.
8. Check your book with the IDPF validator and post the results here, if you're getting error messages.
9. Download KindleGen for Linux, compile the epub with it and post the results here, if you're getting error messages.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by spike1

Oh, version number... Version I'm failing to use now... 0.99.
Sorry, didn't note down the old version that did.

So you upgraded from ancient to merely really old?

Even if you discovered a real bug in Sigil 0.9.9, we couldn't fix it. We can only work on issues that can be recreated using the most recent version of Sigil.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by spike1

KDP's supposed to do the brunt of the work.

I don't know who fed you that, but that's bollocks. KDP does nothing more than finalize the eBook content that you upload. It's not doing any bloody heavy lifting.

If it wasn't for the lack of a logical table of contents, simply uploading the doc file would be enough.

Which you could have solved by simply using heading classes for your chapter headings, etc. and building the linked TOC and then uploading that, in DOCX format, to KDP. That's all that's needed; KDP bends over backward to make it easy for the not-tecchie like you.

Unfortunately, the lack of TOC is the issue. I've not done ANYTHING different from the old version of sigil, unless the indents are causing the problem?

No, you must have done something else. Indents will absolutely NOT make your eBook fail.

That can't be it, can it?

No.

You keep mentioning programs but I've got no idea if they're even available for Linux. I know for a fact KDP create isn't. I did run it through calibre and that seemed to fix the upload issue but then when I opened it, formatting problems. A chapter heading at the top of one page, the rest blank and then, the chapter itself on the next.

With all due respect, if you wish to be a commercial publisher, then you may have to bite the bullet and use programs that are suited for the purpose. You're kludging along, using Linux and then OO/LO, and then doing this and that--you've flatly stated you are unwilling to dive into the HTML and CSS, but you're using a program that is meant to be used by people who DO work in HTML and CSS. Sigil is not Pages for eBooks, or Word for eBooks. It's not meant to do the work for you, I'm sorry to tell you.

I'm a writer, not a web designer, Jim.

No--you're a PUBLISHER, no longer a writer. You were a writer when you wrote the book. Now you're a publisher and to do that job successfully, you need to use the right tools, or learn some HTML and CSS. That's just the bottom line. If you can't deal with those things, try Draft2Digital which will try to format the ebook for you.

I'm trying to abide by the publishing guidelines by HAVING a logical TOC.
If I junked that idea, I could just upload the word file direct to KDP and have done with it.

Did you use paragraph styles and headings for your manuscript? If you didn't--which is the right way to manage any manuscript, any document typed in LO/OO or Word or Pages or any word-processor--you're creating the problem for yourself. If you are not familiar with styles and headings, take an hour or two, learn what they are, use them and then build a new properly-created TOC that is built by OO/LO, because you used the Heading classes. Upload that as a Word (docx) file and it will build the NCX for you.

As for lack of error messages, that's amazon being deliberately opaque.

No, it's not. All the instructions--everything I've said here, outside of my comment about what Sigil is, or isn't--is in the KDP HELP pages, in the KDP University pages, in Amazon's videos, etc. The lack of an error message is simply because your manuscript/ePUB won't build. If it won't build, even badly, that means it has a critical error. As KevinH said, just opening some HTML file exported from a word-processor is not going to build a proper, formatted, ready-for-publishing ePUB. For it to look and act like a professionally-published eBook, you're going to need to do some work on it--in the code.

Hitch

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Which you could have solved by simply using heading classes for your chapter headings, etc. and building the linked TOC and then uploading that, in DOCX format, to KDP.

Explicitly, this means using the STYLE menu in your word processor. NOT just the formatting buttons.
Word has a default set of heading styles:
Heading 1, Heading 2 , etc.
If you use those for parts, chapter headings, subheads, you can generate the TOC automatically.
If you just format each heading with "Bold 24 point" or the like, that won't work.

When exported to HTML, these come out as <h1>, <h2> etc tags, and again the generate TOC will work using those.

After almost 30 years in the business, I've found most authors now have basically zero knowledge of styles, and zero interest when I try to explain why they should use them. In the dawn of the word processing era, people read the manual and learnt how to use the features. Now it's just point and click and 98% of the features are never used.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

Explicitly, this means using the STYLE menu in your word processor. NOT just the formatting buttons.
Word has a default set of heading styles:
Heading 1, Heading 2 , etc.
If you use those for parts, chapter headings, subheads, you can generate the TOC automatically.
If you just format each heading with "Bold 24 point" or the like, that won't work.

When exported to HTML, these come out as <h1>, <h2> etc tags, and again the generate TOC will work using those.

After almost 30 years in the business, I've found most authors now have basically zero knowledge of styles, and zero interest when I try to explain why they should use them. In the dawn of the word processing era, people read the manual and learnt how to use the features. Now it's just point and click and 98% of the features are never used.

I've wondered if it's simply that the people that come to folks like us--formatters and book designers--are that way. I mean, we know factually that many self-pubbed authors "format" their own eBooks, either by the simple expedient of uploading properly formatted (using Styles and Headings, I mean) Word files, or by converting those files into ePUBs either directly (export-->HTML, Filtered-->.html file-->Sigil) or via Calibre (delicate shudder).

But yes, I can count on BOTH hands--so, for those with a counting deficiency, fewer than 10--the number of manuscripts I've seen, in slightly over a decade now, in which Styles and Headings are used, remotely correctly. I've even seen downloaded Templates, from Amazon, from The Book Designer, in which unformatted or ad-hoc-formatted text was pasted into templates that HAD the styles right there to be used, with examples on how to deploy it. {shrug}.

I don't understand it, myself. I've had to use word-processing since...gosh, the very late 70's, (starting with the old IBM OS/6) and Styles and Headings, understanding how the styling is applied--is fundamental to making the programs work FOR you, rather than you having to be their slave.

I don't get why anyone wouldn't want to make their lives easier. What, just to avoid an hour or two of learning something? So that they can waste many MORE hours, in fighting the programs? In not understanding why hitting the backspace key could change the formatting of the prior paragraph, and instead, just apply more ad-hoc styling? Not be able to use the Nav Pane, see the entirety of their book in outline format? Not be able to drag-drop entire sections, chapters, scenes, whatever?

Where's the sense in that? I mean, hell, I'm lazy, but even I can't see the sense in avoiding two hours' of work now to save dozens of hours later.

Hitch

[rkomar]

That reminds me of the old scientist's joke: "Sometimes three months in the laboratory can save you a whole afternoon in the library." It's weird, but sometimes you have to turn something into a joke to be taken seriously.

[Notjohn]

Spike, I have been uploading VALIDATED epub2s to the KDP platform since January 2012 (it was Hitch, bless her, who told me that would work), and I've never had one fail. I do use a style sheet and I do edit the code. You can borrow my style sheet from https://notjohnkdp.blogspot.com/2013...yle-sheet.html

Though it upsets some of the regulars here, I don't use heading and paragraph styles in Word, and I do use an old version of Sigil (0.9.18) since it works just fine for me. I also use an old version (2007) of Microsoft Word because I'm not willing to pay the asking price for a more recent edition. The only reason I use it at all is that my editors expect it, and because I have set of WordStar editing commands that making using it easier than any other Windows program I've encountered in recent years. I can't imagine going back to the mouse and the backspace to fix things; one might as well use WhiteOut!

Word2CleanHtml dot com online does an excellent job of cleaning up Word's messy html for import into Sigil. (There are plug-ins that do the same thing.) I think you should keep plugging away at Sigil. It's a great piece of software. I love it almost as much as I love my DOS WordStar from 1991.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Spike, I have been uploading VALIDATED epub2s to the KDP platform since January 2012 (it was Hitch, bless her, who told me that would work), and I've never had one fail. I do use a style sheet and I do edit the code. You can borrow my style sheet from https://notjohnkdp.blogspot.com/2013...yle-sheet.html

Though it upsets some of the regulars here, I don't use heading and paragraph styles in Word, and I do use an old version of Sigil (0.9.18) since it works just fine for me. I also use an old version (2007) of Microsoft Word because I'm not willing to pay the asking price for a more recent edition. The only reason I use it at all is that my editors expect it, and because I have set of WordStar editing commands that making using it easier than any other Windows program I've encountered in recent years. I can't imagine going back to the mouse and the backspace to fix things; one might as well use WhiteOut!

CTRL+Backspace in Word, BTW, deletes the last word typed. (one word to the left). CTRL+Del = delete one word to the right. If memory serves, those are not much different than the two-fingered WS commands.

As far as not obeying the strictures around paragraphs and headings, at your age, NJ, I don't really expect you to change. But at some point--and I don't think it's years from now--Amazon is going to go full-tilt boogie into accessibility and when that happens, they're going to want your books to have clear delineations as to what's a heading and what's a paragraph. You've heard it here first, if you didn't read what I've said about this previously, boyo.

Word2CleanHtml dot com online does an excellent job of cleaning up Word's messy html for import into Sigil.

Sez you.

(There are plug-ins that do the same thing.) I think you should keep plugging away at Sigil. It's a great piece of software. I love it almost as much as I love my DOS WordStar from 1991.

Toxaris' ePUB plugin for Word is pretty damned brilliant and there are, as you say, numerous Sigil plugins that the lads (and Becky) around here have created that are also pretty damn spiffy.

Hitch

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Spike, I have been uploading VALIDATED epub2s to the KDP platform since January 2012 (it was Hitch, bless her, who told me that would work), and I've never had one fail. I do use a style sheet and I do edit the code. You can borrow my style sheet from https://notjohnkdp.blogspot.com/2013...yle-sheet.html
...

NJ, you can't imagine what a trip down memory lane that comment evoked. Nearly all of it would be off topic, so I (mostly) won't elaborate. Started with Fictionwise, then via Peanut Reader, Mobipocket, etc., then finally (Gott sei dank) Kindle. First recorded example of Sigil that I used commercially was 0.2.3 in 2010 (Thanks, Valloric). We've come a long way!

Thanks for the dose of nostalgia!

Albert

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by st_albert

NJ, you can't imagine what a trip down memory lane that comment evoked. Nearly all of it would be off topic, so I (mostly) won't elaborate. Started with Fictionwise, then via Peanut Reader, Mobipocket, etc., then finally (Gott sei dank) Kindle. First recorded example of Sigil that I used commercially was 0.2.3 in 2010 (Thanks, Valloric). We've come a long way!

Thanks for the dose of nostalgia!

Albert

It's really funny how similar our two stories are! Your story could pretty much be mine.

Hitch