Help wanted: file testing

Elfwreck · 12-18-2010, 11:34 PM

I'm doing some testing for AO3, the Archive of Our Own fanfiction archive. They offer downloadable ebooks in mobi, epub, pdf and html. The epubs sometimes have problems, and I'd like a bit of help sorting out the details.

From what I can figure out, any story with an image link is unreadable on the Sony readers; the image link makes the software freeze up. I don't know if this is true on other types of readers, but people with different Sonys have confirmed the problem.

Am attaching samples. Warning: sample fanfic is "explicit crackfic." Actually reading the story is not recommended unless you are fascinated by the idea of Cthulhu/My Little Pony romance. ("Romance" is a euphemism.) Pictures, however, are entirely non-explicit. Potentially funny, if you like tentacles.

I've got 2 epubs & a mobi of the same story (one of mine, because those are the only ones I'm sure of permission to distribute); the "no imgs" epub I unzipped, removed the <img src="url"> link, and rezipped; I made no other changes. (I don't know how to change the metadata for the title from inside the file.)

When I opened the mobi on the Kindle for PC program, there were no pictures; I've no idea if there's some other conversion method that could allow them to be seen, or if mobi just has no way to connect its viewer to the web. (So, the pics might have to be embedded somehow to work, and that might not be possible for most images.)

I'd like to know:
1) Does the "imgs" epub work on other portable readers? Does it work on something with wifi that can access the internet to get the pictures?
2) Does the "no imgs" epub work on other readers? (It works fine on mine; it's included for comparison.)
3) Is there anything weird about the mobi? (Other than the contents, that is.)

The needing-brain-bleach shouldn't kick in during the first couple of paragraphs. The first picture is before the first paragraph of actual story, right after the headers/intro; reading more than that isn't necessary. (Is fine, if you'd like, but I'm not asking people to read my crackfic; I'm asking for formatting checks & advice.)

ETA: Original story is at http://archiveofourown.org/works/133797

daffy4u · 12-18-2010, 11:53 PM

I don't see the images on my K2. I do see them in the Calibre viewer. I see the same garbled word on both my Kindle and the Calibre viewer.

Quote:

THE STARS HAVE ALIGNÃ‰D. WHO WAKETH ME FROM MY SLUMBER AND CALLETH ME FORTH FROM R'LYEH?

Elfwreck · 12-18-2010, 11:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daffy4u

I don't see the images on my K2. I do see them in the Calibre viewer. I see the same garbled word on both my Kindle and the Calibre viewer.

The garbled word is ALIGNÉD. I'll send a note to AO3 that they've got UTF-8/Ascii conversion problems; I don't know the technical details well enough to say more than that.

Nate the great · 12-19-2010, 12:38 AM

The Mobipocket format doesn't support active content like these images. It's never going to work.

As for the Epub version, I'm not seeing the images or the ascii conversion problem (NookStudy).

Elfwreck · 12-19-2010, 02:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nate the great

The Mobipocket format doesn't support active content like these images. It's never going to work.

It doesn't need to support images; it needs to not crash because it doesn't support them. When I load the epub with images on my Sony Reader, the file crashes when I try to open it.

If mobi just doesn't support them, that's fine; I should let them know that the images don't come across right. It's possible that they can write some code in the future that will embed the images in the files, but I don't think that'll be a high priority.

Quote:

As for the Epub version, I'm not seeing the images or the ascii conversion problem (NookStudy).

Both the pics & no pics versions work okay? The <img> tag might be a specifically Sony problem. (I should find out what happens if I put the images on the same flash drive, and direct the URL there, instead of the web.)

Jellby · 12-19-2010, 04:36 AM

I haven't tried the files (yet), but if the problem is just image links (<a href="..."><img src="..." /></a>) I can tell you that:

Mobipocket supports them all right. They worked with my Cybook when I had a Mobi firmware, they work with the Kindle 3 last time I tried.

The Adobe engine seems to not support the link, but the image is shown OK (someone said that the link works if it's all wrapped in a <p>). The Cybook does not crash on these, but it crashes on large images sometimes.

EDIT: Well, I've downloaded the file and the issue is not image links, but external images (<img src="http://..." />), right? It won't work in my Gen3, but I'll tell you if it crashes when I try.

Nate the great · 12-19-2010, 07:36 AM

Jelby, the image problem here isn't links. It's that the images aren't in the ebook. They're still on the website.

Elfwreck · 12-20-2010, 04:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jellby

EDIT: Well, I've downloaded the file and the issue is not image links, but external images (<img src="http://..." />), right? It won't work in my Gen3, but I'll tell you if it crashes when I try.

I expected the problems would be with external images; don't know if they just won't show up, or will crash the software.

There's a potential they could embed the images in the ebooks, but for offsite images, that can run into copyright problems, and might have other issues--they're not likely to write code that can edit/resize the images to fit within the ebook limits, whatever those are.

Jellby · 12-23-2010, 08:40 AM

I've tried the files in my Gen3 (no Internet connection). The imgs version works fine, it doesn't crash the reader and instead of the images I get just some blank space.

But they don't pass the FlightCrew validation. The mimetype is not zipped first, and the DTD must be XHTML 1.1 (DTD is optional, anyway, but if present it must be correct).

12-19-2010, 04:36 AM	#6
Jellby frumious Bandersnatch Posts: 7,545 Karma: 19001583 Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Spaniard in Sweden Device: Cybook Orizon, Kobo Aura	I haven't tried the files (yet), but if the problem is just image links (<a href="..."><img src="..." /></a>) I can tell you that: Mobipocket supports them all right. They worked with my Cybook when I had a Mobi firmware, they work with the Kindle 3 last time I tried. The Adobe engine seems to not support the link, but the image is shown OK (someone said that the link works if it's all wrapped in a <p>). The Cybook does not crash on these, but it crashes on large images sometimes. EDIT: Well, I've downloaded the file and the issue is not image links, but external images (<img src="http://..." />), right? It won't work in my Gen3, but I'll tell you if it crashes when I try. Last edited by Jellby; 12-19-2010 at 04:41 AM.

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12-19-2010, 12:38 AM	#4
Nate the great Sir Penguin of Edinburgh Posts: 12,375 Karma: 23555235 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: DC Metro area Device: Shake a stick plus 1	The Mobipocket format doesn't support active content like these images. It's never going to work. As for the Epub version, I'm not seeing the images or the ascii conversion problem (NookStudy).

12-19-2010, 07:36 AM	#7
Nate the great Sir Penguin of Edinburgh Posts: 12,375 Karma: 23555235 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: DC Metro area Device: Shake a stick plus 1	Jelby, the image problem here isn't links. It's that the images aren't in the ebook. They're still on the website.

12-23-2010, 08:40 AM	#9
Jellby frumious Bandersnatch Posts: 7,545 Karma: 19001583 Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Spaniard in Sweden Device: Cybook Orizon, Kobo Aura	I've tried the files in my Gen3 (no Internet connection). The imgs version works fine, it doesn't crash the reader and instead of the images I get just some blank space. But they don't pass the FlightCrew validation. The mimetype is not zipped first, and the DTD must be XHTML 1.1 (DTD is optional, anyway, but if present it must be correct).

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