accents and entities in an epub

Steubie · 12-13-2012, 10:56 AM

Currently I am finishing an index and ebook of a scholarly work -- seven languages, 467 footnotes, etc. The only remaining item prior to customer acceptance is to get the accented characters in French and German showing correctly.

My standard opening for XML files is:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

This standard opening leaves all of the É and ô, etc. showing in the text.

I have tried following up the DOCTPE lines above with
<!ENTITY HTMLlat1 PUBLIC
"-//W3C//ENTITIES Latin 1 for XHTML//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml-lat1.ent">

Flight Crew and EPubCheck are very unhappy with this.

Any suggestions?

Toxaris · 12-13-2012, 12:54 PM

If your file is encoded in UTF (so not only the declaration), it should not be a problem. Are you saying that the HTML entities remain in the rendered text or in the code? The second is no issue, the first one quite peculiar.
Also don't touch the DOCTYPE.

Steubie · 12-13-2012, 02:36 PM

The file is entirely printable ASCII characters 0x20 through 0x7e along with 0x0a. This lets me create and manipulate data in a word processor.

The rendered text looks like this example: "Hippolyte Hemmer, Clément de Rome: Épître aux Corinthiens..." etc.

DiapDealer · 12-13-2012, 03:21 PM

Check to be certain those entities aren't being xml escaped. If you entered (pasted, typed, whatever...) all the data from your Word Processor document into a WYSIWYG editor such as Sigil's Book View, that's likely to happen. Entities need to be pasted/typed into Code View (speaking strictly about Sigil here)... because they're, well... code.

Otherwise É becomes &Eacute;. Just like <p> becomes <p>. What, if anything, are you using to build/create the ePub from your word processor document?

Steubie · 12-14-2012, 06:37 AM

I posted a response yesterday, but do not see it here.

DiapDealer -- You were correct. My MakeEpub program was changing ampersands to %amp;. I made changes in the source code. The ebook now shows accents correctly. Many thanks.

Steubie · 12-14-2012, 06:38 AM

Correction to type: Make that &

DiapDealer · 12-14-2012, 07:13 AM

All's well that ends well.

dgatwood · 12-19-2012, 04:36 PM

Warning: You should *not* use HTML entities like é. EPUB is based on XHTML, not HTML, and XHTML does not define any entities other than &, <, >, '. and "—&, <, >, ', and ", respectively.

That means that other HTML entities are not technically legal in an EPUB file, and a reader would be within its rights to barf if it encounters them. You should always replace those entities with proper XML entities, e.g. & #233; or & #xe9; (without the space after the & in both cases, but I can't type them that way because this forum keeps translating them into é) instead of é.

I originally tried to provide an incomplete list of some common substitutions in the form of Perl regular expressions, but the forum ate those, too. Here's the same list as text.

prime -> #824
Prime -> #8243
ldquo -> #8220
rdquo -> #8221
lsquo -> #8216
rsquo -> #8217
mdash -> #8212. Suggest following this by character #8203 (zero-width space as a wrap hint).
ndash ->#8211. Again, suggest adding a zero-width space afterwards.
copy -> #169
trade -> #8482
deg -> #176
aacute -> #225
eacute -> #233
oacute -> #243
ntilde -> #241
iuml -> #239
ecirc -> #234
nbsp -> #160

For a full list, see http://www.fileformat.info/format/w3c/htmlentity.htm.

Jellby · 12-20-2012, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgatwood

Warning: You should *not* use HTML entities like é. EPUB is based on XHTML, not HTML, and XHTML does not define any entities other than &, <, >, '. and "—&, <, >, ', and ", respectively.

Are you sure? I think that applies to XML, but XHTML adds some things on top of XML (or enforces XML syntax on HTML), among them, I believe, the definition of a good deal of entities.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...cters_in_XHTML

mrmikel · 12-20-2012, 02:47 PM

At w3.org, there is this list of entities:
http://www.w3.org/2000/07/8378/xhtml...s/entities.xml

DiapDealer · 12-20-2012, 03:43 PM

It all depends on the parser and the XHTML DTD. I've never run into an ePub parser that couldn't handle them (assuming proper declarations), but I suppose it's possible. Perhaps someone is confusing xhtml1.1 and ePub2 with xhtml5 and ePub3? Named entites are no longer technically valid in that situation.

dgatwood · 12-20-2012, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jellby

Are you sure? I think that applies to XML, but XHTML adds some things on top of XML (or enforces XML syntax on HTML), among them, I believe, the definition of a good deal of entities.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...cters_in_XHTML

Apparently I misremembered. Never mind.

SusanM · 04-15-2013, 09:31 PM

Kobo requests that you use decimal entities and not character entities. I assume that it would be the same for other retailers.

List of entities
http://www.derby.co.nz/web-development/entities.html

davidfor · 04-16-2013, 12:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SusanM

Kobo requests that you use decimal entities and not character entities. I assume that it would be the same for other retailers.

Is that for books to be converted to their kepub format?

Toxaris · 04-16-2013, 01:19 AM

I haven't seen that request from Kobo and it sounds a bit silly though. It is much easier to type (and remember...) the named HTML entities than their number equivalent.

12-13-2012, 03:21 PM	#4
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 28,548 Karma: 204127028 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	Check to be certain those entities aren't being xml escaped. If you entered (pasted, typed, whatever...) all the data from your Word Processor document into a WYSIWYG editor such as Sigil's Book View, that's likely to happen. Entities need to be pasted/typed into Code View (speaking strictly about Sigil here)... because they're, well... code. Otherwise É becomes &Eacute;. Just like <p> becomes <p>. What, if anything, are you using to build/create the ePub from your word processor document? Last edited by DiapDealer; 12-13-2012 at 06:01 PM.

12-20-2012, 03:43 PM	#11
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 28,548 Karma: 204127028 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	It all depends on the parser and the XHTML DTD. I've never run into an ePub parser that couldn't handle them (assuming proper declarations), but I suppose it's possible. Perhaps someone is confusing xhtml1.1 and ePub2 with xhtml5 and ePub3? Named entites are no longer technically valid in that situation. Last edited by DiapDealer; 12-20-2012 at 04:01 PM.

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12-13-2012, 10:56 AM	#1
Steubie Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2012 Device: Nook	accents and entities in an epub Currently I am finishing an index and ebook of a scholarly work -- seven languages, 467 footnotes, etc. The only remaining item prior to customer acceptance is to get the accented characters in French and German showing correctly. My standard opening for XML files is: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> This standard opening leaves all of the É and ô, etc. showing in the text. I have tried following up the DOCTPE lines above with <!ENTITY HTMLlat1 PUBLIC "-//W3C//ENTITIES Latin 1 for XHTML//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml-lat1.ent"> Flight Crew and EPubCheck are very unhappy with this. Any suggestions?

12-13-2012, 12:54 PM	#2
Toxaris Wizard Posts: 4,520 Karma: 121692313 Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Heemskerk, NL Device: PRS-T1, Kobo Touch, Kobo Aura	If your file is encoded in UTF (so not only the declaration), it should not be a problem. Are you saying that the HTML entities remain in the rendered text or in the code? The second is no issue, the first one quite peculiar. Also don't touch the DOCTYPE.

12-13-2012, 02:36 PM	#3
Steubie Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2012 Device: Nook	The file is entirely printable ASCII characters 0x20 through 0x7e along with 0x0a. This lets me create and manipulate data in a word processor. The rendered text looks like this example: "Hippolyte Hemmer, Clément de Rome: Épître aux Corinthiens..." etc.

12-14-2012, 06:37 AM	#5
Steubie Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2012 Device: Nook	I posted a response yesterday, but do not see it here. DiapDealer -- You were correct. My MakeEpub program was changing ampersands to %amp;. I made changes in the source code. The ebook now shows accents correctly. Many thanks.

12-14-2012, 06:38 AM	#6
Steubie Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2012 Device: Nook	Correction to type: Make that &

12-14-2012, 07:13 AM	#7
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 28,548 Karma: 204127028 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	All's well that ends well.

12-19-2012, 04:36 PM	#8
dgatwood Curmudgeon Posts: 629 Karma: 1623086 Join Date: Jan 2012 Device: iPad, iPhone, Nook Simple Touch	Warning: You should not use HTML entities like é. EPUB is based on XHTML, not HTML, and XHTML does not define any entities other than &, <, >, '. and "—&, <, >, ', and ", respectively. That means that other HTML entities are not technically legal in an EPUB file, and a reader would be within its rights to barf if it encounters them. You should always replace those entities with proper XML entities, e.g. & #233; or & #xe9; (without the space after the & in both cases, but I can't type them that way because this forum keeps translating them into é) instead of é. I originally tried to provide an incomplete list of some common substitutions in the form of Perl regular expressions, but the forum ate those, too. Here's the same list as text. prime -> #824 Prime -> #8243 ldquo -> #8220 rdquo -> #8221 lsquo -> #8216 rsquo -> #8217 mdash -> #8212. Suggest following this by character #8203 (zero-width space as a wrap hint). ndash ->#8211. Again, suggest adding a zero-width space afterwards. copy -> #169 trade -> #8482 deg -> #176 aacute -> #225 eacute -> #233 oacute -> #243 ntilde -> #241 iuml -> #239 ecirc -> #234 nbsp -> #160 For a full list, see http://www.fileformat.info/format/w3c/htmlentity.htm. Last edited by dgatwood; 12-19-2012 at 04:55 PM.

12-20-2012, 02:47 PM	#10
mrmikel Color me gone Posts: 2,089 Karma: 1445295 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Central Oregon Coast Device: PRS-300	At w3.org, there is this list of entities: http://www.w3.org/2000/07/8378/xhtml...s/entities.xml

04-15-2013, 09:31 PM	#13
SusanM Bemused by possibilities Posts: 58 Karma: 480244 Join Date: Jul 2012 Device: iPad3, Kobo	Kobo requests that you use decimal entities and not character entities. I assume that it would be the same for other retailers. List of entities http://www.derby.co.nz/web-development/entities.html

04-16-2013, 01:19 AM	#15
Toxaris Wizard Posts: 4,520 Karma: 121692313 Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Heemskerk, NL Device: PRS-T1, Kobo Touch, Kobo Aura	I haven't seen that request from Kobo and it sounds a bit silly though. It is much easier to type (and remember...) the named HTML entities than their number equivalent.

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