epub file not working when uploading to Kindle

Nigelinspain · 10-02-2013, 08:18 AM

Hi,

I have been having a few problems with uploading a file to the Kindle Preview to create a mobi file.

I have done all the work in html, then imported it into Sigil and validated it before creating my epub file.

I have added html to one page to make it the start page -

<p class="large" id="start">

I have used this code on other books and they have worked fine. But now whenever I upload this epub file into the Kindle previewer it always opens at a different page than the one I specified as the start page.

I have even gone back to the epub file and added Title page in the symantics but still it doesn´t make any difference.

I am using the latest version of Sigil and also the latest version of Kindle Previewer but I cannot work out why this wont open at the page I have coded as being the start page.

Any ideas on this?

Thanks
Nigel

mrmikel · 10-02-2013, 08:26 AM

Have you used Flight Crew or epubcheck on it to make sure there are no errors?

DiapDealer · 10-02-2013, 10:02 AM

There's scads of threads documenting how the "start reading" functionality of a Kindlebook doesn't always seem to work as expected. Bottom line: it's not a Sigil (or even an ePub) related issue.

My best advice would be to forget about setting a "start reading" point. Even if you get it to work after conversion with Kindlegen/Previewer, there's no guarantee it won't be over-ridden by Amazon's KDP process.

If you CAN'T forget about it (or a client won't let you), I suggest searching for the various threads about kindle- mobi-books and setting the Start Reading point... and/or taking it up with Amazon.

EDIT: also... validating all your markup BEFORE you create your epub is all well and good, but it's sort of pointless if you don't then validate your epub after you're done with it. Valid (x)HTML != Valid ePub.

If you want to set the start reading point with semantics, use the 'Text' semantic, not the 'Title page' one.

Hitch · 10-03-2013, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nigelinspain

Hi,

I have been having a few problems with uploading a file to the Kindle Preview to create a mobi file.

I have done all the work in html, then imported it into Sigil and validated it before creating my epub file.

I have added html to one page to make it the start page -

<p class="large" id="start">

I have used this code on other books and they have worked fine. But now whenever I upload this epub file into the Kindle previewer it always opens at a different page than the one I specified as the start page.

I have even gone back to the epub file and added Title page in the symantics but still it doesn´t make any difference.

I am using the latest version of Sigil and also the latest version of Kindle Previewer but I cannot work out why this wont open at the page I have coded as being the start page.

Any ideas on this?

Thanks
Nigel

Nigel:

Not that this is a Sigil or ePUB issue (mods--maybe you should move this to the Kindle formats forum), but, precisely, please, what is the order of your frontmatter, from the cover back to Ch1, and on which page did you place the start id? And make sure you include the location of your inline TOC, please. And advise which page *appears* to be your start page.

Hitch

theducks · 10-03-2013, 05:57 PM

Moderator Notice
Moving

Nigelinspain · 10-04-2013, 05:59 AM

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the advice and help. I did this as a test file as I wanted to try and clear out a few errors that had appeared on a clients job. I did validate the epub file in Sigil and it showed no errors.

Here is the simple html I used for this test from the front matter to the start of the first chapter. You can see that I wanted the book to begin with Book Starts Here and gave it the id="start" code.

But whenever I viewed it in Kindle Previewer it always started at The Universal Law of Attraction.

</head>
<BODY>
<p class="large">Law of Attraction Explained</p>

<p class="center">by</p>

<p class="center">Nigel Thomas</p>

<p class="breakhere"</p>

<p class="class" id="start"><h2>Book starts here</h2>

<p class="breakhere"</p>

<p class="first" id="toc"><h2>Table of Contents</h2>

<p class="first"><a href="#universal_law_of_att">The Universal Law of Attraction</a></p>

<p class="first"><a href="#what_is_the_law">What is the Law of Attraction</a></p>

<p class="first"><a href="#law_of_att_tech">Law of Attraction Techniques</a></p>

<p class="breakhere"</p>

<p class="first"><h2><a name="universal_law_of_att">The Universal Law of Attraction</a></h2>

This is the html I put into Sigil to produce the epub file and when I checked that everything was fine so I have no idea why it did not start at the page I wanted it to.

Thanks
Nigel

Hitch · 10-04-2013, 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nigelinspain

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the advice and help. I did this as a test file as I wanted to try and clear out a few errors that had appeared on a clients job. I did validate the epub file in Sigil and it showed no errors.

Here is the simple html I used for this test from the front matter to the start of the first chapter. You can see that I wanted the book to begin with Book Starts Here and gave it the id="start" code.

But whenever I viewed it in Kindle Previewer it always started at The Universal Law of Attraction.

</head>
<BODY>
<p class="large">Law of Attraction Explained</p>

<p class="center">by</p>

<p class="center">Nigel Thomas</p>

<p class="breakhere"</p>

<p class="class" id="start"><h2>Book starts here</h2>

<p class="breakhere"</p>

<p class="first" id="toc"><h2>Table of Contents</h2>

<p class="first"><a href="#universal_law_of_att">The Universal Law of Attraction</a></p>

<p class="first"><a href="#what_is_the_law">What is the Law of Attraction</a></p>

<p class="first"><a href="#law_of_att_tech">Law of Attraction Techniques</a></p>

<p class="breakhere"</p>

<p class="first"><h2><a name="universal_law_of_att">The Universal Law of Attraction</a></h2>

This is the html I put into Sigil to produce the epub file and when I checked that everything was fine so I have no idea why it did not start at the page I wanted it to.

Thanks
Nigel

Hi, Nigel:

I was asking for the order of the files in the ePUB, and this seems to be a section from the TOC, but I'll try to assist:

1. Did you add "text" to the Guide, in the OPF, to indicate the start location? By using the Semantics menu, for the file where you want to start? That is the correct method for setting an ePUB start reading page.
2. It's difficult for me to tell, from what you've pasted here, if where you have the "break here" is supposed to indicate different files, or simply paragraphs on a page? Or are those empty paragraphs supposed to be...what are those supposed to be? Can you clarify?
3. If these are supposed to be separate files--so that "Book Starts Here" is an actual file--the Title page, then part of your problem is that you're converting an ePUB without a text semantic set, I believe.
4. If these are all paragraphs on a page--in other words, a single file--then you'll have to set your SRL semantic by hand, using the id you created.

Did you say you were creating this book for a client?

Hitch

Nigelinspain · 10-11-2013, 05:09 AM

Hi Hitch,

Thanks for getting back and sorry for the confusion. This is not for a client but only a test after a clients job didn´t go according to plan.

Firstly, no I didn´t add "text" in the OPF to indicate where I wanted the book to start - I think I wrongly added it to the view page as I would do for the cover.

Secondly where there is a breakhere, that indicated a new chapter, or file, altogether.

Hope that clarifies some things for you.

Many thanks
Nigel

Hitch · 10-11-2013, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nigelinspain

Hi Hitch,

Thanks for getting back and sorry for the confusion. This is not for a client but only a test after a clients job didn´t go according to plan.

Well--and don't take this as directed at you, personally, but I do say this to everyone who comes through here with problems that are this...fundamental--really, you ought to know these things, if you are charging people for work making ebooks. The anchor tag element has been outmoded for at least a year at Amazon, (and "text" has always been the way to indicate the start reading location in ePUBS) even though it works in books made from Word, but that's not what we're discussing here. Moreover, using the Guide to indicate the SRL in a Kindle book has been used since the old days of MobipocketCreator. "Start" as a named tag has been used in Word files for upload for the last few years.

Quote:

Firstly, no I didn´t add "text" in the OPF to indicate where I wanted the book to start - I think I wrongly added it to the view page as I would do for the cover.

I don't understand what you mean here. What do you mean, you added "it" to the view page, please? Do you mean you inserted what used to be a named anchor, and has now been replaced by an id, in the HTML of the relevant page?

Quote:

Secondly where there is a breakhere, that indicated a new chapter, or file, altogether.

Actually, that doesn't help me. There's a very real difference between a "new chapter" and a "new file altogether," and that's exactly the question I was asking you. If you have new sections or chapters, all inside the same HTML file, you'll have to set the start location one way; if you have separate HTML files for all these elements, you'll set it another way. If the "Book Starts Here" page is its own file, open the semantics menu and mark that page/file "Text." That will add it to the OPF for you, and should work when you generate the book in KindleGen (remove the "start" ID tag, if this is the case). If, however, the "Book Starts Here" page, for lack of a better word, is in a file with other pages--say, all the frontmatter togeter--then you'll need to leave the ID tag in place and set the Guide item manually. Can you tell me which you have?

Quote:

Hope that clarifies some things for you.

Many thanks
Nigel

Almost. With any luck, we'll sort this out for you.

Hitch

Nigelinspain · 10-18-2013, 05:28 AM

Hi Hitch,

I think my lack of knowledge is showing through here. What I do to create a digital book, either for Kindle, Sony, Nook etc, is to take the word file and save it as an html file. From that I do the majority of the work I want to do in formatting it.

I then open the formatted html file in Sigil and use the split at curser tool to create a new chapter. So, hopefully, in answering your question it is one big html file that has been split to create the individual chapters.

In Sigil you can view the document, or individual chapters in either Code View or Book View, what I meant about adding the text in the symantics is that I clicked onto the appropriate html section for the start of the book and added text to the symantics there.

Hope that has cleared up a few things?

Thanks
Nigel

Hitch · 10-18-2013, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nigelinspain

Hi Hitch,

I think my lack of knowledge is showing through here. What I do to create a digital book, either for Kindle, Sony, Nook etc, is to take the word file and save it as an html file. From that I do the majority of the work I want to do in formatting it.

OK. So, at least, you're working in HTML. We're making progress.

Quote:

I then open the formatted html file in Sigil and use the split at curser tool to create a new chapter. So, hopefully, in answering your question it is one big html file that has been split to create the individual chapters.

Good. That's the right way to do it.

Quote:

In Sigil you can view the document, or individual chapters in either Code View or Book View, what I meant about adding the text in the symantics is that I clicked onto the appropriate html section for the start of the book and added text to the symantics there.

OK--I think I understand what you're doing, I hope. You're adding the id or name tag 'start' into the code, is that what you mean? OR, do you mean that you use Sigil's built-in Semantics options to make a given chapter the "Text" location? If you'll tell me which, I can reply and we can wrap this up.

Thx,
Hitch

JSWolf · 10-18-2013, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrmikel

Have you used Flight Crew or epubcheck on it to make sure there are no errors?

If FlightCrew is used, give a once over with epubcheck once FlightCrews says there are no errors. This is because epubcheck checks for more things then FC.

Hitch · 10-18-2013, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If FlightCrew is used, give a once over with epubcheck once FlightCrews says there are no errors. This is because epubcheck checks for more things then FC.

Wolfie, my sweet:

So nice to see you back after your vacation. Anyway, his whole issue is the SRL. I'm just still plowing through trying to figure out if the issue is that he used "id=start" (or name=start) as an HTML tag inside the HTMl, or, if he used Text in the Guide. And, if he did use Start, how he referenced it in the Guide. I'm still trying to understand precisely what he did, as our vernacular isn't the same.

Hitch

JSWolf · 10-18-2013, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hitch

Wolfie, my sweet:

So nice to see you back after your vacation. Anyway, his whole issue is the SRL. I'm just still plowing through trying to figure out if the issue is that he used "id=start" (or name=start) as an HTML tag inside the HTMl, or, if he used Text in the Guide. And, if he did use Start, how he referenced it in the Guide. I'm still trying to understand precisely what he did, as our vernacular isn't the same.

Hitch

The way I do it is to remove all IDs that don't actually have a use. That would be any ID that's not used in a link. Also, the only place I use pagebreaks is in a file of endnotes/footnotes otherwise, all the other files get split as needed and no need for a pagebreak.

For the guide, use a type of start for the cover XML as it will then open to the cover on a Kindle. I would never use a type of text. That's just not accurate enough. I would use things like Table of Contents, Copyright, Begin Reading (has to be where the book actually starts), About the Author, etc as needed. But text just doesn't work.

Nigelinspain · 10-25-2013, 05:39 AM

Hi Hitch,

Thanks for getting back about this and for your patience too.

In answer to your question whether I used a start id in the html or if I used Sigil's built-in Semantics options to make a given chapter the "Text" location - the answer it yes.

Let me clarify.

I originally used the id="start" in html but found when I put it into Kindle it didn´t work on this particular book, although I had done this before on other books and it always worked then.

This is why I then started to try and work out how to get a book to start on a given page using Sigil. In Sigil I went to the page I wanted to start the book at and using the symantics tool I put in text by clicking onto the html code section on the left hand pane of Sigil.

Unfortunately this didn´t work either. Which is why I asked the question how do I get Sigil to open a book where I want it to start.

Thanks
Nigel

10-02-2013, 08:18 AM	#1
Nigelinspain Member Posts: 21 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: Kindle	epub file not working when uploading to Kindle Hi, I have been having a few problems with uploading a file to the Kindle Preview to create a mobi file. I have done all the work in html, then imported it into Sigil and validated it before creating my epub file. I have added html to one page to make it the start page - <p class="large" id="start"> I have used this code on other books and they have worked fine. But now whenever I upload this epub file into the Kindle previewer it always opens at a different page than the one I specified as the start page. I have even gone back to the epub file and added Title page in the symantics but still it doesn´t make any difference. I am using the latest version of Sigil and also the latest version of Kindle Previewer but I cannot work out why this wont open at the page I have coded as being the start page. Any ideas on this? Thanks Nigel

10-02-2013, 10:02 AM	#3
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 28,505 Karma: 204127028 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	There's scads of threads documenting how the "start reading" functionality of a Kindlebook doesn't always seem to work as expected. Bottom line: it's not a Sigil (or even an ePub) related issue. My best advice would be to forget about setting a "start reading" point. Even if you get it to work after conversion with Kindlegen/Previewer, there's no guarantee it won't be over-ridden by Amazon's KDP process. If you CAN'T forget about it (or a client won't let you), I suggest searching for the various threads about kindle- mobi-books and setting the Start Reading point... and/or taking it up with Amazon. EDIT: also... validating all your markup BEFORE you create your epub is all well and good, but it's sort of pointless if you don't then validate your epub after you're done with it. Valid (x)HTML != Valid ePub. If you want to set the start reading point with semantics, use the 'Text' semantic, not the 'Title page' one. Last edited by DiapDealer; 10-02-2013 at 10:05 AM.

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10-02-2013, 08:26 AM	#2
mrmikel Color me gone Posts: 2,089 Karma: 1445295 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Central Oregon Coast Device: PRS-300	Have you used Flight Crew or epubcheck on it to make sure there are no errors?

10-03-2013, 05:57 PM	#5
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 30,939 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	Moderator Notice Moving

10-04-2013, 05:59 AM	#6
Nigelinspain Member Posts: 21 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: Kindle	Hi everyone, Thanks for the advice and help. I did this as a test file as I wanted to try and clear out a few errors that had appeared on a clients job. I did validate the epub file in Sigil and it showed no errors. Here is the simple html I used for this test from the front matter to the start of the first chapter. You can see that I wanted the book to begin with Book Starts Here and gave it the id="start" code. But whenever I viewed it in Kindle Previewer it always started at The Universal Law of Attraction. </head> <BODY> <p class="large">Law of Attraction Explained</p> <p class="center">by</p> <p class="center">Nigel Thomas</p> <p class="breakhere"</p> <p class="class" id="start"><h2>Book starts here</h2> <p class="breakhere"</p> <p class="first" id="toc"><h2>Table of Contents</h2> <p class="first"><a href="#universal_law_of_att">The Universal Law of Attraction</a></p> <p class="first"><a href="#what_is_the_law">What is the Law of Attraction</a></p> <p class="first"><a href="#law_of_att_tech">Law of Attraction Techniques</a></p> <p class="breakhere"</p> <p class="first"><h2><a name="universal_law_of_att">The Universal Law of Attraction</a></h2> This is the html I put into Sigil to produce the epub file and when I checked that everything was fine so I have no idea why it did not start at the page I wanted it to. Thanks Nigel

10-11-2013, 05:09 AM	#8
Nigelinspain Member Posts: 21 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: Kindle	Hi Hitch, Thanks for getting back and sorry for the confusion. This is not for a client but only a test after a clients job didn´t go according to plan. Firstly, no I didn´t add "text" in the OPF to indicate where I wanted the book to start - I think I wrongly added it to the view page as I would do for the cover. Secondly where there is a breakhere, that indicated a new chapter, or file, altogether. Hope that clarifies some things for you. Many thanks Nigel

10-18-2013, 05:28 AM	#10
Nigelinspain Member Posts: 21 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: Kindle	Hi Hitch, I think my lack of knowledge is showing through here. What I do to create a digital book, either for Kindle, Sony, Nook etc, is to take the word file and save it as an html file. From that I do the majority of the work I want to do in formatting it. I then open the formatted html file in Sigil and use the split at curser tool to create a new chapter. So, hopefully, in answering your question it is one big html file that has been split to create the individual chapters. In Sigil you can view the document, or individual chapters in either Code View or Book View, what I meant about adding the text in the symantics is that I clicked onto the appropriate html section for the start of the book and added text to the symantics there. Hope that has cleared up a few things? Thanks Nigel

10-25-2013, 05:39 AM	#15
Nigelinspain Member Posts: 21 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: Kindle	Hi Hitch, Thanks for getting back about this and for your patience too. In answer to your question whether I used a start id in the html or if I used Sigil's built-in Semantics options to make a given chapter the "Text" location - the answer it yes. Let me clarify. I originally used the id="start" in html but found when I put it into Kindle it didn´t work on this particular book, although I had done this before on other books and it always worked then. This is why I then started to try and work out how to get a book to start on a given page using Sigil. In Sigil I went to the page I wanted to start the book at and using the symantics tool I put in text by clicking onto the html code section on the left hand pane of Sigil. Unfortunately this didn´t work either. Which is why I asked the question how do I get Sigil to open a book where I want it to start. Thanks Nigel

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