Hyperlinks inside SVG Wrappers === AZW3 ignores link

[GrannyGrump]

I have only recently started dabbling in converting epub to azw3 by using Calibre. I am only reviewing the resulting file in KindlePreviewer v 2.94.


The problem I see is this: In the epub (created in Sigil) I have images in SVG wrappers, which include captions which are linked to a List of Illustrations. These hyperlinks work fine in ADE, but when I look at it in KindlePreviewer, azw3 format ignores the links. I have the same result if I create the file with Kindle Previewer as I do with Calibre.

So is this just a known problem with the azw3 format, or am I doing something wrong in my code?

  <div id="wbg-01">
    <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" height="98%" preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 769 1075" width="100%" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
      <image height="1020" width="769" xlink:href="../Images/wbg-01.jpg"/>

      <text style="font-style:normal; font-size:10pt;" text-anchor="middle" x="384" y="1050"><a xlink:href="../Text/loi.xhtml#loi">WE LET THE HOSE PLAY PERSEVERINGLY</a></text>
    </svg>
  </div>

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

So is this just a known problem with the azw3 format, or am I doing something wrong in my code?

I've just tested a KindleGen generated .azw3 file of The Wouldbegoods on my PW2 and the xref hyperlink doesn't work with it either. IMHO, this isn't a big deal since most Kindle users are not likely to tap the image anyway.

BTW, for some odd reason, my PW2 displays the chapter body text in a a sans-serif font. However, this is most likely a device-specific bug, because the same page displays fine with the Kindle for Android app.

I'd recommend implementing the following minor cosmetic changes to make your ePubs Kindle-friendly:

1. Mark the cover image in Sigil using Add Semantics > Cover Image.
2. Mark the TOC in Sigil using Add Semantics > Table of Contents.
3. Mark the beginning of the book in Sigil using Add Semantics > Text.

(This will add guide entries for KindleGen to the .opf file; ADE ignores this information.)

[GrannyGrump]

Thank you, Doitsu, for testing this on your Kindle. I guess I will have to give up the cross-links inside SVG wrappers in azw3, and just go with one-way links.

The one thing I do have questions about is adding Semantics --- when I add the cover, toc, & text semantics, the book loads directly to the first text entry instead of to the cover or the titlepage (at least in the PC viewer.) If I want it to open to the cover image always, and I do not add the semantic tags to force that opening to cover image, will that have other bad effects on how the book behaves?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

The one thing I do have questions about is adding Semantics --- when I add the cover, toc, & text semantics, the book loads directly to the first text entry [...]

Actually, that's what many readers prefer. I.e., they want to skip the preface and start reading right away.
While the TOC and Cover Page/Cover Image semantics add functionality to the AZW3 file, the Text guide item is only required for Kindle books uploaded to KDP. You can of course omit it or have it point to any HTML page, except for the cover page.
(You can't have it point to the cover page, because KindleGen removes its HTML code from the final book; it only uses the specified image for the book cover.)

BTW, the so-called SRL (start reading location) that is defined via the Text guide item is apparently occasionally ignored by KDP. For more information on this, see this very long thread. (It works as designed in books not processed by KDP.)

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

If I want it to open to the cover image always, and I do not add the semantic tags to force that opening to cover image, will that have other bad effects on how the book behaves?

Guide items are only required for self-published KDP books. You can omit all of them for MR books, however, I'd recommend adding HTML TOC and cover page/cover image guide items, because converted epub books won't have a cover image without them and some older Kindle models might not display a TOC.

[GrannyGrump]

ok, good information. I will follow your words of wisdom.
Thanks for helping with my newbish questions!

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

ok, good information. I will follow your words of wisdom.
Thanks for helping with my newbish questions!

FWIW:

Amazon will ignore your desires, if you place no guide items in a book and NOT start at the cover (ignore anyone who claims otherwise) and will set the equivalent of the "text" semantic to the first full page of text AFTER the toc.html (as opposed, obviously, to the NCX).

Doits: is a font of ANY kind, for ANY purpose, embedded in that file? Even for something as minor as a fleuron, for a symbol? If so, that's why you're seeing the book in a sans-serif. It's a glitch with PPW and (I believe) Voyage, both, but definitely PPW.

(I've got Amazon themselves emailing me...it's a bit amusing. Unless I'm mistaken, they want to know the 'how' of how we're doing something, WITHOUT coming right out and asking. What a hoot!)

Hitch

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Doits: is a font of ANY kind, for ANY purpose, embedded in that file? Even for something as minor as a fleuron, for a symbol? If so, that's why you're seeing the book in a sans-serif. It's a glitch with PPW and (I believe) Voyage, both, but definitely PPW.

The screen captures are from GrannyGrump's MR book The Wouldbegoods. She indeed embedded a font for initials and smallcaps. The relevant code is:

HTML

 <p class="firstpara"><span class="firstletter">‘C</span><span class="firstwords">hildren are like jam</span>: all very well in the proper place, but you can’t stand them all over the shop&nbsp;– eh, what?’</p>

CSS

Spoiler:

@font-face {
font-family: "titling";
src: url("../Fonts/Fontin-Bold.ttf") format("truetype");
}

@font-face {
font-family: "smcaps";
src: url("../Fonts/Fontin-SmallCaps.ttf") format("truetype")
}

.firstpara
{
text-indent: 0 !important;
}

.firstletter
{
font-family: titling;
font-size: 125%;
}
.firstwords
{
font-family: smcaps;
font-size: 104%; 
text-indent: 0 !important;
}

.smcaps
{
font-family: smcaps;
font-size: 104%; 
}

Do you happen to know any workaround other than removing the embedded fonts?

Originally Posted by Hitch

(I've got Amazon themselves emailing me...it's a bit amusing. Unless I'm mistaken, they want to know the 'how' of how we're doing something, WITHOUT coming right out and asking. What a hoot!)

Shouldn't it be the other way around???

[Hitch]

[QUOTE=Doitsu;3128276]The screen captures are from GrannyGrump's MR book The Wouldbegoods. She indeed embedded a font for initials and smallcaps. The relevant code is:

HTML

 <p class="firstpara"><span class="firstletter">‘C</span><span class="firstwords">hildren are like jam</span>: all very well in the proper place, but you can’t stand them all over the shop&nbsp;– eh, what?’</p>

CSS

Spoiler:

@font-face {
font-family: "titling";
src: url("../Fonts/Fontin-Bold.ttf") format("truetype");
}

@font-face {
font-family: "smcaps";
src: url("../Fonts/Fontin-SmallCaps.ttf") format("truetype")
}

.firstpara
{
text-indent: 0 !important;
}

.firstletter
{
font-family: titling;
font-size: 125%;
}
.firstwords
{
font-family: smcaps;
font-size: 104%; 
text-indent: 0 !important;
}

.smcaps
{
font-family: smcaps;
font-size: 104%; 
}

Yup, that's the culprit.

Do you happen to know any workaround other than removing the embedded fonts?

Well, yes, but the problem is, then you're stuck with serif. The only way around is either a) embedding a new font for the body; or b) telling the CSS that the body is serif. At the moment, there's no "other" way around it, and let's face it, what I just told you is clunky.

Shouldn't it be the other way around???

Well, it sorta was...but then it wasn't. I had emailed them about a problem that occurred at the KDP (2nd week of April). But they didn't even know it was happening. I said "blab-blab," and then, in about 36 hours, (5 years in dog-years, if you/your crew work 24/7 for 3 days' straight, trying to figure it out), we had a workaround. A ridiculously convoluted, time-consuming workaround, [n.b.: that cost me a small fortune in manhours, mind you] but, by golly, it worked. I emailed ECR back and said "nevermind, although it's a pain, we've got it." They emailed back immediately--this was a Sunday, bless their hearts--and said "oh, GREAT! Glad to hear it." To me, it's End of Story.

Some weeks later, I had an email from a fellow bookmaker, with whom I am friendly rivals, asking if we'd figured out X, and I helped him with his one book. In fairness, no, I didn't say we'd worked it out, and when he told me that some ditz at Amazon (in the regular KDP-mail) was telling him that this was enabled at the "server," I had a fit and send him a screenshot of one of our books, saying "ask her if she thinks THAT is enabled at the server, For xxxx's sake."

More time passes, and out of the blue, ECR emails me and asks if I'm having issues with this--and I say, "as I mentioned, no, we came up with a rather convoluted workaround."

Time passes, and then, again, just about one week ago, out of the blue, a new person from ECR emails, and wants to have a phone chat, sending her number, (!) to discuss this problem, because "they don't want [me] to have to do all these workarounds." I mean, hey, sure, it would be lovely to think I'm so bloody important that out of the blue of the western sky, AMZ wants to help me, but really...really???? Could it be weally weally twoo? They've always been good to me, but....this just feels like this is something they would do were I Random House, not Hitch, Queen o'de Widdle Shop of Bookers.

Hitch

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by Hitch

FWIW:

Amazon will ignore your desires, if you place no guide items in a book and NOT start at the cover (ignore anyone who claims otherwise) and will set the equivalent of the "text" semantic to the first full page of text AFTER the toc.html (as opposed, obviously, to the NCX).

The most recent two books I've borrowed from the e-brary are Stephen King's Finder's Keepers and David McCullough's The Wright Brothers, both from Simon & Schuster. The King book has one of those awful TOCs with 50 or 60 entries, most of which have such illuminating titles as 1, 2, 3, etc. So S&S wisely banished the html TOC to the back of the book (along with the copyright page, which is also the case in the McCullough book).

If the SLR is set to follow the html TOC, would the book actually start at the end, tee hee? (It didn't, of course, and now that you mention it, I think it started way at the front, though not the cover. Alas, I can't go back and check, because the loan period has expired.)

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

The most recent two books I've borrowed from the e-brary are Stephen King's Finder's Keepers and David McCullough's The Wright Brothers, both from Simon & Schuster. The King book has one of those awful TOCs with 50 or 60 entries, most of which have such illuminating titles as 1, 2, 3, etc. So S&S wisely banished the html TOC to the back of the book (along with the copyright page, which is also the case in the McCullough book).

If the SLR is set to follow the html TOC, would the book actually start at the end, tee hee? (It didn't, of course, and now that you mention it, I think it started way at the front, though not the cover. Alas, I can't go back and check, because the loan period has expired.)

NJ:

Well, there are a couple of differences here. First, that's not a book that went through the KDP, which is literally first and foremost. The "start" setting that gets placed during the PW (Publishing Workflow) for self-pubs is completely and utterly different than the PW for books that are uploaded by FTP, kiddo. Ergo, the question is moot, as it's inapplicable.

HOWEVER, as we've done a number of books this way (we have the BOB way [Back of Book], the WEE TOC [ala James Patterson], with a full TOC at the back of the book, and the BS way [Boxed Set]), and we do have clients that FTP, what I can say is no: the SRL isn't set at the back of the book. Amazon adjusts, and usually then picks the first full page of text after the half-title; lacking that, the first full page of text post the copyright page. For FTP'ed books, they do NOT adjust the SRL, not in our experience. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, of course; simply not in our experience.

Hitch

[Notjohn]

Got it! (Got THEM, I suppose I should say....)

[Notjohn]

Sorry, got it wrong!