My first e-book

[John123]

Hi all,

I am currently trying to produce my first e-book using Sigil and have a few problems.

I'd like to upload the .epub file to let you guys have a look at it and list the issues I'm having.

What is the best way to do this? I have a website for my guest house, I could upload it there. Would this be all right?

John.

[AnemicOak]

You could do that or use the manage attachments features to attach it to a post here.

[jbcohen]

At the bottom of the thread there are two buttons one called Post Quick Reply and the other called Go Advanced. Click Go Advanced then look for an icon at the top of the screen that is called Attachments and click it. A window will popup where you can add anything you like, simply click browse and navigate to the document you want to upload. Anyone that is so inclined can take a look if they so desire.

[John123]

Thanks guys, .epub attachment with this.

I'm a complete newbie to all this so please be gentle, even though I've been typesetting for over 40 years and, yes, I was a hot metal compositor, how times have changed!

Problems with this so far:

1) Whenever I try to use a new tag <imprint> </imprint> Sigil reverts back to the <p> tag.

2) Using <I> tag Sigil drops in its own class tag. This is also true for centering text using the .center class.

3) The book cover displays correctly in Sigil/Calibre as does the Title page logo. However, Title page logo/colophon doesn't display at all in Adobe Digital Editions and shows as a very, very dark, almost black oblong on my iPhone. The cover pic. is fine in both Digital Editions and my phone.

4) I think this is a general issue with embedded fonts. Italics/Bold doesn't display in Sigil but seems fine on the iPhone and Digital Editions.

5) There's probably more but I've forgotten

Finally, could I use Dreamweaver CS4 to code up the text then drop it into Sigil.

Thanks in advance.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by John123

Thanks guys, .epub attachment with this.

I'm a complete newbie to all this so please be gentle, even though I've been typesetting for over 40 years and, yes, I was a hot metal compositor, how times have changed!

Problems with this so far:

1) Whenever I try to use a new tag <imprint> </imprint> Sigil reverts back to the <p> tag.

2) Using <I> tag Sigil drops in its own class tag. This is also true for centering text using the .center class.

3) The book cover displays correctly in Sigil/Calibre as does the Title page logo. However, Title page logo/colophon doesn't display at all in Adobe Digital Editions and shows as a very, very dark, almost black oblong on my iPhone. The cover pic. is fine in both Digital Editions and my phone.

4) I think this is a general issue with embedded fonts. Italics/Bold doesn't display in Sigil but seems fine on the iPhone and Digital Editions.

5) There's probably more but I've forgotten

Finally, could I use Dreamweaver CS4 to code up the text then drop it into Sigil.

Thanks in advance.

Not sure why you'd use the <imprint> tag, in addition to dc data, but I think that it has to be included between the bibref tags, if those are even still used (anyone know?). Those are EAD tags, right?

Turn off tidy and use <em> and <strong> instead, Sigil won't replace the tags with its own classes.

Don't know what to tell you about the colophon or logo in ADE without an example.

Nor about the embedded fonts, although if they're displaying okay in ADE and iBooks, you're probably fine.

HTH
Hitch

[cuthbert19]

Originally Posted by John123

Thanks guys, .epub attachment with this.
4) I think this is a general issue with embedded fonts. Italics/Bold doesn't display in Sigil but seems fine on the iPhone and Digital Editions.

This is a known issue with Sigil, it depends on a bug of underlying software libraries; Calibre's ebook viewer will behave in the same way, being that it uses that same library
Don't worry, as Hitch said, as long as Adobe DE shows it as you expect, you've correctly embedded and used your custom font in the ebook

[John123]

Thanks, folks. Working semi-blind. I can deal with that. It takes me back about 30 years to the very first phototypesetting machines . A very good piece of software, though in need of donations!

[Jabby]

Hi John123,

Curiosity has got me! Why are you creating this epub. Is this in conjunction with a printed book for a publisher/author? Did you prepare the printed book? What was the format of the original document?

Regards- John

[bobcdy]

John123
I've looked at your uploaded epub, and found that your css is so much different compared to anything I'm used to that I really would not be able to point out specific errors. One minor correction though is to choose a larger font size for your text, perhaps 1em - I could scarcely read much of it using ADE.

Perhaps your best approach would be to look at a number of epubs on MobilRead and see how the authors handled the css and tags.

[roger64]

Originally Posted by John123

4) I think this is a general issue with embedded fonts. Italics/Bold doesn't display in Sigil but seems fine on the iPhone and Digital Editions..

Hi,

This is a nice beginning.

I remarked in your font-face declaration that you did not include the italic-bold font which is embedded in your font folder (you just included three out of four).

This is probably the reason why italic-bold does not display properly. If you check your EPUB with Sigil, this missing item is reported in Flightcrew.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by John123

Thanks, folks. Working semi-blind. I can deal with that. It takes me back about 30 years to the very first phototypesetting machines . A very good piece of software, though in need of donations!

John123:

I looked at it also, and your font embedding seems to be working, when viewed in ADE and elsewhere, both italic and bold--but I concur with bobcdy, the fontsize is excruciatingly small--11px for the body? It's unreadable, even blown up on ADE. I don't know why you're working in such a tiny font; nor why you have it set in px, given that it will limit sizing alterations by the reader, particularly in NookColor which seems to be unable to resize any font with a specified base size, i.e., 12pt (as oppsed to 12px). I'm with Bob--use 1em as a basesize, or even .9 if you must, but MAN, that is tiny.

HTH,
Hitch

[cuthbert19]

Originally Posted by roger64

I remarked in your font-face declaration that you did not include the italic-bold font which is embedded in your font folder (you just included three out of four).

This is probably the reason why italic-bold does not display properly. If you check your EPUB with Sigil, this missing item is reported in Flightcrew.

The fact that he didn't include the BoldItalic variant of the font may be true (and he better fix that for the correct way of displaying the rest of the book) but it's not why he was lamenting the incorrect displaying via Sigil, see my previous answer on the matter

[roger64]

The fact is there is a missing font in the font-face declaration.

I did not know this "known" problem about bolditalics and Sigil. Is there any page where I could read about these known problems?

[cuthbert19]

Originally Posted by roger64

The fact is there is a missing font in the font-face declaration.

I did not know this "known" problem about bolditalics and Sigil. Is there any page where I could read about these known problems?

Yes, but he's not actually using a bold italic font in the ebook excerpt he attached ... so that's not the problem he was asking advice for

About this particular quirk: see for example HERE, or else search for QTWebKit in this forum