Duplicate images and margin-tops feature

[Melchett]

Dear All,
I am using Adobe Indesign to design my ebooks. Then I use Sigil to tweak the final epub and then use kindle previewer to create the final mobi.
There are a couple of issues that are plaguing me.

1) 203.png Whenever I open the epub in sigil, I get these two images in the images folder. The cover image and this 203.png. Should I remove this? If I remove and use kindle previewer to generate my mobi, I am getting warnings. Can anyone please tell me what this 203.png does(The same named file also appears in other ebooks too)?

2) I have three sections of front matter-
a) bookname and the author name
b) copyright and publisher name
c) dedication
I want all of these three things to appear separately. I am using the css property page break always to achieve this. All the three are starting on a new page but I want all of them to appear in the middle. The margin top feature seems not to work here. Any idea how to start these three sections in the middle.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Melchett

Dear All,
I am using Adobe Indesign to design my ebooks. Then I use Sigil to tweak the final epub and then use kindle previewer to create the final mobi.
There are a couple of issues that are plaguing me.

1) 203.png Whenever I open the epub in sigil, I get these two images in the images folder. The cover image and this 203.png. Should I remove this? If I remove and use kindle previewer to generate my mobi, I am getting warnings. Can anyone please tell me what this 203.png does(The same named file also appears in other ebooks too)?

2) I have three sections of front matter-
a) bookname and the author name
b) copyright and publisher name
c) dedication
I want all of these three things to appear separately. I am using the css property page break always to achieve this. All the three are starting on a new page but I want all of them to appear in the middle. The margin top feature seems not to work here. Any idea how to start these three sections in the middle.

Middle = Vertical centering?

On what size display? (see where I am heading?)

You have a varied amount (lines) of text that needs to V center on a phone sized screen , a 37" monitor , a 200" theater screen

So which setting is right?

[Melchett]

Originally Posted by theducks

Middle = Vertical centering?

On what size display? (see where I am heading?)

You have a varied amount (lines) of text that needs to V center on a phone sized screen , a 37" monitor , a 200" theater screen

So which setting is right?

I don't need exact vertical middle spacing. I just don't want these lines to stick to the top. I want them to appear in the middle(or just a small amount of whitespace before the lines) of the page which the user is viewing on the device which he is using.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Melchett

I want them to appear in the middle(or just a small amount of whitespace before the lines) of the page which the user is viewing on the device which he is using.

padding-top is what you want to use in this case. Many EPUB devices zero out margin-top when dealing with text on a new "page".

Originally Posted by Melchett

1) 203.png Whenever I open the epub in sigil, I get these two images in the images folder. The cover image and this 203.png. Should I remove this? If I remove and use kindle previewer to generate my mobi, I am getting warnings. Can anyone please tell me what this 203.png does(The same named file also appears in other ebooks too)?

What does the 203.png look like when you open it in Sigil?

Is 203.png actually located anywhere in the XHTML?

What are the exact KindleGen warnings?

I am assuming it is just some artifact from your InDesign export.

Originally Posted by Melchett

I want all of these three things to appear separately. I am using the css property page break always to achieve this.

So all three are in one XHTML file? Not many devices follow CSS page-break. If you wanted to guarantee the front matter to show up on different pages, split them into seperate XHTML files: titlepage.xhtml, dedication.xhtml, copyright.xhtml.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Melchett

2) I have three sections of front matter-
a) bookname and the author name
b) copyright and publisher name
c) dedication
I want all of these three things to appear separately. I am using the css property page break always to achieve this. All the three are starting on a new page but I want all of them to appear in the middle. The margin top feature seems not to work here. Any idea how to start these three sections in the middle.

That's the reading software chosing to implement the CSS spec in a way you don't like, but perfectly legal (emphasis mine):

When a forced page break occurs here, the used value of the relevant 'margin-bottom' property is set to '0'; the relevant 'margin-top' used value may either be set to '0' or retained.

You are forcing a page break, and the top-margin of the following element is converted to zero. There are several workarounds:

- Split the front matter in three files. The reading software will always insert a pagebreak, and the top margins will be retained.

- Use padding-top instead of margin-top, padding is not changed by pagebreaks. This may not be an option if you are using borders, for instance.

- Insert the pagebreak through a dummy element, something like this:

div.pagebreak { height: 0; page-break-before: always; }

<p>Last paragraph o a page.</p>
<div class="pagebreak"/>
<p>First paragraph of the next page.</p>

(Some readers may ignore empty <div>s, in that case write <div class="pagebreak">&nbsp;</div> instead.) The <div>'s margin-top is set to zero, but not the following paragraph's.

[Melchett]

Thanks a lot everyone for helping me with the margin top question. I split the files and included padding top. Solved my problem.
But the duplicate image problem still exits.
I am attaching a screenshot.
My workflow is as follows
1) I use indesign to create an epub.
2) Unzipping the EPUB and in the OEPBS/Image folder, you have two images. 203.png and the cover image.
3) Upon further inspection I noticed that the content.opf file has this line: <meta content="x203.png" name="cover" />
4) Removing this file and generating the ebook doesn't produce the thumbnail in the carousel. Including this 203.png produces the thumbnail carousel image but has two covers.
5) The guide section doesn't seem to be working. I tried setting the opening page to Chapter one but always opens the cover page.

Any Idea what's going on?

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Melchett

Thanks a lot everyone for helping me with the margin top question. I split the files and included padding top. Solved my problem.
But the duplicate image problem still exits.
I am attaching a screenshot.
My workflow is as follows
1) I use indesign to create an epub.
2) Unzipping the EPUB and in the OEPBS/Image folder, you have two images. 203.png and the cover image.
3) Upon further inspection I noticed that the content.opf file has this line: <meta content="x203.png" name="cover" />

I don't use InDesign, but I am assuming InDesign is also being "helpful" and generating a separate Cover image for you. This might be a relevant help file for you to turn this option off, see "EPUB Cover":

http://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/usin...export_options

Originally Posted by Melchett

4) Removing this file and generating the ebook doesn't produce the thumbnail in the carousel. Including this 203.png produces the thumbnail carousel image but has two covers.

Because you probably forgot to set the "Cover" semantic in the actual non-"203.png" file that you ACTUALLY want to be used as the cover. In Sigil, right click on the image you want to be the cover, and press Add Semantics - Cover.



KindleGen looks for this "Cover" semantic when generating the MOBI/KF8 files. When you deleted 203.png, KindleGen probably complained because the "Cover" was still set as 203.png.

Also, you may want to insert an actual Cover HTML page. Sigil makes it really easy with Tools - Add Cover:

http://web.sigil.googlecode.com/git/...add_cover.html