Broken characters in iBooks

[AntoniDol]

This happens when my client opens her FXL e-book in iBooks on her macOS machine.
The e-book is created in Sigil on the Windows 10 platform.

Is it:

• A conversion issue between Mac and Win?
• A broken font file on the client's computer?
• An issue with character encoding? (Currently UTF-8)
• A bug in iBooks?

Any suggestion to solving this issue is appreciated.

[Turtle91]

Wow! a Fixed-Layout e-book on Sigil?!?!? That must have taken some effort!!

At a quick glance it looks like a font issue. It looks like the same letters are being replaced with the same character. I've seen this when I change a lowercase glyph to uppercase (or vice-versa) and the font I'm using has been subset. If the font file doesn't have that particular glyph then it will use a fall-back font.

Are you embedding the font? I honestly don't know if iBooks supports embedded fonts...

[KevinH]

If FXL then fonts and font metrics must be absolutely identical. Therefore embedding the font is almost absolutely required to have it work on multiple ereaders.

What does it look like using the Bluefire reader on iOS. If it works there then it could be iBooks is replacing the font with a font with different metrics.

[Martinoptic]

iPad os and iOS books app only supports headings with embedded fonts, not body text since os 16. It may be similar on modern Mac OS?
It is VERY annoying.
As Kevin said, using a different reader app might help to determine the problem.

[AntoniDol]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Wow! a Fixed-Layout e-book on Sigil?!?!? That must have taken some effort!!

Well, it's 287 pages of family history with 171 images so it took two weeks to produce, a flow layout version wouldn't do...

Originally Posted by Turtle91

I've seen this when I change a lowercase glyph to uppercase (or vice-versa) and the font I'm using has been subset. Are you embedding the font? I honestly don't know if iBooks supports embedded fonts...

Fonts are embedded and as far as I know not subset at all. It could be a difference between the font files on Windows and macOS, but that shouldn't be the case because the font is embedded...

I'll ask my client to test the e-book on a different reader, like Bluefire.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by AntoniDol

I'll ask my client to test the e-book on a different reader, like Bluefire.

You might want to check the Thorium Reader for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AntoniDol

Well, it's 287 pages of family history with 171 images so it took two weeks to produce, a flow layout version wouldn't do...


Fonts are embedded and as far as I know not subset at all. It could be a difference between the font files on Windows and macOS, but that shouldn't be the case because the font is embedded...

I'll ask my client to test the e-book on a different reader, like Bluefire.

You can try, but the long and short of FXL, as yuou know, is that precise placement of everything--everything--letter-by-letter, word-by-word, is required if you are indeed making an FXL eBook. You couldn't have set the precise display parameters for the screen to be used, right?

And how did you set the pixel offsets, for the words?

The reason that FXL is so bloody limited is because (by design) it's limited to a specific set of devices. That Kobo's FXL layout "matches" Apple's is only because they literally mooched Apple's. You can't run an FXL ePUB, for example, made with InDesign, designed for iOS, on a Kindle, no matter how you get it there. It crashes and burns and yes, corrupts the layout as seen here.

So, I am not sure how you actually designed that, to be FXL, without taking into account all the various parameters? Did you size it by her custom requirement, to a specific screen and reader? It would seem not, as she's getting corruption on her device.

????

Hitch

[jhowell]

If you need fixed layout I suggest that PDF would be a better option then EPUB.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by jhowell

If you need fixed layout I suggest that PDF would be a better option then EPUB.

Yeah...I mean, we've been doing this a long time, my shop. I don't claim, ever, that we're the most cutting-edge shop in the world. We're not, although we try to stay atop certain developments.

But it would be a cold day in hell, or a mighty paycheck, that would tempt me to try to make a One File Rules Them All FXL file. It's just...it's really impossible. You can't do it. I mean...do you design for an iOS full-size iPad? A Mini? What about a Nook? Color Nook? Nook Color HD? Droid tablet? Phone?

A 1:1.3 aspect ratio? (IPad). A 1:1.6 (half the Fires). A 1:1.7? (the other fires). What about every "reader" out there, that resizes itself to fit a screen of (whatever) size? How can that even remotely work? Sure, you can create text boxes--but how do you know if the box will work in environment X?

And if you don't design for a target device or, at the very very least,, aspect ratio, how the hell can the thing work, unless all the text--all of it--is images of text, not real text?

(n.b.: we do make SIMPLE FXL ePUBs, [like, one small paragraph of text on a page, floating over an image] for those folks that come to us with illustrated children's books, that will work in the Kindleverse. It's rare. We do it in unusual circumstances. Nonetheless, nobody should try that without a LOT of FXL experience, because even doing that is nuts. And every client that now, or ever, got a file like that from us, received 90-bajillionty disclaimers about it working.)

Hitch

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by jhowell

If you need fixed layout I suggest that PDF would be a better option then EPUB.

Yes.

But also it probably can be done reflowable. It's not a graphic novel.

[Turtle91]

There are definitely some things, like a pedigree chart, that would not work so well reflowable. I would put those in as an image. Other items, like images of people and stories/comments about them are certainly doable as reflowable. I’m not sure what aspects of the book require fixed layout???

@AntoniDol I sent you a private message - maybe I can help.

[AntoniDol]

Is there a specific issue that you’ve found doesn’t work with reflowable format?
Cheers, Dion

Issues were: the figcaptions in figures not sticking with the images, "hero" - images not visible next to chapter openings, images not bleeding of the sides of the pages, chapters not starting on recto pages, no running headers or pagenumbers...

I have a flow version of the book, perfectly accaptable to me, but not to my client.

Essentially, the client wanted a copy of the printed boek, which I created successfully in the end, apart from these strangely broken characters...

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AntoniDol

Is there a specific issue that you’ve found doesn’t work with reflowable format?
Cheers, Dion

Issues were: the figcaptions in figures not sticking with the images, "hero" - images not visible next to chapter openings, images not bleeding of the sides of the pages, chapters not starting on recto pages, no running headers or pagenumbers...

So, in other words, the client didn't understand eBooks, resisted all attempts at client education and basically wanted an ePDF, but instead, got this? I mean, everything you've just listed is what does not work (all the time or reliably or like print) in reflowable, of course. But you undertook the job anyway? And made a fixed-layout ePUB, from scratch, it seems, even though generally speaking, that doesn't work?

I have a flow version of the book, perfectly accaptable to me, but not to my client.

Well...then I guess she gets a book that doesn't work. That's how that goes. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic and I know that I do, but part of what we all do, out here in the wild, is educate them about what they can and can't have. And now she has a book that won't actually work on most eReaders. I assume that when you discussed this with her, you disclosed everything--what works in reflow, what doesn't and you warned her, you told her that you couldn't guarantee that it would work across the spectrum of devices, right? She understood that she was taking that risk?

Essentially, the client wanted a copy of the printed boek, which I created successfully in the end, apart from these strangely broken characters...

Well...you say it's successful, but it's not even working in iBooks, which is the most forgiving, the most supportive, of fixed-layout. I'm really not trying to be a PITA here, but...you seem to have split the baby in a way that says it's not going to work. This isn't from INDD, right, so you don't have the expectation that it should work in iBooks. Does it work on a NookHD? What about a Droid tablet? What happens on other devices? Kobo? ????

Hitch

[AntoniDol]

I chose a fixed size of 1200 x 768 and created verso and recto containers for the pages and I pasted the figures and text into those containers. The book looks fine in every reader I've tried, including Thorium and ADE. Readers deny enlarging fonts for FXL e-books.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AntoniDol

I chose a fixed size of 1200 x 768 and created verso and recto containers for the pages and I pasted the figures and text into those containers. The book looks fine in every reader I've tried, including Thorium and ADE. Readers deny enlarging fonts for FXL e-books.

Can you elaborate on which real devices you tested, rather than readers?

Hitch