Font embedding frustration

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

Also in tools, tell it to check CSS to try to clear up any problems there.

I presume you mean the "Validate Stylesheets with W3C" thing? Oddly, that does nothing at all when I click on it -- nothing happens, no report, doesn't take me anywhere, no dialog box or anything at all. However, the "Validate EPUB with FlightCrew" works just fine. :/

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Psymon

I presume you mean the "Validate Stylesheets with W3C" thing? Oddly, that does nothing at all when I click on it -- nothing happens, no report, doesn't take me anywhere, no dialog box or anything at all. However, the "Validate EPUB with FlightCrew" works just fine. :/

There was that problem on XP and Sigil 7.2
What version of Sigil?
What is your default browser?

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by theducks

There was that problem on XP and Sigil 7.2
What version of Sigil?
What is your default browser?

I am on XP, but I'm using version 0.7.3.

And at the moment my default browser is Firefox -- but what difference would that make? I do realize that it can view epubs, but I don't use it for that.

[Psymon]

Okay! I've attached here what I've accomplished (so far) today.

Two questions...

I wanted to increase the page margins just a LITTLE bit, now that I've added a background image, and found out how to do that via a page in these forums, but it doesn't seem to be working (I've tried all kinds of different things) -- what am I doing wrong???

Also, re the background image, is there a way to get it to stretch (or shrink) to fill the entire viewing area but without wrapping? I'm not sure if I'm explaining that well, but I was thinking that it would be cool if I could do a background of that "old paper", but have it fade to white at the edges around all four sides -- but at the same time resize if one is in landscape or portrait mode (or in another ebook software).

Does that make sense? Or is trying to do what I'm trying to do with a background too buggy -- and should I just scrap it?

I guess I'm getting off-topic for what was my initial question here (re font embedding), but I thought I'd ask you folks here since you've been so wonderfully helpful for me today.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Okay! I've attached here what I've accomplished (so far) today.

Two questions...

I wanted to increase the page margins just a LITTLE bit, now that I've added a background image, and found out how to do that via a page in these forums, but it doesn't seem to be working (I've tried all kinds of different things) -- what am I doing wrong???

Also, re the background image, is there a way to get it to stretch (or shrink) to fill the entire viewing area but without wrapping? I'm not sure if I'm explaining that well, but I was thinking that it would be cool if I could do a background of that "old paper", but have it fade to white at the edges around all four sides -- but at the same time resize if one is in landscape or portrait mode (or in another ebook software).

Does that make sense? Or is trying to do what I'm trying to do with a background too buggy -- and should I just scrap it?

I guess I'm getting off-topic for what was my initial question here (re font embedding), but I thought I'd ask you folks here since you've been so wonderfully helpful for me today.

Hmm!
XP here also and Firefox 24 and it now works (did not work on only XP with earlier versions)

did you look at the CSS
background-repeat:

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by theducks

Hmm!
XP here also and Firefox 24 and it now works (did not work on only XP with earlier versions)

did you look at the CSS
background-repeat:

I have no idea about the CSS checker thingie not working. :/

And re the background-repeat that I have now, I do realize that that's how it's set now, but that's for lack of knowing much else. I don't really know if there's a way to get the image to stretch (or shrink) to fill the viewing window. If I set the background to not repeat, that wouldn't re-size it to fit the window -- I could center it or something, but that's not what I want to do, of course.

[phossler]

@psymon --

http://web.sigil.googlecode.com/git/.../Text/faq.html

Next to last topic

"Why doesn’t my font show up in iBooks?"

Paul

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by phossler

http://web.sigil.googlecode.com/git/.../Text/faq.html

Next to last topic

"Why doesn’t my font show up in iBooks?"

Oh, this problem is solved -- I got the font showing up just fine! In fact, I've been up since 3:00am this morning having tons o' fun with this!

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Okay! I've attached here what I've accomplished (so far) today.

Two questions...

I wanted to increase the page margins just a LITTLE bit, now that I've added a background image, and found out how to do that via a page in these forums, but it doesn't seem to be working (I've tried all kinds of different things) -- what am I doing wrong???

Also, re the background image, is there a way to get it to stretch (or shrink) to fill the entire viewing area but without wrapping? I'm not sure if I'm explaining that well, but I was thinking that it would be cool if I could do a background of that "old paper", but have it fade to white at the edges around all four sides -- but at the same time resize if one is in landscape or portrait mode (or in another ebook software).

Does that make sense? Or is trying to do what I'm trying to do with a background too buggy -- and should I just scrap it?

I guess I'm getting off-topic for what was my initial question here (re font embedding), but I thought I'd ask you folks here since you've been so wonderfully helpful for me today.

You seem to be setting various margins in px? May I ask why you're doing that? (And what are you doing with those spans, BTW? The "white-space: nowrap" spans? I hate to tell you, but that won't work in any ADE-based reader.)

Secondly, where is it that you perceive that you're setting margins for the page--which is what I infer your intent to be--that you want to increase "just a bit?" Is that the page 4pts setting, at the top of your stylesheet?

The background image question--if you're only trying to publish on iBooks, I suppose they won't care, and it will likely work. If you're trying to publish in other readers, you're likely to run into issues with the background image and you may run into problems with some of those TTF's.

On a bright note in an otherwise dreary day, I am, however, eternally grateful that I'm not the poor bugger stuck proofing this. No reflection on your book; my eyes are simply too old for that. ;-)

Hitch

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Hitch

No reflection on your book; my eyes are simply too old for that. ;-)

I think you mean too young! I think you need ~600 year old eyes for that Middle English.

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by Psymon

I presume you mean the "Validate Stylesheets with W3C" thing? Oddly, that does nothing at all when I click on it -- nothing happens, no report, doesn't take me anywhere, no dialog box or anything at all. However, the "Validate EPUB with FlightCrew" works just fine. :/

It's a mystery. However, you can do it manually. In sigil, go to your problematic .css file. Do a "select all", "copy".

Open the browser of choice, go to http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/, and select your parameters. For font related issues I'd recommend CSS level 3, though in reality epubs need CSS level 2.1, which probably won't return anything useful for font declaration problems.

Proceed to copy your CSS into the "direct input" window and go from there.

YMMV, and all that.

But be advised if it passes CSS level 3, it still may not pass epbub CSS standards. If there's an error there (apart from font declaration related errors) readers like Adobe will ignore youir CSS and substitute their own.

Hoping this is not all that opaque, I remain

Albert

[Psymon]

Hi, Hitch, what a GREAT reply! You actually ask some very good (if not important) questions which I clearly should be addressing -- I just didn't know they needed to be addressed.

I'll answer each of them separately -- I'd be deeply appreciative if you (or someone) could follow up on this for me, in fact...

Originally Posted by Hitch

You seem to be setting various margins in px? May I ask why you're doing that?

Um, probably because I have no clue what I'm doing! At least, not when it comes to creating epubs (this is my very first one). My background is in web design (and graphic design), but even with that I started way back in the mid-1990s, before CSS even existed (in fact, HTML tables had only just barely arrived on the scene and were all the rage, and I can only confess that I've never quite gotten the grasp of CSS layout and stuff -- and creating ebooks are an entirely different medium, of course, which doesn't help. :/

In any case, you reference to my "setting various margins in px", I presume you're referring to my styling of paragraphs (etc.)? When I first started this epub, I just lifted the CSS file from my website on which this text is based, so I guess that's where that/those came from.

Again, I'm just admittedly a bit of a dummy here when it comes to CSS and epubs, and still have a great deal to learn -- but I do want to learn!

Originally Posted by Hitch

(And what are you doing with those spans, BTW? The "white-space: nowrap" spans? I hate to tell you, but that won't work in any ADE-based reader.)

Oh, all those -- and there's a LOT of them, yes -- came about because with this particular text, which is in late-Middle English and as a result has a LOT of special characters in the code (like ƒ, ¥, ¬, ¢, etc.), I noticed that some words were breaking and wrapping at the end of the line where those special characters were (as though the reader was treating those special characters like it would a space). And that's no good -- so I went through the entire text and any word that contained any unusual special characters I just wrapped it in those "nowrap" spans.

Obviously it adds quite a bit of "bulk" to the code, but in ibooks in the ipad, at least, it does seem to work! And I just don't know of any other solution for keeping those words from breaking at the end of lines -- if you know of an alternative that would work in all e-readers, I would naturally be deeply grateful.

Originally Posted by Hitch

Secondly, where is it that you perceive that you're setting margins for the page--which is what I infer your intent to be--that you want to increase "just a bit?" Is that the page 4pts setting, at the top of your stylesheet?

The background image question--if you're only trying to publish on iBooks, I suppose they won't care, and it will likely work. If you're trying to publish in other readers, you're likely to run into issues with the background image

Um, if what you're referring to re setting the page margins is what I think you're referring to, then yes -- but for what it's worth, I've since just changed everything to "0" all-around, and also scrapped the idea of doing that "old paper" background idea because as it is (was), it just looked like crap. I suppose it would/could be nice if I could get the background image to "bleed" right to the edges of the whole, entire page, but with it only appearing in that small(er) viewable window, well, it just wasn't very effective -- not to mention that if I was to increase the margins so that the text wasn't right up against the edges of that background image, then doing so invariably introduces other issues (re line length and justified text, etc.).

And it looks just fine in ibooks (at least), especially with the sepia viewing option which almost simulates an "old paper" look, too.

Originally Posted by Hitch

and you may run into problems with some of those TTF's.

Oh, no! Really? I thought TTF fonts were the prefered font? I read somewhere that one can use either TTF or OTF fonts, but that TTF were preferred -- did I get it backwards? I found a website where one can convert fonts from one format to the other.

ANY suggestions you have about font embedding with regard to this little project of mine are most welcome -- as you can see, without that particular font showing up correctly, my text here (in that late-Middle English) will just end up showing up as utter gobbledygook otherwise, so it's only naturally imperative that it work correctly.

Originally Posted by Hitch

On a bright note in an otherwise dreary day, I am, however, eternally grateful that I'm not the poor bugger stuck proofing this. No reflection on your book; my eyes are simply too old for that. ;-)

Ha ha! I understand, I know that old style of font (and English) is hard to read, but I've been doing it for decades now and THAT is the easy part for me! I rather enjoy reading text like that, actually -- and in this case it doesn't need to be "proofread" at all, it's already well beyond that stage. There's no issues at all with the text -- just the coding of it.

Thank you so much for your reply, Hitch!

Ron

[Toxaris]

Margins, indents and font sizes are usually much better done with relative sizes like em or percentages. That way they will scale with the reader.

You can use TTF or OTF, that does not really matter. However, not all fonts render that well on readers. I would advise to check the epub in ADE on the PC to see if the fonts show up. If the font does not render, you should check the OS/2 version mapping in the font (yes, I mean OS/2...). It should be 3 or less.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

You can use TTF or OTF, that does not really matter. However, not all fonts render that well on readers. I would advise to check the epub in ADE on the PC to see if the fonts show up. If the font does not render, you should check the OS/2 version mapping in the font (yes, I mean OS/2...). It should be 3 or less.

Okay, my ignorance showing (again) here -- I never even heard of "ADE" until yesterday, in fact! But spurred by your reply here, I found that reader and installed it, and checked my epub in it -- everything seems to come out okay! No problems at all with displaying the font correctly, and although I only skimmed through it quickly, I didn't notice any issues with the lines wrapping in mid-word (due to those special characters) or anything. So that's reassuring.

This does bring up a related question, actually. For website design, there's a site somewhere (I forget the URL, off-hand) where one can check one's site in a TON of browsers -- like 20 or 30 or something, both different browsers and different versions of them -- all at the same time.

Is there any kind of site that's similar for checking epubs? Ideally, it would be nice to have an iPad, a Kindle, a Nook, and every other ereader -- but who the hell can afford that? And the "Kindle Previewer", but I really have to wonder if what one sees in that is actually how things look in the real thing. It would be nice if there was a website like that other one for website design.

Of course, it would be even nicer if all these manufacturers could just come up with ONE standard -- and then all comply with it, of course.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by st_albert

Open the browser of choice, go to http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/, and select your parameters. For font related issues I'd recommend CSS level 3, though in reality epubs need CSS level 2.1, which probably won't return anything useful for font declaration problems.

Do I set the "Medium" option to "handheld", too?

Originally Posted by st_albert

But be advised if it passes CSS level 3, it still may not pass epbub CSS standards. If there's an error there (apart from font declaration related errors) readers like Adobe will ignore youir CSS and substitute their own.

Well, that's kinda discouraging -- so I might get my CSS to validate, and yet it might still be "invalid" as far as epubs go? Is there not a CSS validator out there anywhere that's specifically geared for epubs?