Apple objects to wrong page numbers

[BeckyEbook]

Required. Described here.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by BeckyEbook

Required. Described here.

Interesting. Thanks.

EpubCheck fails to flag them when missing, but that's not surprising.

Still curious to see if it has any effect the OP's issue. If so, it can at least be brought to someone's attention.

Another good reason to move to Epub3 and dump the ncx: no need to tell reading systems that you're not, in fact, using something that you're not required to use in epubs (pages)

[Doitsu]

According to the EPUB 2.0.1 OPF specs, dtb:depth, dtb:totalPageCount and dtb:maxPageNumber are no longer required. (Only dtb:id is required.) In the previous version, they were still mentioned.

BTW, the Apple Books Asset Guide mentions that Apple Books calculates page numbers for TOC entries:

Table of Contents

The main Table of Contents in Apple Books is created using a nav element with an epub:type value of "toc". Readers use the Table of Contents to navigate to key locations in the book. Note that you do not define page numbers for each entry. Apple Books calculates those for the reader to accommodate different font and screen sizes.

(emphasis mine)

Spoiler:

	
	
<nav epub:type="toc">
    <ol>
      <li><a href="chapter1.xhtml">Chapter 1</a>
         <ol>
          <li><a href="chapter1.xhtml#figure1">Figure 1</a></li>
         </ol>
      </li>
      <li><a href="chapter2.xhtml">Chapter 2</a></li>
    </ol>
</nav>

Maybe Apple uses a similar method for NCX TOCs and their validator doesn't like the order of toc entries in the OP's book because they don't match the spine order.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Maybe D2D has updated their intake app to add synthetic page numbers if no print page numbers are present?
You might want to ask D2D about it.

@Hitch have you encountered this problem with one of your clients?

If D2D accepts epub3 books, you could convert your epub2 book to an epub3 book with KevinH's ePub3-itizer plugin.
This might fix the issue or you might at least get more meaningful error messages.
If you're going the epub3 route, you might want to check out the Apple Books Asset Guide.

No, Doits: I've never heard of this, but then again, I have a very small percentage that go to Apple, either directly or via D2D, etc.

I'm very interested in this, though. Curious to see how Apple expects them to fix it when it's their rendering that is going Tango Uniform?

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Curious to see how Apple expects them to fix it when it's their rendering that is going Tango Uniform?

I remember problems like this with Smashwords' meatgrinder in the past. The grinder was introducing errors and sending users the locations of problem areas that wound up being in temp files created by the meatgrinder itself! No help whatsoever.

"There are issues in files that you didn't create--nor do you have access to them. Please fix them."

I still don't understand why any reading system ever needed to be explicitly told that an ebook is NOT supplying any page info to be processed.

[philja]

Thanks to BeckyEbook, DiapDealer, Doitsu, Hitch: this gives me some new areas to look at.

I've been absent for a while with various life events getting in the way so this issue is still festering gently. With D2D's total sales only equivalent to 1% of what I do with KDP, and Apple only a small part of what D2D does for me, I've had to let this problem slide while doing other more important stuff.

But I'll get back to it in the next few days.

[philja]

I've now had a chance to review some of the info referenced above. A promising lead looked to be Doitsu's reference to the Apple Books Asset Guide and I checked the link for which he included an excerpt. Unfortunately, that Guide is for Epub3 but it does provide a link for the Epub2 earlier version.

As that Guide says in its Intro:

Note: The 5.1 and later versions of the Apple Books Asset Guide cover EPUB 3 and Multi-Touch books only. For information on the older EPUB 2 format, see our documentation archive. Use this link to learn more: https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebO...b2_asset_guide. You can also refer to http://web.archive.org/web/201904272...f.org/epub/201 for EPUB 2 information.

Sadly, when I clicked to go to the Epub2 version of their assets guide, my Apple ID login came back with a note that "Your Apple ID isn't enabled for iTunes Connect - Learn More". I clicked the 'learn more' link to see what was required but it all seems to be asking me what books or other material I want to distribute so I couldn't pass the first step.

I further noted the possibility :

Maybe Apple uses a similar method for NCX TOCs and their validator doesn't like the order of toc entries in the OP's book because they don't match the spine order.

and so, I have made sure that the Spine listing is identical to the order of the toc.ncx navMap listing just in case that has some role to play.

I have checked and rechecked that there are no spurious toc id's scattered in the body contents files of the book. Epubcheck gives a clean result so I'm going to have another go at getting D2D to pass a new version to Apple.