Smashwords finds errors in my ePub file

Johneltin · 07-27-2013, 10:33 PM

My file is fine uploaded to Amazon and looks perfect on my Kindle, thanks to a little help I received here, BUT... I upload the same file to Smashwords and it will not pass validation.
Are these errors (below) to do with the chapters and headers? I've re-written and uploaded what I thought were the offending parts but still receive this:

"We have run EPUBcheck on your file, and unfortunately, it has not passed validation. The errors found were":

'sigil_toc_id_10': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 7.xhtml'
'sigil_toc_id_26': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 23.xhtml'
'sigil_toc_id_27': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 23.xhtml'
'sigil_toc_id_28': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 24.xhtml'
'sigil_toc_id_29': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 25.xhtml'
'sigil_toc_id_30': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 26.xhtml'
'sigil_toc_id_34': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 29.xhtml'
'sigil_toc_id_5': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 3.xhtml'

No problems found with Sigil FlightCrew.

Any help appreciated. Thanks, John

theducks · 07-27-2013, 10:46 PM

Did you change something after you generated the inline (HTML) TOC?

A fragment is the #name of a link (includes chapter heads)
The name implies these were all Sigil Generated HTML TOC (anchors) entries at one time.
So look at those named files.

Now it could be that SW is complaining about an anchor that has no use. This is not a ERROR (it could be considered a warning) in reality (just excess baggage)

Johneltin · 07-28-2013, 01:44 AM

Thanks for the reply TheDucks,

I deleted the TOC (is that where the error messages are pointing?). I noticed that the offending chapters ALL have heavy fonts in h1 and h2 - inconsistent with the OK chapters, so, I got up blank HTML pages (sigil) and copied only the 'text' of each file before re-typing and setting the chapters and headers (h1, h2). Then I deleted the naughty files and renamed the new ones.

I re-generated a new TOC and guess what? It's all the same - those offending (now new) files STILL have the inconsistent LARGE fonts.

There's gotta be a ghost in there and he's driving me CRAZY 'cos I don't know what else to do!!

Toxaris · 07-28-2013, 02:47 AM

Uhm... Have you defined another look of the headers in the stylesheet? It sounds like you use the standard headers look of HTML.

Perkin · 07-28-2013, 04:37 AM

If the headers appear differently than others with same code, check those files are actually (and correctly) linked to the same stylesheet

Johneltin · 07-28-2013, 06:17 AM

At the risk of being slapped in the gob, I have no idea what you are talking about, but here is a copy of what's inside my sigil style folder - I've not looked in it before:
div.sgc-toc-title {
font-size: 2em;
font-weight: bold;
margin-bottom: 1em;
text-align: center;
}

div.sgc-toc-level-1 {
margin-left: 0em;
}

div.sgc-toc-level-2 {
margin-left: 2em;
}

div.sgc-toc-level-3 {
margin-left: 2em;
}

div.sgc-toc-level-4 {
margin-left: 2em;
}

div.sgc-toc-level-5 {
margin-left: 2em;
}

div.sgc-toc-level-6 {
margin-left: 2em;
}

DTM · 07-28-2013, 08:27 AM

Perkin is suggesting that you check each "bad" chapter for something like this:

<link href="../Styles/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

in its <head>. If that's missing or incorrect, the chapter is ignoring the styles and it would explain why the headers look different. If the statement is there, you can check to see if it's correct by comparing to a "good" file. And, by the way, I've found that some readers are case-sensitive, so

<link href="../styles/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
is not the same as:
<link href="../Styles/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

Toxaris is suggesting you look within your style sheet for the entries that look like:

h1
{
formatting stuff here
}

to make sure they all appear to be in order.

I'll throw in a suggestion of my own: You'll then want to compare how h1, h2, etc. are used in the "bad" chapters as compared to the "good" ones.

mrmikel · 07-28-2013, 10:33 AM

Also make sure that there is not a <div> wrapping up the whole chapter applying some sort of formatting.

You will find a difference between the good and bad formatted sections. It just can be hard to see until you do and then go, DUH!

The main difference between newbies and oldies is in the DUH count. Oldies already have their DUH count up there.

Sigh. If only the DUH count paid like the load count on Ice Road Truckers!

theducks · 07-28-2013, 12:31 PM

None of those errors are stylesheet errors

Code:

'sigil_toc_id_10': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 7.xhtml'

Smashwords has been reported to be overly fussy.

The error syntax context is iffy as to which end the mismatch is Chapter 7.xhtm

Chapter 7.xhtm <<

Never use spaces in file names. you will not regret it later. Use of an underscore is acceptable for readability.

if you use digits, use leading 0's to pad to the number of highest digits so a file sort (if needed) puts most into order. Chapter_07.xhtm

the first part of the error says there is a reference (somewhere) to the anchor id="sigil_toc_id_10" or "../Text/Chapter 7.xhtml#sigil_toc_id_10" (To be honest, I have never seen Sigil construct this usage variation). The former are usually inserted into <H# tags as part of generating a NCX (IIRC the HTML TOC builds off of the current NCX, NOT the document

The fact that Flight crew does not throw an error makes me think this is Smashwords being fussy.

Have you Validated using the W3C site ??

exaltedwombat · 07-28-2013, 03:37 PM

What result did you get when YOU ran EpubCheck before finalising your book? Passing that, as well as the Sigil internal checker, is essential.

In this case, I think you used header styles in the chapter of your book, included them in the auto-generated TOC but then messed with them, deleting some from the chapters.

I'm surprised the Sigil checker didn't pick this up though. Want to try checking your final epub file in Sigil again?

Johneltin · 07-29-2013, 08:20 AM

Thanks everyone for your help.

Being too busy to study it further I once again uploaded my file and this time I received a positive reply from Smashwords: "We have run EPUBcheck on your file, and it has passed!" This was after I copied the chapters into new 'blank' XTML pages (I think - it's all becoming a blur!).

However, I click on my book (in 'dashboard') and find this: Tasks awaiting your completion: This book requires modification prior to inclusion in Smashwords' premium catalog.

I have emailed this enigma to the Smashwords 'help' and hope they can enlighten me. Perhaps it's a good sign that I received no email with a list of errors this time!

I may be back but thanks again, John

Johneltin · 07-29-2013, 08:29 AM

....oh.... and yes - both of the Sigil checkers came up 'No Problems Found' in validation tests - Flight Crew and W3C CSS Validator results for TextArea (CSS level 2.1).

J

exaltedwombat · 07-29-2013, 08:39 AM

Smashwords have peculiar and restrictive requirements. They reject all but the most basic formatting (even a simple table is thrown out) they restrict maximum text size to 18pt, they require a special Smashwords License Statement to be included, they have cover image requirements... download the Smashwords Style Guide for all of it.

But they DO offer to get your book on all the platforms, including iBooks (which can be tricky for an individual, and is apparently important to those who play in Apple's walled garden:-)

And their checking system can be erratic. I've known a publisher send an ePub in three times with what we THOUGHT were the required modifications, only to be continually rejected. We finally contacted Smashwords who said "our mistake, it's fine" and published it.

Johneltin · 08-01-2013, 08:25 AM

Thanks again everyone but SURELY there must be a way to make all my (29) chapters and headers h1 and h2 consistent WITHOUT having to figure out the HTML which is beyond me.

I have started a completely blank, totally new file (all 29 pages) and transferred all the 'body' of text but was sure to type in the chapters and headers and assign them the appropriate h1 or h2 - no chance of contamination.

However, there is no consistency when reviewed - Sigil just abuses them all - turning them into any size it wants and there is NO option within the Sigil program - unless I'm missing something. Even my father's old computer back in the last century had a 'change font' option; back in 1980 - or was it 1890?

I have even ignored the original 'word' file to make these changes but, even though my file still passes both Sigil validation checks AND the Smashwords test, it still tells me 'Congratulations my child - your file has passed our ePub check'. but then it has a note in 'dashboard' that says 'Unacceptable for our PREMIUM CATALOGUE' because it needs modification - different font sizes in the headers.'

Any easy way to fix without looking for html differences? Some suggestions received here were beyond me - If I found them I wouldn't know what to do with them anyway and, unfortunately, I am too busy at present spend hours learning to tame that HTML animal. Thanks, J

exaltedwombat · 08-01-2013, 08:29 AM

Not really. It's like getting to the point in learning an instrument when you really HAVE to learn to read music. And it's why some of us make a few pennies preparing eBooks for publication :-)

07-27-2013, 10:33 PM	#1
Johneltin Member Posts: 19 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2013 Device: none	Smashwords finds errors in my ePub file My file is fine uploaded to Amazon and looks perfect on my Kindle, thanks to a little help I received here, BUT... I upload the same file to Smashwords and it will not pass validation. Are these errors (below) to do with the chapters and headers? I've re-written and uploaded what I thought were the offending parts but still receive this: "We have run EPUBcheck on your file, and unfortunately, it has not passed validation. The errors found were": 'sigil_toc_id_10': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 7.xhtml' 'sigil_toc_id_26': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 23.xhtml' 'sigil_toc_id_27': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 23.xhtml' 'sigil_toc_id_28': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 24.xhtml' 'sigil_toc_id_29': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 25.xhtml' 'sigil_toc_id_30': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 26.xhtml' 'sigil_toc_id_34': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 29.xhtml' 'sigil_toc_id_5': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 3.xhtml' No problems found with Sigil FlightCrew. Any help appreciated. Thanks, John

07-28-2013, 12:31 PM	#9
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 30,170 Karma: 57532200 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	None of those errors are stylesheet errors Code: 'sigil_toc_id_10': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OEBPS/Text/Chapter 7.xhtml' Smashwords has been reported to be overly fussy. The error syntax context is iffy as to which end the mismatch is Chapter 7.xhtm Chapter 7.xhtm << Never use spaces in file names. you will not regret it later. Use of an underscore is acceptable for readability. if you use digits, use leading 0's to pad to the number of highest digits so a file sort (if needed) puts most into order. Chapter_07.xhtm the first part of the error says there is a reference (somewhere) to the anchor id="sigil_toc_id_10" or "../Text/Chapter 7.xhtml#sigil_toc_id_10" (To be honest, I have never seen Sigil construct this usage variation). The former are usually inserted into <H# tags as part of generating a NCX (IIRC the HTML TOC builds off of the current NCX, NOT the document The fact that Flight crew does not throw an error makes me think this is Smashwords being fussy. Have you Validated using the W3C site ?? Last edited by theducks; 07-28-2013 at 12:32 PM. Reason: typos

07-28-2013, 03:37 PM	#10
exaltedwombat Guru Posts: 878 Karma: 2457540 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: none	What result did you get when YOU ran EpubCheck before finalising your book? Passing that, as well as the Sigil internal checker, is essential. In this case, I think you used header styles in the chapter of your book, included them in the auto-generated TOC but then messed with them, deleting some from the chapters. I'm surprised the Sigil checker didn't pick this up though. Want to try checking your final epub file in Sigil again? Last edited by exaltedwombat; 07-28-2013 at 03:54 PM.

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07-27-2013, 10:46 PM	#2
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 30,170 Karma: 57532200 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	Did you change something after you generated the inline (HTML) TOC? A fragment is the #name of a link (includes chapter heads) The name implies these were all Sigil Generated HTML TOC (anchors) entries at one time. So look at those named files. Now it could be that SW is complaining about an anchor that has no use. This is not a ERROR (it could be considered a warning) in reality (just excess baggage)

07-28-2013, 01:44 AM	#3
Johneltin Member Posts: 19 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2013 Device: none	Thanks for the reply TheDucks, I deleted the TOC (is that where the error messages are pointing?). I noticed that the offending chapters ALL have heavy fonts in h1 and h2 - inconsistent with the OK chapters, so, I got up blank HTML pages (sigil) and copied only the 'text' of each file before re-typing and setting the chapters and headers (h1, h2). Then I deleted the naughty files and renamed the new ones. I re-generated a new TOC and guess what? It's all the same - those offending (now new) files STILL have the inconsistent LARGE fonts. There's gotta be a ghost in there and he's driving me CRAZY 'cos I don't know what else to do!!

07-28-2013, 02:47 AM	#4
Toxaris Wizard Posts: 4,520 Karma: 121692313 Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Heemskerk, NL Device: PRS-T1, Kobo Touch, Kobo Aura	Uhm... Have you defined another look of the headers in the stylesheet? It sounds like you use the standard headers look of HTML.

07-28-2013, 04:37 AM	#5
Perkin Guru Posts: 657 Karma: 64171 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Kent, England, Sol 3, ZZ9 plural Z Alpha Device: Sony PRS-300, Kobo Aura HD, iPad (Marvin)	If the headers appear differently than others with same code, check those files are actually (and correctly) linked to the same stylesheet

07-28-2013, 06:17 AM	#6
Johneltin Member Posts: 19 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2013 Device: none	At the risk of being slapped in the gob, I have no idea what you are talking about, but here is a copy of what's inside my sigil style folder - I've not looked in it before: div.sgc-toc-title { font-size: 2em; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: center; } div.sgc-toc-level-1 { margin-left: 0em; } div.sgc-toc-level-2 { margin-left: 2em; } div.sgc-toc-level-3 { margin-left: 2em; } div.sgc-toc-level-4 { margin-left: 2em; } div.sgc-toc-level-5 { margin-left: 2em; } div.sgc-toc-level-6 { margin-left: 2em; }

07-28-2013, 08:27 AM	#7
DTM Intentionally Left Blank Posts: 172 Karma: 300106 Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Royal Oak, MI, USA Device: Nook STR	Perkin is suggesting that you check each "bad" chapter for something like this: <link href="../Styles/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> in its <head>. If that's missing or incorrect, the chapter is ignoring the styles and it would explain why the headers look different. If the statement is there, you can check to see if it's correct by comparing to a "good" file. And, by the way, I've found that some readers are case-sensitive, so <link href="../styles/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> is not the same as: <link href="../Styles/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> Toxaris is suggesting you look within your style sheet for the entries that look like: h1 { formatting stuff here } to make sure they all appear to be in order. I'll throw in a suggestion of my own: You'll then want to compare how h1, h2, etc. are used in the "bad" chapters as compared to the "good" ones.

07-28-2013, 10:33 AM	#8
mrmikel Color me gone Posts: 2,089 Karma: 1445295 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Central Oregon Coast Device: PRS-300	Also make sure that there is not a <div> wrapping up the whole chapter applying some sort of formatting. You will find a difference between the good and bad formatted sections. It just can be hard to see until you do and then go, DUH! The main difference between newbies and oldies is in the DUH count. Oldies already have their DUH count up there. Sigh. If only the DUH count paid like the load count on Ice Road Truckers!

07-29-2013, 08:20 AM	#11
Johneltin Member Posts: 19 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2013 Device: none	Thanks everyone for your help. Being too busy to study it further I once again uploaded my file and this time I received a positive reply from Smashwords: "We have run EPUBcheck on your file, and it has passed!" This was after I copied the chapters into new 'blank' XTML pages (I think - it's all becoming a blur!). However, I click on my book (in 'dashboard') and find this: Tasks awaiting your completion: This book requires modification prior to inclusion in Smashwords' premium catalog. I have emailed this enigma to the Smashwords 'help' and hope they can enlighten me. Perhaps it's a good sign that I received no email with a list of errors this time! I may be back but thanks again, John

07-29-2013, 08:29 AM	#12
Johneltin Member Posts: 19 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2013 Device: none	....oh.... and yes - both of the Sigil checkers came up 'No Problems Found' in validation tests - Flight Crew and W3C CSS Validator results for TextArea (CSS level 2.1). J

07-29-2013, 08:39 AM	#13
exaltedwombat Guru Posts: 878 Karma: 2457540 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: none	Smashwords have peculiar and restrictive requirements. They reject all but the most basic formatting (even a simple table is thrown out) they restrict maximum text size to 18pt, they require a special Smashwords License Statement to be included, they have cover image requirements... download the Smashwords Style Guide for all of it. But they DO offer to get your book on all the platforms, including iBooks (which can be tricky for an individual, and is apparently important to those who play in Apple's walled garden:-) And their checking system can be erratic. I've known a publisher send an ePub in three times with what we THOUGHT were the required modifications, only to be continually rejected. We finally contacted Smashwords who said "our mistake, it's fine" and published it.

Advert

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08-01-2013, 08:25 AM	#14
Johneltin Member Posts: 19 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2013 Device: none	Thanks again everyone but SURELY there must be a way to make all my (29) chapters and headers h1 and h2 consistent WITHOUT having to figure out the HTML which is beyond me. I have started a completely blank, totally new file (all 29 pages) and transferred all the 'body' of text but was sure to type in the chapters and headers and assign them the appropriate h1 or h2 - no chance of contamination. However, there is no consistency when reviewed - Sigil just abuses them all - turning them into any size it wants and there is NO option within the Sigil program - unless I'm missing something. Even my father's old computer back in the last century had a 'change font' option; back in 1980 - or was it 1890? I have even ignored the original 'word' file to make these changes but, even though my file still passes both Sigil validation checks AND the Smashwords test, it still tells me 'Congratulations my child - your file has passed our ePub check'. but then it has a note in 'dashboard' that says 'Unacceptable for our PREMIUM CATALOGUE' because it needs modification - different font sizes in the headers.' Any easy way to fix without looking for html differences? Some suggestions received here were beyond me - If I found them I wouldn't know what to do with them anyway and, unfortunately, I am too busy at present spend hours learning to tame that HTML animal. Thanks, J

08-01-2013, 08:29 AM	#15
exaltedwombat Guru Posts: 878 Karma: 2457540 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: none	Not really. It's like getting to the point in learning an instrument when you really HAVE to learn to read music. And it's why some of us make a few pennies preparing eBooks for publication :-)