ETI eBook Publisher : bug reports / workarounds / update requests

[zelda_pinwheel]

while we were discussing workarounds for a bug in eBook Publisher program in a different thread, we thought it might be constructive to pool our knowledge in one single thread. we are also hoping this thread will catch Garth Conboy's eye for hypothetical future versions of the application.

This thread is for :

1. reporting bugs in the soft
2. sharing workarounds
3. suggestions for improvements, for (hypothetical) future versions.

To keep it easy to navigate, maybe use the title of the post to indicate what bug / workaround / feature request you're talking about.

[zelda_pinwheel]

the USABLE screen size of the eb1150 (for a full-screen image, for example), is approximately 310 x 430 px, taking into account the space taken up by running headers in "smallfont" or size "small" text, and small side margins.

[DaleDe]

I have a whole list of requests for improvements in eBook Publisher on my web site.

Dale

[zelda_pinwheel]

if you place an image in your book, which is larger than the maximum screen size of 310 x 430 px (for a 1150 .imp), eBook Publisher will automatically scale the image to fit the screen.

BUG : it will only scale horizontally, not vertically. this means, if your image is tall and narrow, it will fill the screen from side to side but the bottom will be cut off.

WORKAROUNDS : found after much discussion over here
1. resize your image to 430 px max height (for 1150). this is the cleanest solution, especially if you are *only* making an eb1150 version .imp file.

OR

2. add empty side margins to your file, so that it is PROPORTIONAL (homothetic) to the max 1150 screen size of 310 x 430. this can easily be done in Photoshop or other image-editing software, including with batch treatment. THE KEY IS TO RESPECT THE HEIGHT:WIDTH RATIO ; size is immaterial. see practical method below.

NOTE : this workaround will allow you to use the same set of images for the creation of an eb1150 AND 1200 version .imp file, provided that in the 1200 version you add 2ems of margin to the left and right of each full-screen image.

PHOTOSHOP WORKFLOW FOR THIS METHOD :
1. open the image you want to resize (img1).

2. create a "dummy" image* (File>newfile) of 310 x 430 px.

3. select img1, and open the image size dialogue box (ctrl + alt + i). copy the current HEIGHT (ex : 800px), cancel.

4. select dummy image* : open image size, verify that the dimensions are linked ("scale proportionately"), paste the height of other image (800px). The dummy image will automatically be resized. Copy the resulting adjusted WIDTH (for 800px height, width will be 577px), cancel.

*The dummy image is only to simplify things by letting Photoshop do all the math. if you like calculating things, by all means skip the dummy image and figure it out yourself.

5. back to img1, canvas size (ctrl + alt + c), verify that the canvas will be enlarged from the center out and fill color is white, paste new WIDTH (577px), OK.

You can also make a photoshop script for automating this process, if you have a lot of images which are all close to the same height (best results if images have less than 20% variation in height). If height varies wildly, FIRST average out heights by reducing the images (constrain proportions) to the same height.

If you are making an imp 1200 version as well, add 2 em margins to the left and right of each image. you can easily do this by editing the html code of your 1200 version and doing a search and replace (ctrl + H) :
for example, search ><img (the end of the opening p or div container tag, the beginning of the opening img tag)
replace with style="margin-left:2em; margin-right:2em"><img

i recommend doing all the code cleanup on the 1150 version *first* ; then save the html / opf, make the book, close. then MAKE A COPY of the html file adding "_1200" to the filename. then you import this file into the _1200 opf which mobi2imp has conveniently created for you, instead of the original html, and add all the margins to the images. this way, you have 2 separate files to address the different format, but you only do the work once.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I have a whole list of requests for improvements in eBook Publisher on my web site.

Dale

by all means, add the link to this thread. here we can all collaborate and also offer workarounds and solutions we have found.

[nrapallo]

I was converting some .prc to .imp recently and came across a situation where eBook Publisher died without so much as a good-bye!

The culprit is reproduced here (in bold):

<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p>Html documents with this entity &# 20; bomb!  No output produced by eBook Publisher v2.2.5</p>
</body>
</html>

Note for display purposes, I put a space between '#' and '2' which should be removed!

I think the author of the .prc wanted to use spaces HTML code '&# 32;' and typed the hex code 20 instead.

BTW, HTML char codes are the &words; used to represent specific characters, for example:

 '&' is represented by '&#amp;'
© is represented by '&#copy';

See the HTML Characters wiki for more information or Special Characters wiki for more advanced uses.

[zelda_pinwheel]

BUG : you cannot specify a margin (or padding) for the "img" tag, either in the css in the head of the document, or inside the individual img tags.

WORKAROUND : add the code using the "style" tag to the container (p or div tag), for example :
<p style="margin-left:2em; margin-right:2em"><img border="0" hspace="0" src="img1.jpg" /></p>

The obvious disadvantage being that you must treat each image individually, rather than just adding one line of css code to the head of your document.

[nrapallo]

I have issues with the href links being case sensitive:

<a href="#WORD">link</a> cannot find <a name="Word"> later on in the html code.

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

BUG : you cannot specify a margin (or padding) for the "img" tag, either in the css in the head of the document, or inside the individual img tags.

WORKAROUND : add the code using the "style" tag to the container (p or div tag), for example :
<p style="margin-left:2em; margin-right:2em"><img border="0" hspace="0" src="img1.jpg" /></p>

The obvious disadvantage being that you must treat each image individually, rather than just adding one line of css code to the head of your document.

Likewise, for <p> the margin-bottom is simply ignored. The margin-top needs something to "push-off' like a <div>&zwnj;</div>. This bug has been around for a long time and is discussed in the Stylesheets chapter of the 'REBTestDocSrc.imp' posted here.

[nrapallo]

BUG: Missing fraction support for say one-half or three-quarters

WORKAROUND: The &frasl; character allows you to create fractions that flow more proportionately with the surrounding text.

1/2 vs. <sup class="frac">1</sup>&frasl;<sub class="frac">2</sub> and
3/4 vs. <sup class="frac">3</sup>&frasl;<sub class="frac">4</sub>

- another method using small text yields 1/2 or 3/4:

<small>1</small>&frasl;<small>2</small> or
<small>3</small>&frasl;<small>4</small>

- and another method using a mixture yields 1/2 or 3/4:

¹/<small>2</small> or
³/<small>4</small>

- and another method using a mixture yields 1/2 or 3/4:

¹&frasl;<small>2</small> or
³&frasl;<small>4</small>

- and another simple method using just <SMALL> yields 1/2 or 3/4:

<small>1/2</small> or
<small>3/4</small>

[nrapallo]

Mobipocket Creator can read .opf projects created by eBook Publisher, but not the other way round. It appears that Mobipocket Creator strips all the data within the <x-metadata> ... </x-metadata> block except for an embedded cover.

However, eBook Publisher requires its standard information there.

Solution, just insert the following text into the .opf created by Mobipocket Creator, then load in eBook Publisher and adjust Edition Settings to your liking:

<x-metadata>
<meta name="x-SBP-logging" content="on"/>
<meta name="x-SBP-encrypt" content="off"/>
<meta name="x-SBP-compress" content="on"/>
<meta name="x-SBP-widow" content="0"/>
<meta name="x-SBP-orphan" content="0"/>
<meta name="x-SBP-zoomstate" content="both"/>
<meta name="x-SBP-undlinks" content="on"/>
<meta name="x-SBP-csssupport" content="2"/>
<meta name="x-SBP-projectversion" content="1"/>
<meta name="x-SBP-RLEtrigger" content="25"/>
<meta name="x-SBP-devicemodel" content="gs"/>
<meta name="x-Gemstar-Initial-Content" content="false"/>
<meta name="x-Gemstar-Require-ISBN" content="false"/>
<meta name="x-Gemstar-KeepAnchorLinks" content="false"/>
<meta name="x-Gemstar-PreScaleImages" content="true"/>
<meta name="x-Gemstar-ColorDepth" content="0"/>
<meta name="x-Gemstar-Grayscale" content="false"/>
<meta name="x-Gemstar-ConvertToJPEG" content="true"/>
<meta name="x-Gemstar-CreatedBy" content="2.2.4.5"/>
<meta name="x-SBPNuvo-Build-ID" content="ebook:guid-03d46d97e9524b0b8befb1c6b98f8ada"/>
<meta name="x-SBPNuvo-Timestamp" content="108-02-14T12:31:20Z"/>
<meta name="x-SBPNuvo-Content-Is-Periodical" content="no"/>
<meta name="x-Gemstar-PriceBinding" content="no"/>
<meta name="x-SBP-destdir" content="."/>
<meta name="x-SBP-category" content="General Interest"/>
<meta name="x-Gemstar-ModifiedBy" content="2.2.4.5"/>
</x-metadata>

Another reason eBook Publisher may complain and refuse to load is if the media type of '.html' items within the <manifest> block is not the following:

 media-type="text/x-oeb1-document"

If not, change all '.html' item media-types to the above, save the .opf and load it in eBook Publisher. You should now have a .opf project file that will load in eBook Publisher!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Currently eBook Publisher does not support many many special glyphs, of the kind used in phonetic transcriptions (e.g. pronunciation guides in dictionaries) for example or the special characters used in writing in Esperanto (i hear...) and presumably some other languages.

It would be nice if the next version could support a wider range of properly coded unicode characters / html entities ; the only thing more frustrating than seeing

"Unknown named entity (& thorn ;) encountered. Replacing with '?' "

in the output window, is seeing

"Legal Unicode value encountered for a glyph we do not support. Replacing with '?' "

Additional font support would be really nice as well ; even if only Arial and Times New Roman were added, the glyph support would probably be pretty exhaustive from them alone, and in addition these are good basic fonts for formatting body text which also have true bold and italic forms (this is important).

Ideally, it would be really brilliant to be able to load your own choice of True Type or Open Type fonts ; apart from the comfort and pleasure of reading a really well-drawn font, this would also allow you to support whatever glyphs you needed by simple adding the proper font.

[nrapallo]

For creating your own .imp ebooks from .html source, the most powerful software to use is eBook_Publisher. It has a steep learning curve, but what powerful software doesn't.

To create .imp ebooks from (hyperlinked/CSS) .html source file(s), start eBook Publisher and follow these steps:

- First, eBook Publisher requires that you to create a New Project (.opf file) using the File menu item.

- Next, you should enter the ebook details using Edition Setting... under the Project menu and save it using the name of your resulting .imp ebook. Ensure you uncheck "Require ISBN", enter Title, Author and Bookshelf Category at a minimum as these are required entries.

- Next, you can Add Files... any source .html, just change the file-requester's filetype from *.odf to *.html.

- Next make sure you change the Build Target from the default "OEBFF: All Targets" to "Grayscale Half-VGA" for the eBookwise 1150 .imp format.

- Last, select Build Edition... and determine if the Processing Successful message appears as the last line of the Errors and Messages window. If not, you may need to tweak your source .html and repeat Build Edition... until you are satisfied with the .imp output.

To get the .imp file onto the reader, just follow this.

Obviously, this is just a very cursory step-by-step, but it should point you in the right direction. And yes, you will benefit by reading the eBook Publisher 2.1 documentation/manual (User's Guide).

Anyone having any problems/issues, should post a question in a new thread in the Fictionwise forum.

[nrapallo]

eBook Technologies, Inc. (formerly ETI-acquired in 2011 by Google http://ebooktechnologies.com/) has released a new version of their eBook Publisher software (v2.3.8) that is now able to load and save .epub ebooks.

However, there is no direct device support for .epub ebooks (they still need to be converted to .imp, which in turn are exploded into .res folders within the hardware reading device-EBW1150 or REB12000).

What this means is that .imp ebooks can now be created directly from .epub ebooks. However, .epub ebooks may employ advanced coding/CSS styles which are not easily converted for use on the ETI devices. As a result, there still may be some hand-editing that will have to be done to make sure certain CSS styles are "useable" within .imp ebooks.

Workarounds will be found to make the .epub to .imp process much more effective and should you have one, please post it here, to allow others to gain insights without all the frustration that's usually encountered.

Here's a starting tip to deal with loading/unpacking .epub ebooks:

To open a .epub ebook, use the File menu item Open... and ensure the Files of type Archive files (.epub, .oeb) is selected. When the OCF Container Settings screen opens up, click the Unpack button and make a new folder to hold the unpacked ebook contents and save the .opf file within there!

A new instance of eBook Publisher will load and be ready to convert that .epub ebook to .imp (be sure to change the Edition Settings... to your preferences). Just close the first instance of the eBook Publisher that remained open.

Happy converting!

p.s. here's What's New:

RELEASE NOTES
eBook Technologies, Inc. --------------- eBook Publisher version 2.3
==================================================

What's New?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 2.3 contains the following major improvements over version 2.2:

- Bulk Convert and eBook Publisher now support conversion from .docx format.

- Bulk Convert and eBook Publisher now support conversion from .pptx format.

- Bulk Convert and eBook Publisher now produce .epub files in all situations
 where they used to produce .oeb files.

- Bulk Convert and eBook Publisher now support conversion from .epub
  format. Files will be accepted in either .epub or .oeb format interchangeably.
  It is therefore possible to easily migrate from OEBFF based workflows to EPUB
  based workflows.

- Oversized images are now scaled down when they exceed the page height.

- Mapping of non-ASCII characters has been improved. Most non-ASCII 
  characters are mapped to provide a visually recognizable equivalent.

[DaleDe]

Fantastic, not just ePUB conversion I see but many other improvements and even a modern Mac version. Great job eBook Technologies.

Dale