5 ms·

EPUBCheck – The official conformance checker for ePub publications

146 points by auraham 2y ago

mdaniel 2y ago
One can also $(brew install epubcheck) if so inclined https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/epubcheck#default https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/epubcheck#default
- dindresto 2y ago
  Or `nix run nixpkgs#epubcheck`
m101 2y ago
I'm not sure why but when I download some epubs and try to send to my kindle it fails. Only after using an online converter to convert them from epub to epub does it then work.
- daveoc64 2y ago
  You might want to try running the EPUB through https://kindle-epub-fix.netlify.app/ https://kindle-epub-fix.netlify.app/ This applies a few fixes for problems with EPUBs that the Send to Kindle service doesn't like.
- sillystuff 2y ago
  Maybe a little less hassle than using some web thingy. Ebook-convert is a cli application that comes with Calibre, and is probably what the online sites are using anyway. ebook-convert infilename.epub outfilename.epub If I get an ebook that works with fbreader, but has issues on my nook, the above will fix it.
  - cxr 2y ago
    The "online site"/"web thingy" linked in another comment is 1. like 300 lines of code <https://github.com/innocenat/kindle-epub-fix/blob/master/script.js https://github.com/innocenat/kindle-epub-fix/blob/master/scr...> 2. runs entirely in the browser and isn't using Calibre scripts or anything else 3. could pretty easily be modified into a downloadable program that runs from both the command-line or something that you can open in your browser
- dopa42365 2y ago
  I've used Calibre with the KFX Output plugin for years, never had an issue with converting pirated epubs.
leoc 2y ago
Cutting and pasting an old 2019 comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19944627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19944627 : > There are similar problems with uploading to publishers in ePub format. The last time I was bashing my head against ebook publishing, about a couple of years ago, many (most? all?) of the sites were validating ePub uploads using an old version of the ePub suite which rejected some ebooks which were valid per the up-to-date validator. Which version they were using was ofc not documented, and you were lucky to even get to see an error message. And of course tech support was largely unhelpful. (Especially kobo.com 's.) The people working on the ePub spec seemed to be largely unbothered by the fragmentation/noncompliance and hideous experience for those authoring and uploading in the format, too. > Which is a pity, because aside from this and some other bugs and pitfalls EPUB 2.0 has some attractive features and is nice to work with for anyone who doesn't mind bashing out a good old directory tree of HTML docs by hand. Maybe things are a lot better by now. Here's hoping!
tannhaeuser 2y ago
Why is this linked now? There's no new release or milestone at this time. Citing my comment from when this was new about eight months ago: > Even more unfortunate is that this change has already spilled to derived standards such as EPUB3 which hence makes existing EPUB3 content using compound headings going back to 2011 invalid, and EPUB3 writers lacking a tool for actually verifying what readers can support (epubcheck was blindly updated without consideration for the installed base). See also the blog [1] about W3C's most recent HTML spec. Lack of HTML backward compat along with gross import of all of CSS without profiles, or paged media requirements and deemphasis of long-standing EPub mechanisms in favor of CSS and JS, and general impression of a low-effort, merely editorial nature really makes Epub's move to W3C questionable but nobody seems to care anyway, sticking with EPub 2 and 3.1 (which is also what Calibre is recommending as target format for conversion). [1]: https://sgmljs.net/blog/blog2303.html https://sgmljs.net/blog/blog2303.html
redman25 2y ago
I worked for a publisher for about 10 years as a typesetter and ebook developer. There are a lot of things about the publishing industry that are antiquated, especially for non-technical publishing companies. Unfortunately it's a low margin business. Most authors are only familiar with Microsoft Word, so on the front end you often have to take a messily styled Word document and manually caress it into a structured document that can be used for ebooks and print. For print, a majority of non-technical publishers use Adobe InDesign and/or InCopy. Editors edit manuscripts in InCopy and typesetters style documents for print. PDFs are generally exported and sent to printers via FTP. For ebooks, every publisher seems to have their own bespoke system. You _can_ export books in epub format from InDesign but the process for getting a clean ebook is difficult to say the least since InDesign was primarily designed for print publications. Generally, you end up structuring books for the lowest common denominator of ebook platform (epub, kindle, etc.) unless you are creating something like a children's book or a poetry book where you might do something more custom. Many publishers use ebook distribution platforms where you upload epub, mobi, cover images via FTP. They use an XML standard called ONIX for distributing metadata that's unique to say the least...
- breck 2y ago
  This is extremely helpful information [0]. Thank you. [0] I'm currently working on a new language for writing books.
- Finnucane 2y ago
  I oversee ebook production for a university press publisher, and indeed, our typesetters have to do some pre-processing of our authors' Word files before typesetting (we do all editing and copyediting in Word), and then post-processing of the Indesign output to get acceptable ebook files. There are some plugins that will help. Indesign, left to its own devices, will give you garbage. Our sales vendors all check the files with epubcheck. If it doesn't pass, they'll bounce it.
- grecy 2y ago
  FWIW I’ve published a few of my own books. I write them in latex to get perfect print ready pdfs, then pan doc gives me flawless epub files, all from the same source. It works really well
DiggyJohnson 2y ago
Genuinely thankful for this tool and use it for both sides of my non-fiction book project (research: verifying converted or misbehaving epubs for use on Remarkable, iPad, Calibre and Kindle (I know, I know...)) as well as typesetting and review.
everybodyknows 2y ago
Last commit was in 2023: https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck/commits/main/ https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck/commits/main/ 85 open bugs; 9 open PRs.
KingOfCoders 2y ago
Tried to publish an epub to German platform Tolino, tried everything, tried an external service agency, etc. doctored around in Calibre, no success, they didn't accept the epub. Printed PDF for decades at print shops, never had a problem. Why is this such a problem? Because of the HTML?JS?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  I believe epub is just a zip archive of html. Could you extract the files and then use a html validator which would cleanup the presumably broken markup? My initial attempt would be to use pandoc to roundtrip the files.

146 points by auraham 2y ago

One can also $(brew install epubcheck) if so inclined https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/epubcheck#default https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/epubcheck#default

dindresto 2y ago
Or `nix run nixpkgs#epubcheck`

m101 2y ago

I'm not sure why but when I download some epubs and try to send to my kindle it fails. Only after using an online converter to convert them from epub to epub does it then work.

daveoc64 2y ago
You might want to try running the EPUB through https://kindle-epub-fix.netlify.app/ https://kindle-epub-fix.netlify.app/ This applies a few fixes for problems with EPUBs that the Send to Kindle service doesn't like.
sillystuff 2y ago
Maybe a little less hassle than using some web thingy. Ebook-convert is a cli application that comes with Calibre, and is probably what the online sites are using anyway. ebook-convert infilename.epub outfilename.epub If I get an ebook that works with fbreader, but has issues on my nook, the above will fix it.
- cxr 2y ago
  The "online site"/"web thingy" linked in another comment is 1. like 300 lines of code <https://github.com/innocenat/kindle-epub-fix/blob/master/script.js https://github.com/innocenat/kindle-epub-fix/blob/master/scr...> 2. runs entirely in the browser and isn't using Calibre scripts or anything else 3. could pretty easily be modified into a downloadable program that runs from both the command-line or something that you can open in your browser
dopa42365 2y ago
I've used Calibre with the KFX Output plugin for years, never had an issue with converting pirated epubs.

leoc 2y ago

Cutting and pasting an old 2019 comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19944627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19944627 : > There are similar problems with uploading to publishers in ePub format. The last time I was bashing my head against ebook publishing, about a couple of years ago, many (most? all?) of the sites were validating ePub uploads using an old version of the ePub suite which rejected some ebooks which were valid per the up-to-date validator. Which version they were using was ofc not documented, and you were lucky to even get to see an error message. And of course tech support was largely unhelpful. (Especially kobo.com 's.) The people working on the ePub spec seemed to be largely unbothered by the fragmentation/noncompliance and hideous experience for those authoring and uploading in the format, too. > Which is a pity, because aside from this and some other bugs and pitfalls EPUB 2.0 has some attractive features and is nice to work with for anyone who doesn't mind bashing out a good old directory tree of HTML docs by hand. Maybe things are a lot better by now. Here's hoping!

tannhaeuser 2y ago

Why is this linked now? There's no new release or milestone at this time. Citing my comment from when this was new about eight months ago: > Even more unfortunate is that this change has already spilled to derived standards such as EPUB3 which hence makes existing EPUB3 content using compound headings going back to 2011 invalid, and EPUB3 writers lacking a tool for actually verifying what readers can support (epubcheck was blindly updated without consideration for the installed base). See also the blog [1] about W3C's most recent HTML spec. Lack of HTML backward compat along with gross import of all of CSS without profiles, or paged media requirements and deemphasis of long-standing EPub mechanisms in favor of CSS and JS, and general impression of a low-effort, merely editorial nature really makes Epub's move to W3C questionable but nobody seems to care anyway, sticking with EPub 2 and 3.1 (which is also what Calibre is recommending as target format for conversion). [1]: https://sgmljs.net/blog/blog2303.html https://sgmljs.net/blog/blog2303.html

redman25 2y ago

I worked for a publisher for about 10 years as a typesetter and ebook developer. There are a lot of things about the publishing industry that are antiquated, especially for non-technical publishing companies. Unfortunately it's a low margin business. Most authors are only familiar with Microsoft Word, so on the front end you often have to take a messily styled Word document and manually caress it into a structured document that can be used for ebooks and print. For print, a majority of non-technical publishers use Adobe InDesign and/or InCopy. Editors edit manuscripts in InCopy and typesetters style documents for print. PDFs are generally exported and sent to printers via FTP. For ebooks, every publisher seems to have their own bespoke system. You _can_ export books in epub format from InDesign but the process for getting a clean ebook is difficult to say the least since InDesign was primarily designed for print publications. Generally, you end up structuring books for the lowest common denominator of ebook platform (epub, kindle, etc.) unless you are creating something like a children's book or a poetry book where you might do something more custom. Many publishers use ebook distribution platforms where you upload epub, mobi, cover images via FTP. They use an XML standard called ONIX for distributing metadata that's unique to say the least...

breck 2y ago
This is extremely helpful information [0]. Thank you. [0] I'm currently working on a new language for writing books.
Finnucane 2y ago
I oversee ebook production for a university press publisher, and indeed, our typesetters have to do some pre-processing of our authors' Word files before typesetting (we do all editing and copyediting in Word), and then post-processing of the Indesign output to get acceptable ebook files. There are some plugins that will help. Indesign, left to its own devices, will give you garbage. Our sales vendors all check the files with epubcheck. If it doesn't pass, they'll bounce it.
grecy 2y ago
FWIW I’ve published a few of my own books. I write them in latex to get perfect print ready pdfs, then pan doc gives me flawless epub files, all from the same source. It works really well

DiggyJohnson 2y ago

Genuinely thankful for this tool and use it for both sides of my non-fiction book project (research: verifying converted or misbehaving epubs for use on Remarkable, iPad, Calibre and Kindle (I know, I know...)) as well as typesetting and review.

everybodyknows 2y ago

Last commit was in 2023: https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck/commits/main/ https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck/commits/main/ 85 open bugs; 9 open PRs.

KingOfCoders 2y ago

Tried to publish an epub to German platform Tolino, tried everything, tried an external service agency, etc. doctored around in Calibre, no success, they didn't accept the epub. Printed PDF for decades at print shops, never had a problem. Why is this such a problem? Because of the HTML?JS?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
I believe epub is just a zip archive of html. Could you extract the files and then use a html validator which would cleanup the presumably broken markup? My initial attempt would be to use pandoc to roundtrip the files.