EPUB Conversion Help

Paul_Lulu · January 28

Thankfully, this is a very easy fix.

Open up the editor again and look in the Miscellaneous folder. You'll see a file marked 'bookmars.txt'; just delete that file and export again and you should be good to go.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6030295/uploads/editor/n9/wscycrdjz6pv.png

HULSEY · January 28

Cheers, Paul. That worked. I've now published Beauty Beyond Death. Now for the print version.

Artzenin · January 30

Hello Paul. Could you, or someone here, explain to me what this means, and how to fix it. I solved the others issues, but now this one popped up after fixing that issue and it confuses me. It doesn't make sense to me.

ERROR: Milieu_Book_1_-_Artzenin.epub(-1): Unmanifested file: META-INF/calibre_bookmarks.txt

HULSEY · January 30

I had the same problem. Paul has posted solution at top of the page. It worked for me.

TheJesusNinja · January 31

I'm totally at a loss when it comes to editing code. Guess I'll wait till the site update

Just Kevin · February 1

Indeed. Compared to just sticking a docx in to a Converter, it's a lot of hassle.

HULSEY · February 1

I'm no techy and the codes baffle me, but I followed Paul's instructions and published my latest book. I must say though, this process must be off putting for anyone wishing to publish here.

Larika · February 1

I must say though, this process must be off putting for anyone wishing to publish here.

I hope people will persevere and not be put off. So many have been sent here by Lulu support and Paul has helped us. However it can be very frustrating and I join the voices of those who long for the converter to be fixed. It was so easy to make an eBook then.

TheJesusNinja · February 2

I agree Paul's tutorial on the workaround is great. But it is kind of putting me off a little not wanting to upload anything. It was so much easier before. But I'll try and see if I can get things to work.

19Galonso19 · February 4

Hola y gracias
Acabo de comprar un libro electrónico y no lo puedo descargar. He buscado varias opciones como Nitro 9 entre otros pero no pasa nada

19Galonso19 · February 4

me baje el calibre y anda todo bien
No admite traducción al español , que pena

Larika · February 4

19Galonso

Has probado el "libro eBook reader"? Lo siento Calibre no se traduce al español

Have you tried "libro eBook reader"? So sorry Calibre doesn't translate into Spanish.

Ward · February 4

I have not seen any comments on converting a GoogleDoc into an EPub. On Chrome, you can do this conversion, but I have not been able to get the Lulu converter to accept such Epubs for publication. Any thoughts on this?

Just Kevin · February 5

This is normally the ePub reader that can be downloaded from Lulu somewhere, but here's the direct link ( Normalmente, este es el lector de ePub que se puede descargar de Lulu en algún lugar, pero aquí está el enlace directo) >> https://www.adobe.com/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html

Just Kevin · February 5

When Lulu's ePub tool was working fully it was still quite fussy about what it would convert, or use.

Paul_Lulu · February 5

Ward said:

I have not seen any comments on converting a GoogleDoc into an EPub. On Chrome, you can do this conversion, but I have not been able to get the Lulu converter to accept such Epubs for publication. Any thoughts on this?

I'd never tried using Google Docs to make an EPUB before!

I used the Gutenberg version of Alice in Wonderland to test the export. Taking the file (with a single H1 for title and each chapter an H2), I received this error uploading the EPUB immediately after export:

ERROR: Alices_Adventures_in_Wonderland.epub/GoogleDoc/package.opf(-1): Publisher value is missing

ERROR: Alices_Adventures_in_Wonderland.epub/GoogleDoc/package.opf(-1): Unable to locate a valid publication date. A date with the event attribute publication (opf:event=publication) is required

ERROR: Alices_Adventures_in_Wonderland.epub/GoogleDoc/package.opf(-1): Unable to locate a valid creator. A creator with the author role (role=aut) and the file-as attribute is required

ERROR: Alices_Adventures_in_Wonderland.epub/GoogleDoc/package.opf(-1): Attribute 'toc' is missing from 'spine' element

The 'package.opf' file is the same as the 'content.opf' commonly created by other EPUB generation software.

Aside from that, the major issues are: a lack of metadata and the file isn't broken into sections (chapters).

Both can be achieved through Calibre. Here's some instructions.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6030295/uploads/editor/0a/8z17uygdrddt.png

Start by adding the file to Calibre and selecting 'Edit Metadata', then add the author, published date, and publisher.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6030295/uploads/editor/go/7ig2zn2skm3a.png

Now you'll get into the 'Book Editor' and you'll see the entire EPUB is one .xhtml file. For our system to create a Table of Contents, we need a discrete file for each Heading section.

Just right click on the editor and select

split at multiple location > click the 'wand' > Match HTML tags with tag name (dropdown) > select h2

With that done, you should see this Xpath expression:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6030295/uploads/editor/i5/kd3mbj4p7dr2.png

Click 'OK' and the file will be broken up at each H2 into sections.

Finally, you'll need to clean up the HTML and beautify the file to add the metadata:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6030295/uploads/editor/wt/blzjql0mm3c5.png

Last step is to add the publication date, as I detailed at the start of this thread. Remember that the content.opf is labeled package.opf in a Google Doc created EPUB.

With this done, I exported the file and was able to upload it. There were other errors, but those were specific to the file, and may not apply to your file.

A FINAL NOTE:
I strongly recommend exporting a .docx from Google Docs and converting the DOCX to EPUB using Calibre. Google embeds a lot of formatting in the EPUB that could make using our system difficult.

TheJesusNinja · February 6

Any word on when the site/convertor is going to be updated?

Paul_Lulu · February 6

I know we're testing now, but we haven't hit the previous two releases we hoped, so I'm not inclined to say we've got a date.

TheJesusNinja · February 6

Thanks Paul!

Chindit_4855 · February 12

Hello,

I have an epub that I created in calibre, that was rejected by lulu due to a littany of error messages, mostly pertaining to images I have within the body of the document. I tried uploading the document as a docx and got an unspecified error as to why it was rejected (possibly due to the document conversion issues this thread is about.) I need some help here. I just want to fix the issues so I can upload my epub and have it accepted. Any advice I could get would be greatly appreciated.

*update* problem has since been resolved.

Arachis_2013 · February 12

The latest Calibre (which I installed this morning) seems to be automatically removing the publication date (opf:event=publication) after I put it in. This is rather inconvenient.

Arachis_2013 · February 12

Okay, I added it in Sigil and all is well. I don't know why Calibre is suddenly doing this.

TheJesusNinja · February 12

I miss the convertor

Just Kevin · February 13

Just imagine if the printed book Wizard also broke!

Larika · February 13

no, no, no.

Arachis_2013 · February 13

Arachis_2013 said:

The latest Calibre (which I installed this morning) seems to be automatically removing the publication date (opf:event=publication) after I put it in. This is rather inconvenient.

And apparently it was due to dates being mismatched. Things seem to be working right now.

TheJesusNinja · February 13

I haven't uploaded anything since it broke. I don't have the patience to do all the editing in Calibre. Add to that, that Amazon has been terrible lately in getting paperbacks up or updating covers , etc. I feel like giving up for now.

Larika · February 14

I haven't uploaded anything since it broke. I don't have the patience to do all the editing in Calibre. Add to that, that Amazon has been terrible lately in getting paperbacks up or updating covers , etc. I feel like giving up for now

Completely understandable, I'm sure several people feel as you do. However I hope you don't give up. Hopefully the "broken" will be mended soon.

TheJesusNinja · February 14

Also Larika since the merge on Amazon I've had so many problems with books not being listed, covers not updated, look inside features not working, it's just so frustrating. I have books from three months ago still not fixed yet. Support has contacted Amazon three times to just fix one book and still nothing. Before the merge my books were up and complete usually in two weeks flat. Sort of losing my inspiration to do anything.

Larika · February 15

Sort of losing my inspiration to do anything.

So sorry to hear that TheJesusNinja. Unfortunately what's happening with the breakdown is that people like solail ( sohail828 sent you a message "We are also specialised in creating valid epub files for lulu." ) keep sending me and I'm sure others, messages through Lulu, saying that (for a price) he can make me an epub. I wonder how many have been enticed away. All we can hope for is that soon Lulu will fix things. I sent the first message from solail to Lulu but didn't get a response. He is doing it through the community Paul. Can he do this?

EPUB Conversion Help

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