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Stampguy1
Participant
December 30, 2022
Question

InDesign ePub error concerning navmap

  • December 30, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 895 views

I have exported to ePub with InDesign CC and have a couple of errors showing up from the FlightDeck checker. Here is the one that I have been unable to find help for:

 

Error while parsing file: element "navMap" incomplete; missing required element "navPoint"

Then it tells me to: Look at line 17 in this file: OEBPS/toc.ncx

 

I have found the <navMap> </navMap> entry on lines 16 and 17 with nothing in between. I can manually edit if I know what kind on information goes in there.

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1 reply

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
December 30, 2022

Are you exporting to fixed page (FXL) or reflowable?

 

Are you using v18.1? ID v18.0 had some questionable "expansion" of EPUB export that was removed in the .1 update. It was all valid code and as nearly as anyone can tell, should have passed validation without any problems, but was mostly unnecessary "null element" additions that confused some validators and vendors. Your elements may be some of these.

 

I just opened a random test EPUB from this week (using 18.1) and found:

 

<navMap>
<navPoint id="navpoint1" playOrder="1"><navLabel><text>NEW TEST FILE</text></navLabel><content src="NEW_TEST_FILE.xhtml" /></navPoint>
</navMap>

 

...so you're missing something you should have in there, I think. Do you have your EPUB content in a single text flow? It looks as if no entry point/starting point has been defined, and that's pretty basic and inherent to a valid export.

 

Does epubcheck (pretty much the gold standard validator, both standards-based and kept up to date) pass your document?

 

(Validators are often as much part of the problem as any solution to them. ID's exports rarely fail standards-based validation, which is more for the "build-a-bear" process world.)

 

S
Stampguy1Author
Participant
December 30, 2022

Thanks for your response. I ran the file on ePubCheck and got the same error. IOt says:

 

/OEBPS/toc.ncx(17,11): Error while parsing file: element "navMap" incomplete; missing required element "navPoint"

 

It also gives some lines about the font not being able to be decrypted, as does FlightDeck, although they are not defined as errors.

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
December 30, 2022

Okay. I think FlightDeck uses epubcheck as a core (making their pay service a bit questionable), so not unexpected.

 

Side issue, I am not in favor of embedding fonts, so the font encryption problem could be eliminated by not embedding them. The actual problem may be with fonts that aren't correctly licensed for export.

 

My offhand guess is that there's something wrong with the document as structured in ID; the export process is not able to identify an entry or starting point. Short of sharing the document, it will be tricky to run down the problem.

 

Again, though — is this a fixed page or reflowable EPUB? And have you successfully exported and validated EPUBs before (at all, or with your current setup)?

 

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