EPUB MANIFEST MISSING

[joycegraff]

I have completed a 350 page book in InDesign and submitted the print book to Lightning Source.

I modified the book for EPUB and successfully exported it to EPUB. I looks good, and was accepted by Amazon.

Now I am trying to submit the EPUB to Smashwords.  It rejects it, saying that there is no MANIFEST.  What is a MANIFEST and how to I get InDesign to create one?  I looked at the export settings and there is no mention of one there, nor in the help text.  

Smashwords wants me to export the book to Microsoft Word, which I am reluctant to do for fear of losing the cross-references and index.  Since I have done all this work to create a reflowable EPUB, I would really like to see it more widely distributed.  Do I really have to export to Microsoft Word to accomplish this???

Any guidance will be much appreciated.

Thank you,

Joyce

[joycegraff · Accepted solution]

I figured it out.  

the error message from Smashwords was 

"File META-INF/encryption.sml' in EPUB not listed in manifest!"

It was sending me off to edit the EPUB and do a bunch of things which I realized had to do with embedded fonts.  In fact, Apple does not accept books with embedded fonts.  Recognizing that as an export option, I tried exporting it again, without the embedded fonts -- and Smashwords accepted the file without a peep!

So the solution is: EXPORT THE EPUB FROM INDESIGN WITHOUT EMBEDDED FONTS.

I hope this helps someone else.

Best wishes,

Joyce

[Jax_Hudson]

Hi Joyce,

You actually can embed fonts but Indesign encrypts them when you export the epub.

So if you want to embed fonts the steps would be.

1. export epub
2. delete "File META-INF/encryption.sml"
3. replace all the fonts in the fonts fold
4. make sure all the fonts have the same name in the OPF and the css

Fonts should all show up after this and you shouldn't get an error.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Yours is the correct solution.

Especially for reflowable EPUB (the only version that should be used any more, IMVHO), not only should fonts not be embedded but the font definitions should be stripped/reduced to the five basic CSS types, to prevent downstream compatibility/reader annoyance issues.

EPUB is not the place to show off fancy typography or even try to define a non-default font set. (Nor is Kindle, for that matter).