Here we go again ... EPUB validation madness...

[Inélsòre]

Hello there,

I have two new nice errors thrown by the Apple Books validation system.

Needless to say, I have repeated the same process as always, so I have no idea what these errors are.

Could you please help me decipher them and, possibly, find a solution?

Error 1:

ASE0073-yz_Breval-12-5_Apple.epub
ERROR ITMS-9000: ASE0073-yz_Breval-12-5_Apple.epub: OEBPS/image/NovelloBassLHS-Arrangement-1.svg(-1): [RSC-005] Error while parsing file: Invalid value (expecting: 'http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops'). This error occurs 4 times. (For more information refer to https://help.apple.com/itc/booksassetguide)

Error 2:

ERROR ITMS-9000: ASE0073-yz_Breval-12-5_Apple.epub: OEBPS/image/NovelloBassLHS-Arrangement-1.svg(22): [RSC-005] Error while parsing file: elements from namespace "http://ns.adobe.com/AdobeIllustrator/10.0/" are not allowed. This error occurs 4 times. (For more information refer to https://help.apple.com/itc/booksassetguide)

Thank you so much!

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

You have two SVGs that contain some kind of non-conforming code or keywords. (You probably knew that.)

Is this the only two SVGs in the file? Or just two among many that are not throwing back errors?

If the latter — all I can suggest is reprocessing those two files to try and gain better conformance. I have no further suggestions other than to compare the error reporting, the Apple reference and the two type/structure models to see what's conflicting.

[Inélsòre]

Opening the EPUB in Sigil and then going to that specific image, I found a gazillion of lines of code which made no sense (I mean, apparently random strings of uppercase letters for pages on...)

I recreated that SVG from scratch and it seems better now... 

Interesting that this same SVG had worked until few months ago when I last used it. 

Never mind, I would say... 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Sometimes the devil's tools are necessary. 🙂

Have you explored the difference between SVG inclusion modes? "Embed Code" does just that, runs the SVG code inline with the XHTML document (and is the only mode that works with Kindle, by the way). The other, Object Tags, handles SVGs more like regular images, inserting a call to the separate file in the images folder. I have no idea which Apple might prefer, but you might try both to see if one is more stable or reliable for your complex documents.

[Inélsòre]

In one of my previous posts from a couple years ago, I guess it was something like "The Odyssey of publishing with Apple Books", we had eventually come to the conclusion that, for Apple Books, the Object Tags option was the best, but I had never understood the difference between the two options.

Thanks for clarifying this!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I just sorted it out myself, a low-priority point for a recent update of things. It seems to be irrelevant for most EPUB readers, but as noted, Kindle ignores the Object option but does beautifully with the embedded option.

I suppose there's a difference at the code/content/loading level — it may be better to load each image from a secondary file, or may be better to have the (usually compact) code inline with the content file, but all that's way above my pay grade.