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Amelia26582338bfi3
Known Participant
January 12, 2023
Question

Hyperlinks in Epub

  • January 12, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 8529 views

I've set up hyperlinks in my eBook to an external URL, but they don't work when I export the file as reflowable epub. I've opoened the file on both kindle previewer 3 and on my kindle, but there's no recognition that they are even hyperlinks.

When I export as interactive PDF, the hyperlinks do work.

Is there something extra I have to do to activate them for epub?! Maybe something in the export options?

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

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    1 reply

    James Gifford—NitroPress
    James Gifford—NitroPress
    Legend
    January 12, 2023

    If they are set up correctly, they should work in the EPUB export. There are no settings or options that would affect this.

     

    However, Kindle (mostly the reader) is a selective place for outside links. Not all of the hardware readers support outside web pages, since Kindle is a more or less closed ecosystem. I can't always get a perfectly-formed URL to open in Kindle Previewer, for example, even when it does in the EPUB reader Calibre.

     

    Try this: open the EPUB itself in Thorium or Calibre Reader and see if the links work there.

     

    And if it does work, note that it didn't open in the EPUB viewer... but by passing the address to your browser. Very few "readers" of any kind, EPUB included, open web pages natively like a browser.

     

    ETA: a few more things. First, loading EPUB files to a Kindle through the email process is not any kind of useful test, of either Kindle or EPUB. Although Amazon kind of made a big deal about being able to 'side load' EPUBs, it's actually through a conversion process that doesn't necessarily preserve the file's EPUB characteristics. Other than to just put an EPUB on your Kindle for reading, don't use this process for any kind of testing or evaluation.

     

    Also, Kindle Previewer can be very fussy about links, since it expects to activate them through a touch screen. Try clicking in all places on what's supposed to be a link, especially along the bottom border. The actual click-zone in Previewer can be a very thin line.

     

      A
      Amelia26582338bfi3Author
      Known Participant
      January 12, 2023

      Thanks, they do work in Calibre. But from what you say re Kindle and EPUB, if I'm just putting my eBook up on KDP select, so it will appear nowhere for sale other than Amazon, should I forget hyperlinks? Thanks!

      A
      Amelia26582338bfi3Author
      Known Participant
      January 14, 2023

      Okay.

       

      With the understanding that it's your project and your workflow and being a champion of "doing things my own rotten way" — let me critique further here. I think you're making a couple of simple mistakes or less-than-optimal choices that are leading other problems, leading to other poor fixes, leading to a result that isn't what you want. So I suggest...

       

      1) Tighten up that copyright page. One of my pet peeves is designers who don't know how to properly style this page, and do it in body text or even title fonts, too large and badly organized. You've done well here, but get rid of the extra spacing, use paragraph styles to space things instead of extra returns, and generally tighten up that stack to about 1/2 page height or so. (I'd put it in the bottom half of the page as well, but that's just me.)

       

      2) That should fit on an EPUB or Kindle reader page as long as it's not a phone at microscopic zoom levels. I often fit copyright pages with this much material onto a Tablet or Kindle Reader page, and sometimes even get it onto what Previewer thinks is a Phone page.

       

      3) Which means you no longer have to use the fix of rasterizing that page, which is a real band-aid solution and adds to the file size (that much text is probably 1/50th the size of a raster image.) The image is also "dead," and the text in it can't be read out or searched. Having a proper, complete text flow in EPUB or Kindle is always a goal, for accessiblity, searches, automated indexing systems, etc.

       

      and 4) that means your publisher link will work properly, without any further hacks or workarounds or fixes.

       

      Just sayin'. 🙂

       

      And just a PS — if you're going to use web resources for EPUB and Kindle knowledge, your first step should be to check their age. If they are more than a year old... move on. And if you start looking, you'll find that many are much, much older (10 years is not unusual!), which means the material is likely wholly out of date with current versions of ID, EPUB readers, Kindle, standards and just about everything else. (Just sayin'... 🙂 )

       


      This is incredibly helpful and will follow your advice and sort out this page! Re tutorials and videos, point taken, but the one I've been following was published 9 months ago. Thank you so much for perservering and sorting my query out!

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