Scrivener 2.0 EPUB and iPod Touch's iBook

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Hi!

Yesterday, I exported a document to the EPUB format to test on my iPod Touch (with iBooks). While I’m generally very happy with the result, I noticed one problem/bug that—sorry for the pun—bugged me quite a bit; though, I’m not even sure if the problem lies with Scrivener or iBooks (more on that later).

The problem is that the document’s title page (with the title and the author centered; nothing fancy here) doesn’t look the way it’s supposed to look; as in, the supposed-to-be centered text isn’t centered but aligned to the left hand side. I tried everything: As-In, no As-In—no effect.

And as I noted earlier, I wondered if it was solely iBooks’s fault because the exported EPUB file’s title page looks fine when opened in Adobe Digital Editions or Stanza—I figured that, maybe, iBooks can’t display center-aligned text. But after opening a free downloaded EPUB book in iBooks, I learned that it actually can display centered text. This lead me to believe that, maybe, Scrivener 2.0 is using formatting codes that are too special for iBooks. Is this the case?

I realize that I could simply rename the EPUB file to *.ZIP, unzip it, then edit the files in question manually, then zip it again, and finally rename it back to *.EPUB. But as I’m not a CSS/HTML/XHTML savvy person I was wondering if there was some easy explanation or fix for this issue without my having to study the aforementioned languages?

Thank you for your time.

—Ryan

EDIT: I forgot to mention, that this problem only occurs with the title page; I tried inserting an empty document before the title page, but the text still isn’t centered; other than that, centered chapter titles are displayed correctly—weird right?

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Hi,

I just tested this and I exported to iBooks with centred text on my title page intact, so there must be a setting awry somewhere. Can you zip up and send your project to support AT literatureandlatte DOT com? (It might take us a day to look at it because we have a higher volumes of e-mails to answer than usual, but I’m happy to take a look).

One thing to check is that you have “Compile As-Is” set for your title page if the text, but I wouldn’t expect the text to appear in other e-readers as centred either if that was the problem.

Thanks,
Keith

3

Hi Keith,

Thank you for the quick response!

I don’t know what I did, but it seems to work now, centered text on the title page intact and all. Frankly, I don’t know what I did. I only recall changing the compilation format from Custom to Original. Maybe that did the trick?

Either way, before, I’m sure I tried both, with As-in checked, and not checked, leading to same results.

But yeah, it works now, and I’m happy! (Probably won’t be changing ANY compilation options from now on!) :wink:

Again, thank you very much for your time and support.

—Ryan

EDIT: I just figured out out the culprit: iBooks’s Full Justification option messes up the center alignment of the title page; why only the title page is affected, I have no idea. Anyway, I just remembered that I turned that feature off, and now everything is as it should be.

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Ah, glad you got it sorted out. Strange about that option though.
Thanks,
Keith