Footnotes in Epubs for iBooks

Question

Level 1

4 points

Footnotes in Epubs for iBooks

I am trying to create footnotes for my epubs. I am coding in HTML, and converting with Calibre 2.79.1, which supports the EPUB3 standard. My <html> line is this:

My coding for the footnote reference is this:

And for the footnote text:

This is my footnote text.

</aside>

I converted the HTML file with Calibre, and the resulting epub works perfectly in iBooks: when I click/tap the footnote reference, the footnote text appears in its own popup window right above the reference link. However, when I run the Epub Validator at validator.idpf.org, it says "Detected version: EPUB 2.0.1" and gives me errors, complaining about the "epub:type". I get the same errors from the automated epubcheck when attempting to submit the book to the iBooks store via iTunes Producer. (I have successfully submitted books to the iBook Store many times before, but this is the first time I'm trying to code footnotes.) If footnotes work in iBooks, why won't the store accept the book? What am I leaving out?

Thanks in advance,

Dave

Posted on Oct 3, 2017 8:32 PM

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Answer 1

RCAustin

Level 4

1,151 points

Oct 3, 2017 11:08 PM in response to davearns

Your code looks correct based on everything I can find, except all the references to the code you are using appears to point to EPUB 3, not EPUB 2.

A few references listed below, and probably information you have already read.

Pop-up Footnotes (Apple Resources)

Digital Book World has a good reference to it HERE, using EPUB 2.

They list a reference file at the bottom of the article, that you can look at as a guide, however, when I downloaded and checked it out, it's an EPUB 3, not EPUB 2.

Not sure if this was any help or not, but if it's not validating in EPUB Check and you are getting upload errors in iTunes Producer, something is not right.

Does Calibre still not export to EPUB 3?

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Answer 2

RCAustin

Level 4

1,151 points

Oct 7, 2017 3:44 PM in response to davearns

I have not submitted any books myself, I'm sure I could come up with some functioning footnote examples, but I'd probably go with EPUB. I'm more on the technical side of solving and developing books, rather than having by own content to distribute.

Have you looked at the example that Apple has in their Flowing Example EPUB?

In the EPUB, check out chapter1.xhtml around Line 66 for their example of pop up note.

This is EPUB 3 of course, but may help.

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Answer 3

davearns Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 6, 2017 10:53 AM in response to RCAustin

Thank you; you shared some useful links I had not seen. It still is apparently not enough, because I still am getting submission errors both from ePubCheck and iTunes Producer, even though (as far as I can see) I am doing what these documents say to do. Have you submitted an ePub that has footnotes to iTunes? What process and tools did you use?

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