Category: Web/Tech

Troubleshooting InDesign to EPUB Table of Contents export

If you are, like I was, getting the error message "TOC entry has incorrect nesting level" when you try to export from InDesign to EPUB, try this.

This seems to be an error in the hierarchy of TOC style levels and probably means you've got a lower level item listed before the higher level of which it is a sub-part. For example, I seemed to have a style I called "section headline" coming up before any of my "Part"s or "Chapter"s. So how to find it?

First, you need to know which style is causing the issue. I created a new TOC style called "EPUB TOC troubleshoot" and one-by-one added in the TOC styles I wanted to include from the highest level down, exporting to EPUB after each one until I got the error message.

Once you know which style is nested incorrectly, now you need to hunt down where it's out of the hierarchy. In InDesign CS6, go to Edit > Find/Change (or hit command or control F). Use the little icon beside the 'Find What' box to set it to look for Wildcards > Any Character. Us the little icon beside the 'Find Format' box to set it to look for Style Options > Paragraph Styles > [whatever your offending style seems to be].

You know what mine was? The section headline on the print version's table of contents page. Ha! I created a new style from that named "section headline TOC" so that it would be separated from the rest of the section headlines in the book which I wanted to use for my EPUB TOC and then, hooray! I exported without an error. Phew.

Happy 10th birthday to my iTunes library!

Thanks to my return to the Apple family in 2002 and continuous smooth migrations from Mac to Mac since then, I now have a certain degree of continuity with my music collection management.

There's been a small amount of lost information due to things like tracks being replaced when I've switched from a mix from a friend or a 'best of' album to the original, but in general these are the same tracks I've had all along.

One big factor in that array of music is my habit of weeding out things that I don't like. 'Meh' doesn't cut it; a song has to be rated three stars or higher to stick around for long. Each time a track irritates or bores me (and I know it isn't just a temporary mismatch in mood), I drop it one star. If it's already down to a single star, I delete the track. This means over time, some albums and artists completely vanish, but allows me to listen to my music on shuffle play with little risk of bad songs.

The track with the most plays in my collection is, somewhat oddly, My Chemical Romance's version of "Desolation Row" from the Watchmen soundtrack, but that's a result of it being played on loop as the writing background to some action scenes I was writing in a fiction work in progress and doesn't thus reflect my general listening habits.

With it set aside, my top twenty songs are:

"As Serious As Your Life" by Four Tet (electronica)

"Wildest Pig In Captivity" by John Renbourn (folk)

"Stiff Jazz" by Dzihan & Kamien (electronica)

"Cashmere" by Nerf Herder (alternative/punk)

"Time Has Told Me" by Nick Drake (folk rock)

"Northern Sky" by Nick Drake (folk rock)

"Vaseline Machine Gun" by Leo Kottke (folk)

"['casino' from the game Grim Fandango]" by Peter McConnell (big band)*

"Hey Bulldog" by The Beatles (rock)

"A String of Pearls" by Glenn Miller (big band)

"You're The One I Want In The Next Episode" by Grease Vs Dr Dre & Snoop Dog (mashup of 50s-esque and hip hop)

"YYZ" by Rush (rock)

"Cobbler's Jig / Maltese Brawls" by John Renbourn (folk)

"Pyramid" by Backini (electronica)

"Polythene Pam" by The Beatles (rock)

"Espionage" by Green Day (lounge/rock)

"Bucephalus Bouncing Ball" by Aphex Twin (electronica)

"The Earthly Diana" by Combustible Edison (lounge)

"Lark in the Clear Air" by John Renbourn (folk)

"Peter Gunn" by The Art of Noise with Duane Eddy (electronica/rock)

 

The oldest albums in the collection for which I still retain over six songs are White Courtesy Phone by Angel Corpus Christi and Ego sum Resurrectio: Gregorian Chant for the Dead by the female vocal ensemble Aurora Surgit. The latest album added was Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones.

 

Yes, it could be said that my taste is a trifle eclectic.

 

*To my utter delight, in looking up the name of the Grim Fandango composer just now I discovered an entire sountrack album available! O bliss!

A conversation 14 years long

Have we met?

I asked that question here on this site in September of 1998 in a post one month before MetaGrrrl.com would turn into what we would later call a blog.

I say I’ve never met Karawynn, Jamie, Carl and Justin. What the fuck does that mean?

I sit next to someone on the bus, I shake hands with a co-worker’s client who I’ll never see again, I chat with the bank teller and somehow these are people I’ve met?

…

My body doesn’t encompass me.
I don’t have to breathe the same air to be in the same place as you.

Have we met?

What a different world we live in now. We’ve been through radical changes in politics, technology, and cultural norms. Our days have transformed as the non-present world becomes present through these magic devices in our pockets. I live in a different city. Have a completely new career. Am in another relationship.

What hasn’t changed? Many of those people that some folks used to say I’d never met are still a part of my daily life.

So here’s my question for them, and for you, what has made these “virtual” connections so strong?

How has the way we built the web and the mobile internet and our tech-centric cities strengthened and weakened those chains since that year, 1998, when it seemed like maybe this world wide web thing might be sticking around?

 

http://embed-script.branch.com/production/embed.m.js
A conversation 14 years long

Safe in the loving arms of pairNIC

My domain transfer from Dotster (formerly 000domains.com) is now complete. To their credit, they provided adequate service for years until their platform migration snafu and did address all my open support tickets even after I had begun the transfer process to pairNIC. However, I am greatly relieved to now have all my domains with pairNIC, who are just great to work with and have a higher caliber of technical expertise directly available to customers.

Let me know if you encounter problems with accessing any of my sites or if any mail bounces, but I think everything is now working correctly.