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I Mm an author and I hired a formatter to take my pdf book and convert it to epub and mobi so I can sell the eBook on Amazon. I am not technical so please bear with me.

The formatter sent me a draft copy of the epub eBook to review but there is an issue we cannot solve.

The font color is red when I read it on Calibre (on my desktop) but on my color Nook the red font does not appear.

The red font also shows on the Kindle Fire but not on the Nook Color.

I have searched and searched for an answer but can't figure out what the problem may be. Do you think this is a Nook issue or an epub issue?

Thank you.

JG

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2 Answers 2

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This could be either the Nook reading system or a problem in the code. The first thing to check is if your device is overriding publisher styles. Nook in particular is quite insistent about that, and will by default override all styles with its own. I don't recall exactly what menu that's in, but you should be able to find it.

If that doesn't do the trick, then there's probably something up with the code—either the CSS that defines the styles or the XHTML that defines the structure that the styles are applied to. If you're still having problems after enabling publisher styles, feel free to update this post or make a new one with the relevant sections of code.

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  • I ended up signing onto Nook's forum but had to wait until they approved me. Thank you, Tom! As it turns out, you are correct, Tom...it is the Publisher Defaults area that was turned off "Publisher Defaults is found in the 'text' portion of the reading tools menu, which is accessible by tapping on the center of the page. When this feature is activated, the book displays the default formatting recommended by the publisher. As you mentioned, all other formatting options expect text size are disabled. It is a easy way to set the book back to the orginial formatting." JG
    – AndroidChick
    Commented Mar 26, 2015 at 14:17
  • Glad to hear it worked for you! Feel free to mark the answer as accepted if it helped.
    – Tom
    Commented Mar 28, 2015 at 9:54
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I have experience publishing ebooks. It's considered bad practice for the author to handle anything but the most basic formatting tasks. In this context, "ereader" means either a dedicated hardware ereader, or a piece of software you install to read ebooks.

  • Ebook reader support for anything but the most basic formatting is spotty at best. When making an EPUB, MOBI or any ebook, stick to the real basic stuff: italic, bold. Use nothing else. Header tags are also ok: <H1> through <H5>.
  • Let the ebook reader (hardware of software) handle font names and sizes. Do not control these in your CSS.
  • Do not use colors in your HTML or CSS in the EPUB source.
  • Do not use fancy overline or boxes or borders in the ebook.
  • Do not change the colors of text in the ebook.
  • Always test your ebook on multiple hardware devices and software readers. You will notice some things look different from ereader to ereader.
  • Do not use these. Some ereaders will support them, some won't: blockquote, lists.
  • Keep this in mind: the best ereaders only support a small subset of the EPUB2 spec. EPUB3 has been out for years but I haven't found an ereader yet that supports some of the media aspects.
  • Mobileread has a great wiki on making ebooks. They also have a free forum. Signup required.
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