The type of ebook I make is EPUB 3.0. With a lot of accessibility features baked in for those who need them. I make these epubs backwardly compatible with older devices and rendering engines but I’ve hit a peculiar wall with Nook.
In the past, I’ve noticed buggy behavior with epubs when testing in the Nook Android app. Was the problem confined to the app? Or would it show up on a device? I had no way to know. So I bit the bullet and bought a 2023 Nook Glowlight 4 Plus for half price on eBay. And found out. The bug happens on the device too. Sigh.
Well, this is why testing is important. You can’t count on different devices or apps, even from the SAME company, to render ebooks identically.
Interestingly, there is NO TRACE of this bug in the Nook iOS app. None, zip, nada.
The problem, which only happens in the Nook Android app and on the Nook e-ink device is quite reader-unfriendly. TEXT GOES MISSING! Fortunately, there is a fix.
The problem is NOT affecting normal chapters. There is no issue at all with the main book text. Nook users should be able to read the author’s content in all my epubs. The affected pages are the “rights” page and the “about-this-book” page.
On the Nook e-ink device, only ONE page is affected, the “about-this-book” page. This page has several sections, including a description, source of the text, print page count, any changes, and a colophon.
If you use a Nook device, and text is missing, increase the font size! It’s only smaller font sizes where the text goes missing.
Unfortunately, there’s NO fix in the Nook Android app. I couldn’t enlarge the font enough to get all the text back.
I went absolutely berserk over the weekend troubleshooting. I removed any modern CSS that I thought the old Nook rendering engine might object to. I simplified code, making ONE CHANGE AT A TIME. I deleted the ebook from the Nook each time. I rebooted the device before re-loading the file each time! But I’m stuck. Nothing worked. I put my original code back, since no change made any difference.
I’ve been over and over my epub. The HTML is valid, the CSS is valid, the epub is valid. There’s no missing text happening on any other device or app.
I think the Nook is objecting to having more than one section on these two pages. Sectioning content, using <section> tags, is part of HTML5 and important for accessibility. But HTML5 came along circa 2014 after the Nook devices did in late 2009.
Which means, this issue is a NOOK bug! Barnes & Noble needs to update their epub rendering engine to work with modern epub standards.
The only fix is breaking the “About this Book” page into individual pages or XHTML files. Because the sections are so short, that solution doesn’t make good sense. The sections logically fit under one heading. Sorry.
Apologies for the poor photos, it’s been a gloomy, overcast day!