Author Topic: Vellum: the official thread (Read 171252 times) Tweet

LisaMills · « **Reply #1075 on:** July 12, 2017, 05:25:05 AM »

Hi Everyone, (reposting this from my original post, someone kindly told me to post it here so it's seen quicker. I'm very new to kboards. Forgive me.)

Apols if this has been answered already. I did search, honest!

New to Vellum, trialling it today. It's amazing! Smooth and intuitive.

One snag: TOC hierarchy.

So, the .docx import was a bit messed up. I've been going through, renaming chapters, etc. As I work my way down, I see that it has treated chapters in Part 1 differently to those in Parts 2 & 3.

Part 1 has Chapters at the same level, eg no little arrow to click next to Part 1, and the chapters are directly aligned beneath it.

Parts 2 & 3, the Chapters are viewed by clicking the arrow next to the Part, and are indented beneath the Part.

I don't care which way the chapters are listed, I just want consistency. Trouble is, I see no where to change this. Hopefully I have correctly added a screen shot of the problem, below.

I'm sure it's a simple solution! Thanks for reading

LisaMills · « **Reply #1076 on:** July 12, 2017, 05:43:18 AM »

I've cracked it!

A workaround, anyway.

I created a new Part and moved the unruly chapters into it. Now they all are indented, and the newly created Part has the arrow next to it. So everything is consistent.

I'd still love to know if there is a top level solution to this. Thanks everyone!

C.F. · « **Reply #1077 on:** July 14, 2017, 11:11:28 AM »

I just downloaded the most recent update to Vellum, and in the release notes it says:

Reimport Word File is back and better than ever: added front and back matter is left in place, and it�s now undoable

What is reimport word file? What does it do and when/why would someone use it? Also, what does "added front and back matter is left in place, and it�s now undoable" mean?

I searched and couldn't find any info. I'm thinking this isn't a feature I'd use, but I'd like to know what it is in case I'm missing out on something. Thanks!

Steve Voelker · « **Reply #1078 on:** July 14, 2017, 02:36:21 PM »

Quote from: C.F. on July 14, 2017, 11:11:28 AM

I just downloaded the most recent update to Vellum, and in the release notes it says:

Reimport Word File is back and better than ever: added front and back matter is left in place, and it�s now undoable

What is reimport word file? What does it do and when/why would someone use it? Also, what does "added front and back matter is left in place, and it�s now undoable" mean?

I searched and couldn't find any info. I'm thinking this isn't a feature I'd use, but I'd like to know what it is in case I'm missing out on something. Thanks!

Reimport word file is just like it sounds. If you made changes to the original word file you used to create the book in Vellum, you can reimport the file to bring in those changes. The only problem was that when you did that, it started the interior of the book over from scratch. All of your front an back matter were gone. You only had the body of the book you just reimported from the word file. So Vellum removed this option in the new version.

It looks like they've brought it back, but in a way that is actually usable, and preserves the other elements you might have in place.

I still don't see myself using it. I usually have the book split into parts or volumes, plus a sample of the next book and some links in the body. I wouldn't want to lose all that.

For me, once I create a book in Vellum, that copy becomes the master version. If i need to make and changes, I make them in Vellum. And if I need a word or PDF file for any reason, I just export one from the Vellum version.

NeilMosspark · « **Reply #1079 on:** July 15, 2017, 05:40:18 AM »

So disappointed....
I was beginning to switch my back catalog over to vellum, and my newest release had just come back from editing. Cut and pasted and tweaked and then went to push the export button... and was notified that I needed to upgrade.
No problem. Attempted upgrade.
Was notified I needed the newest Mac OS .... my mac wont upgrade to the newest OS.

I can't run the old version of vellum software installed on my Mac using the same old operating system I used a month ago.
It basicly made the software unusable. What makes matters worse is that I've paid for the export of the old books but I can't re-export them because the server side of vellum no longer supports my older version.

Lol. Not much to do but buy a new mac to sort this out.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Word Fan · « **Reply #1080 on:** July 15, 2017, 06:05:45 AM »

Quote from: NeilMosspark on July 15, 2017, 05:40:18 AM

Lol. Not much to do but buy a new mac to sort this out.

Send a note to Vellum Support (vellum@180g.co) explaining what's going on and see what they say before you buy a new computer.

Erica Alexander · « **Reply #1081 on:** July 15, 2017, 07:22:08 AM »

@ NeilMosspark:

If you bring your Mac to the Apple store they may be able to upgrade your computer. I brought my old 2009 iMac to the Apple store because it was running very slow and they restored it to factory settings with El Capitan 10.11.6.
According to Vellum requirements in the help file, it should run on Mac OS El Capitan (10.11).

Now, I can't confirm that Vellum runs on that version because I use it on a newer laptop with Sierra. But it's worth a shot. If you go to the Apple store, you need to make an appointment online first and the clean up and upgrade was free. Also make sure to back-up ALL of your documents to an external drive. Good luck.

Bill Hiatt · « **Reply #1082 on:** July 15, 2017, 07:48:12 AM »

Quote from: Word Fan on July 15, 2017, 06:05:45 AM

Send a note to Vellum Support (vellum@180g.co) explaining what's going on and see what they say before you buy a new computer.

I second that motion.

By the way, the software doesn't actually require the very newest. I think either of the last two will do it (El Capitan or Sierra, unless something's changed).

Nor do you need a new Mac necessarily. Apply says anything from mid 2010 up should run Sierra. My Macbook Pro was that vintage, and it runs Sierra just fine.

On the other hand, if the Mac is your primary computer, and you have one old enough not to be able to update to Sierra, maybe it's time for new equipment. The older a system gets, the more likely software glitches like this become, and if you use your Mac heavily enough, the extra speed will doubtless be a welcome change. (I'm still using my old machine, but just for Vellum; I'm primarily a PC user.)

Steve Voelker · « **Reply #1083 on:** July 15, 2017, 09:23:44 AM »

Quote from: NeilMosspark on July 15, 2017, 05:40:18 AM

Was notified I needed the newest Mac OS .... my mac wont upgrade to the newest OS.

Here is the list of computers that can run El Capitan, and thus Vellum:

iMac: Late 2006 or newer
MacBook: Late 2008
MacBook White/Black: Early 2009 or newer
MacBook Retina: All
MacBook Air: Late 2008 or newer
MacBook Pro: 13-inch: Mid 2009 or newer
MacBook Pro: 15-inch: Mid 2007 or newer
MacBook Pro: 17-inch: Late 2007 or newer[7]
Mac Mini: Mid 2007 or newer
Mac Pro: Early 2008 or newer

So pretty much anything in the last decade will work. Not unreasonable IMHO.
You do run into this from time to time. I guess it's Apple's fault for making computers reliable enough that people will still be using them when they're over a decade old!

As far as having to buy a "new" Mac to run Vellum - I'm sure you can grab something on the older end of that spectrum for considerably less than what a new Mac would cost you.

I've been in your situation before. It sucks. Good luck sorting it out!

LeeMountford · « **Reply #1084 on:** July 15, 2017, 10:13:27 AM »

Am I right in thinking the option to pay per ebook has now gone, and you need to buy the full product?

AnmaNatsu · « **Reply #1085 on:** July 15, 2017, 11:11:30 AM »

Quote from: LeeMountford on July 15, 2017, 10:13:27 AM

Am I right in thinking the option to pay per ebook has now gone, and you need to buy the full product?

Yep. They now only offer the full for $199, or full with print for $249

ellenoc · « **Reply #1086 on:** July 15, 2017, 12:12:16 PM »

I second the thought that Neil should check and see if his older machine will run El Capitan if it won't run Sierra. I had to check on my machine, which was running Yosemite, so saw how old a machine could be and run Sierra, and what Steve posted looks to me as if a machine can be a couple of years older and run El Capitan.

And if that won't work, I second the advice to shop around rather than just buy a new latest and greatest. I almost bought a refurbished, but in the end bought an older MacBook Pro that was still new, so there are ways to get something not very old for less than thousands.

LeeMountford · « **Reply #1087 on:** July 15, 2017, 12:51:15 PM »

Quote from: Anma Natsu on July 15, 2017, 11:11:30 AM

Yep. They now only offer the full for $199, or full with print for $249

Bugger, that's caught me out. Was just about to put an ebook together

Ah well, guess I'll have to shell out the money. Thanks for the reply!

Brad West · « **Reply #1088 on:** July 17, 2017, 01:19:01 PM »

Quote from: NeilMosspark on July 15, 2017, 05:40:18 AM

So disappointed....
I was beginning to switch my back catalog over to vellum, and my newest release had just come back from editing. Cut and pasted and tweaked and then went to push the export button... and was notified that I needed to upgrade.
No problem. Attempted upgrade.
Was notified I needed the newest Mac OS .... my mac wont upgrade to the newest OS.

I can't run the old version of vellum software installed on my Mac using the same old operating system I used a month ago.
It basicly made the software unusable. What makes matters worse is that I've paid for the export of the old books but I can't re-export them because the server side of vellum no longer supports my older version.

Lol. Not much to do but buy a new mac to sort this out.

Hi Neil,

I'll echo the other comments that if you're stuck, get in touch with us. Vellum does include some checks that should keep it from updating to 2.0 if you're on an older version of macOS, but it's possible that check failed for some reason. If you do need to go back to 1.4.3, we can tell you how.

That said, we don't think any one should have to buy a new Mac in order to update to Vellum 2.0. Support for some older Macs have been dropped for macOS Sierra (10.12), but El Capitan (10.11) should support the same list of Macs as 10.9 and 10.10. You can learn more about El Capitan here:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206886

Hope that helps.

Erica Alexander · « **Reply #1089 on:** July 20, 2017, 06:52:07 AM »

Someone I know got the email below from Amazon and is of course very scared. Has anyone gotten this? She had uploaded several other books formatted with Vellum before without any issues. A few people said that this is KDP response because of page flip and to just ignore the message. I would like to know if anyone got this, what did they do, if anything and what's Vellum position on this. Thank you.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Error Category: Formatting-Others; Comments: We noticed that your eBook which is currently in high demand with the customers is not enabled with enhanced typesetting.

Issue: The Epub file consists of tag/property "Mobi media query" which is not currently supported in Enhanced Typesetting conversion.
Issue location: The tag/property is present in CSS file inside the Epub.
Associated Class: The media query is used in all classes in CSS file media.css.
Proposed Solution: The Mobi media query is used to give particular properties to non-kindle devices. These media queries are not supported in Enhanced Typesetting conversion, hence remove the screen size properties from the media queries. This will enable the title with Enhanced Typesetting features.

This will not affect the availability of your book. After you've made the correction, please upload your revised content through the Book Content section of your KDP Bookshelf. If you have further questions, please reply directly to this email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
For more information about specific book errors (including why some errors are more critical than others), see our Help page: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A1MMQ0JHRBEINX

For a complete guide to building a book for Kindle, see the Kindle Publishing Guidelines: https://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGu�

Thanks for using Amazon KDP.

Brad Andalman · « **Reply #1090 on:** July 20, 2017, 12:29:50 PM »

Quote from: Erica Alexander on July 20, 2017, 06:52:07 AM

Someone I know got the email below from Amazon and is of course very scared. Has anyone gotten this? She had uploaded several other books formatted with Vellum before without any issues. A few people said that this is KDP response because of page flip and to just ignore the message. I would like to know if anyone got this, what did they do, if anything and what's Vellum position on this. Thank you.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Error Category: Formatting-Others; Comments: We noticed that your eBook which is currently in high demand with the customers is not enabled with enhanced typesetting.

Issue: The Epub file consists of tag/property "Mobi media query" which is not currently supported in Enhanced Typesetting conversion.
Issue location: The tag/property is present in CSS file inside the Epub.
Associated Class: The media query is used in all classes in CSS file media.css.
Proposed Solution: The Mobi media query is used to give particular properties to non-kindle devices. These media queries are not supported in Enhanced Typesetting conversion, hence remove the screen size properties from the media queries. This will enable the title with Enhanced Typesetting features.

This will not affect the availability of your book. After you've made the correction, please upload your revised content through the Book Content section of your KDP Bookshelf. If you have further questions, please reply directly to this email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
For more information about specific book errors (including why some errors are more critical than others), see our Help page: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A1MMQ0JHRBEINX

For a complete guide to building a book for Kindle, see the Kindle Publishing Guidelines: https://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGu…

Thanks for using Amazon KDP.

This message is a relatively new, and needlessly scary, form response sent whenever Amazon fails to apply their "Enhanced Typesetting" to a title.

As the message states, the book's availability isn't affected. It just means that Amazon's Enhanced Typesetting feature won't be enabled for that book.

ellenoc · « **Reply #1091 on:** July 20, 2017, 01:27:08 PM »

Is enhanced typesetting anything except the weird hyphenation? Or is that even part of it?

LeeMountford · « **Reply #1092 on:** July 20, 2017, 01:59:16 PM »

Can anyone give any guidance on what the best size is for print out of the options given in Vellum Press? I'm going to be producing a paperback through Createspace soon (hopefully), so just wondered what the best size is for this?

Apologies if this has been asked earlier.

Gessert Books · « **Reply #1093 on:** July 20, 2017, 02:29:16 PM »

Quote from: ellenoc on July 20, 2017, 01:27:08 PM

Is enhanced typesetting anything except the weird hyphenation? Or is that even part of it?

Enhanced typesetting mainly refers to hyphenation, but it appears along with other KFX features like Page Flip.

WDR · « **Reply #1094 on:** July 20, 2017, 02:53:58 PM »

Quote from: LeeMountford on July 20, 2017, 01:59:16 PM

Can anyone give any guidance on what the best size is for print out of the options given in Vellum Press? I'm going to be producing a paperback through Createspace soon (hopefully), so just wondered what the best size is for this?

Apologies if this has been asked earlier.

This is going to sound awfully vague: it depends.

Industry standard for print is Garamond 11.5 in a US Trade 6x9. If you are going to be printing to a smaller format, then you will want to consider using a smaller font size to keep the page counts down.

If your book is fairly long, 140K+ words, then you might want to avoid the smaller paperback formats, because that would push up the page counts so high that the book could be many inches thick. That would be uncomfortable to hold while reading. To balance that, you could push the font size so small, that it would be straining to the eyes to read it.

Set a format size and font size, then generate the PDF and look at how many pages it is. Next, look up the paper thickness used to print your book and multiply that by the number of pages—cut that number in half and that should be the thickness of your book. (Half because each piece of paper has two pages on it.) If it is too thick, drop the font size or move up to the next size book format.

It's a balancing act. Book size, font size, font face, margins, gutter—all these come into play when formatting a book for print. Go and grab a few of your favorite books and hold them. Determine which ones feel the most comfortable and try to target that size.

Word Fan · « **Reply #1095 on:** July 20, 2017, 06:16:47 PM »

Quote from: WDR on July 20, 2017, 02:53:58 PM

Industry standard for print is Garamond 11.5 in a US Trade 6x9.

I don't know where in the world you came up with that nonsense but let me state this plainly for the Original Poster:

THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE INDUSTRY STANDARD FOR TRADE PAPERBACKS.

Did you get that WDR?

Don't believe it? Take a ruler to any decent-sized bookstore that has bunches of trade paperbacks and actually measure them. Then look inside a bunch of them and compare typefaces.

THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE INDUSTRY STANDARD FOR TRADE PAPERBACKS.

There is a often-used range of book sizes and Vellum gives you a few of them from which to choose. There is even less commonality among typefaces and line lengths and margin sizes. Those are adjusted as desired by the publisher to result in a page length that fits the book's budget. If the number of pages is a bit short, there is even a thing called "loft" that can be specified in the type of paper used in the book so the book will end up being of an acceptable thickness without being overly heavy.

So, to the O.P.: there is no "best" size. You have to adjust the options to fit your own desires. Generally that means the number of pages, since that's what affects the cost of the book.

WDR · « **Reply #1096 on:** July 21, 2017, 08:45:56 AM »

Quote from: Word Fan on July 20, 2017, 06:16:47 PM

I don't know where in the world you came up with that nonsense but let me state this plainly for the Original Poster:

THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE INDUSTRY STANDARD FOR TRADE PAPERBACKS.

Talk to an actual book manufacturer. Not a "printer", but a manufacturer. The guys who do the printing for the Big-5 and most small publishing houses. King Printing, Lowell, Massachusetts.

Garamond 11.5 is their standard choice, and then they adjust from there depending on format, pages, etc. That's where I get the numbers from. As I said in my post, you have to adjust depending on format, pages, font face choices, etc.

Bill Hiatt · « **Reply #1097 on:** July 21, 2017, 09:08:04 AM »

I'll have to agree that it's a question of trial and error. I wouldn't under any circumstances go lower than 11 point. (I wish Vellum gave the point sizes, instead of just unlabeled spots on a continuum.)

I also wish Vellum would allow some control over outside and bottom margins. The bottom in particular, if one isn't putting page numbers down there, could be set somewhat smaller and still look good.

We can manipulate the inside margin, but that's really driven more by the length of the book than anything else, and making it too small would be a big mistake. (I find I need to add a little to the CS specs to avoid having text too close to the gutter.

By the way, Vellum 2.0.3 appears to have a little glitch with smaller point sizes and line spacing. I was doing some experimenting and discovered that going down a couple of notches on each throws off spread balancing (making the facing pages have the same number of lines by subtly altering line spacing after correcting widows). I've reported the issue, and it will doubtless be fixed soon, but it's worth noting right now as something you need to watch for. The problem doesn't occur with the defaults.

LeeMountford · « **Reply #1098 on:** July 21, 2017, 12:37:49 PM »

Thanks for the advice everyone! Looks like this is something I will have to play around with.

Bill Hiatt · « **Reply #1099 on:** July 22, 2017, 09:18:41 AM »

Quote from: zzz on July 21, 2017, 08:58:08 PM

I measured 50 fiction trade paperbacks (from traditional publishers, not Createspace) while watching the World Series of Poker Final Table.

Here are the actual trim sizes and the count for each size. Note that the most common size by far is 5.5 x 8.2. There were only two 6 x 9 and one of those was 778 pages.

5.0 x 7.7 1
5.0 x 7.8 1
5.0 x 8.0 1
5.1 x 7.8 1
5.1 x 7.9 2
5.1 x 8.0 1
5.1 x 8.3 1
5.2 x 8.0 5
5.2 x 8.3 1
5.3 x 8.0 5
5.3 x 8.2 2
5.3 x 8.3 1
5.4 x 8.2 1
5.4 x 8.3 2
5.4 x 8.5 1
5.5 x 8.1 1
5.5 x 8.2 17
5.5 x 8.4 2
5.5 x 8.5 1
5.6 x 8.9 1
6.0 x 9.0 2

I'm enough of a bibliophile to think that might not be a representative same. My collection has grown fairly large over the years (7,000 or so titles the last time I counted--yes, I'm eccentric), and eventually I started shelving by size to maximize storage space. Because of that, I know that 6 X 9 is the single most common size in my collection. That said, some of those are hardbacks, so it's possible the average for paperbacks alone is a little smaller. (I assume we're talking trade paperback. Mass market ones are definitely smaller, but that format works well only for relatively short books. Otherwise, they get too thick.)

When reorganizing, I have to measure to be sure, though, as most of the sizes close to 6 X 9 aren't that easy to tell apart visually. This would suggest to me that the average consumer isn't going to care. That being the case, I'd go with 6 X 9 over the slightly smaller sizes simply because it lowers production costs. An author could go with one of the smaller sizes if he or she preferred, though, because, as I've said, the difference isn't that visible.

This is the kind of issue authors stress over that readers don't really care about.

AnmaNatsu