Epub Validator Warning

I’m guessing this is a reflowable ebook, so either you placed something in the document that is somehow locked in position and not anchored in the text to reflow with the text, or InDesign has giving one of your CSS styles an absolute position (so absolute height and width from the top of the screen, so it’s static not reflowable). Not sure how to fix it without seeing it. I personally would probably unzip the ePub and probably take care of it in the CSS, not sure how to do it in InDesign off the top of my head.

I’m getting this validation error too (although everything looks OK in previewers and an actual Kindle). Here is the relevant bit of the generated CSS. I actually started with the ebook template made by Anne-Marie, so images had the object style Above line centred. Any ideas what’s causing this please? Should I just ignore it?

div._idGenObjectAttribute-2 {
height:100.00%;
left:0%;
overflow:hidden;
position:absolute;
top:0%;
width:100.00%;
}

Is there a way to fix this problem (CSS-017) with Indesign?
I have it showing as a warning

This is an obnoxious BUG in InDesign CC 2018. It has to do with choosing CSS Size set to Relative in the EPUB Export Options dialog box. If you choose Fixed, the “position: absolute” attribute isn’t written, and the validation warning goes away.

I haven’t tested, but I’m thinking you could find/change that attribute in the CSS to fix it after the fact.

AM

Hi All

I too am getting these warnings and indeed setting CSS size to Fixed does cure most of them (one remains) but it does mean the graphics do not resize well. Why can’t we have Indesign outputting clean code ready to use? Imagine if we had to hand recode postscript files everytime we want to send a book to print. ID is partly sold on its ability to create epub files but it still works quite badly compared to how well it outputs for print.

I completely agree, Tim. I think the InDesign team has taken their eye off the ball of EPUB and is spending resources elsewhere.

Vote on my bug report!
https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/35363767-epub-export-with-common-settings-fails-validation

Voted!

Its essential that Adobe keep working on the epub output from ID.

So what would the fix be, aside from setting CSS size to fixed, what am I searching for in the CSS and what do I change it too?

Validate – then use the warnings to know which css file has the problem
break it open and open the css file in a text editor
find:absolute is and change it to position:relative

close it up again (I used ecancrusher to open it and to close it up) validate – Success!

I do like answering my own questions.