Documentation

Digital Hub Documentation

The Digital Hub is the Well-Formed Document Workflow’s web-based suite of tools designed to easily transform structured documents.

Users and Organizations

User and organization management applies to access to the Digital Hub, an organization’s projects, and a project’s related downloads. Users are created and managed through the Digital Hub’s organization page.

User Info

  • email address: The primary identifier for a user.
  • name: This can be a full or partial name.
  • password
  • organization
  • role

Roles

  • admin: Scribe only. A Scribe admin has complete access to all files and user information (except passwords).
  • manager: A manager has access to all the users and projects associated with his or her organization. A manager can add or delete users for that organization.
  • user: A user has access to all projects within his or her organization. A user can upload and download files and has full access to the downloads on scribenet.com. A user can only delete projects for which they are the project owner.
  • freelancer: We differentiate between a freelancer (someone hired to do a single task in the publishing chain, usually copyediting or typesetting) and a vendor (someone hired to perform several tasks along the publishing chain, including creating e-books). Freelancers are able to gain limited access to the Digital Hub, can access and modify projects for which they have been listed as the “Current User,” and can create new projects. Freelancers can refine Word documents and create IDTT files but cannot run e-book conversions.
  • vendor: A vendor must engage in a direct license with Scribe to gain specific organizational “user” access to Scribe tools and the Digital Hub. A vendor can upload and download files and has full access to the downloads on scribenet.com. A vendor can only delete projects for which they are the project owner.

Organization Settings

An organization manager or a Scribe admin can edit the organization’s conversion settings. These settings are inherited by every project made within the organization. When an organization’s settings change, only new projects created within that organization inherit the new changes. Organization setting changes will not be applied to preexisting projects.

Organization Files

An organization manager or an admin can add or delete organization files (CSS, publisher logo, etc.). Go to the organization’s Files page, click on the organization’s Files button, then click the Add Files button.

In the file tab for every project associated with an organization, there is a button labeled “Add Organization Files.” (The button does not appear if an organization does not have any files.) This launches a modal listing all the organization’s files, and users can choose which ones the project should inherit. When an organization file is selected for a project, a copy of the file will be added to the project. Users can choose to delete that copy from the individual project without affecting the repository of organization files.

Project Creation

New projects are created via an organization’s Projects page in one of two ways:

  • New Project: Create an empty project record without files or metadata.
  • (Guided): Follow a project creation wizard to create a new record, fill out project information, and upload files.

Only the “Code” field is required to create a project record.

  • Project codes can only contain letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores.
  • Project codes must be three characters or longer.

After the project record is created, the user may begin uploading files.

Note: If anything is entered incorrectly while in the project creation wizard, do not use the browser’s back button. Changes to metadata can be applied through the project page.

Enter Basic Metadata

It is strongly recommended that all metadata information is entered into the project record before creating e-book files. Metadata provides important information for categorizing and sorting e-books, and it is required in many instances for accessibility validation.

Basic metadata includes the project code, title, publisher, and subjects (BISAC). The “Publisher” field is filled automatically with the name of the user’s organization.

Add Creators

The Digital Hub allows a user to add both Creators and Contributors to the metadata of a book. Creators should be considered those individuals directly responsible for the creation of the book (e.g., the author or the editor if the book has multiple authors). Contributors are those individuals who provided material for the book (e.g., a chapter, a foreword, an afterword), but who are not the primary creators.

Options for creators and contributor roles are author, editor, translator, illustrator, and designer. Click “Add Creator” or “Add Contributor” and fill out the necessary fields.

Note: While there are fields for First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, and Suffix, only First Name and Last Name are required.

ISBNs

Add ISBNs for each applicable format.

When producing an e-book, the Digital Hub will use ISBNs with the following priorities:

  • The Hub will check for an ePub ISBN and then a print ISBN.
  • If there is no ISBN, a placeholder will be added.

File Uploader

Upload files, set image processing settings, and select a cover image.

  • Uploads are restricted to files of 100 MB or smaller.
  • Uploads are restricted to 100 files at a time.
  • No more than 500 files can be added to a project.

Project Page

Overview

The project page contains all files associated with a project. Through the project page, users can change settings, manage and convert files, and edit project information.

  • The Files list shows all files present in the project. For .docx, .sam, and .scml files, the checks and stats will be available. Click on the “Details” field to access information about the file size, origin, and time of last modification. Click “Basic Info” to return to the original view. Options are available to upload, download, or delete files.
  • Project Information includes the project code and title as well as metadata (BISAC codes, ISBNs, etc.). This information can be added or revised.
  • Accessibility includes discovery and conformance metadata. These fields are used to describe the considerations made in producing the e-book.
  • Alerts and Updates shows information about the recent activity of a project. Conversion alerts will list potential issues. Any new alerts will pop up after each conversion. Critical issues, including validation errors or problems that would prevent conversions, will be listed with the files directly.
  • User Access shows the current owner of the project. This project will appear in the project list for the user indicated.
  • File conversions are performed in the banner at the top of the page. Click “Edit Settings” to change any settings from the organization’s defaults. Only when both “input” and “output” types are selected will the settings and “Convert” buttons become available.
  • Click Project List to return to your full list of Digital Hub projects.

File Checks

File checks are run against all .docx, .xml, .sam, and .scml files. These checks provide information about validation errors and aspects that may be problematic for conversions.

The “Checks” button for individual files is color-coded based on the level of errors (or potential errors):

  • Green indicates that a file passes all basic checks.
  • Blue indicates an alert that is not an error but may require further action in the final output (e.g., the presence of private use area Unicode).
  • Yellow indicates a potential problem. Users can assess whether it will be best to proceed with the conversion or to address the issue(s) and reupload the file.
  • Red means the file cannot be converted. For example, this will happen if a Word document has not been properly saved as .docx or if a .sam or .scml file is not well-formed. If a file has a red warning and a conversion is run, the Digital Hub will flash a warning (“Your input files contain one or more critical errors.”) and the file will not be converted.

Line numbers are reported for sam and ScML file check errors. XML files receive pass/fail checks only.

File Stats

The Stats window provides the following information about individual files or all files present for a group:

  • Word Count.
  • Character Count. The number of characters, excluding code tags.
  • Elements. A list of all styles used in the document as well as their frequency. Elements that are not ScML styles will be highlighted in yellow.
  • Special Characters. The character and its name, frequency, and Unicode codepoint will be listed, as well as a regular expression search that can be used to find the character in Sublime Text.
  • Images. A list of all images indicated in the file. Image names highlighted in yellow have not been uploaded to the project.

Elements can be sorted alphabetically or by frequency.

Project URLs will use the project ID number from the database (e.g., /wfdw/projects/57).

Project codes can also redirect to a project. For example, if a project’s code is “scr-example,” the URL ending with “/wfdw/projects/code/scr-example” will redirect to that project.

To search for a project within an organization, use the search field at the top of the screen when viewing the project list or a project page.

Project Expiration

Projects that are inactive for 120 days are removed from the system. An email message will be sent to the project owner seven days before the project is removed. To retain the project, any changes made to the project record will restore it to active status. Changes include uploading files, performing a conversion, or editing the project’s metadata.

Images

For information on how to prepare images locally for inclusion in e-books, see Image Processing.

Image Conversions

Images coming from proprietary software (i.e., Adobe PhotoShop) can have proprietary encodings that prevent them from being understood correctly by other image software. The Digital Hub uses open-source image libraries to perform image conversions. Sometimes this means that the conversion will experience problems with Adobe’s colorspace encodings when trying to convert CMYK to RGB. Because of this, Scribe’s recommendation for best practice is to convert the colorspace before uploading images to the Digital Hub. (TIFF to JPEG will generally be acceptable. Best results will be achieved, however, by running batch conversions locally before adding images to a Hub project.)

Image Settings

Images in the Digital Hub are only used for inclusion in an e-book file. Images will be processed with the options a user specifies when the images are uploaded and the Digital Hub will maintain one version of each image in the project’s Files tab. If processing has been disabled during the upload process, the image will be unchanged in the project record. Images cannot be reprocessed outside of uploading. If a user wants to reprocess an image, the images will need to be reuploaded.

The default maximum height and width is set to 600 pixels. For images marked as the cover, this number is 1800. The default image format is JPEG.

When uploading images, the Hub will alert the user if no cover is identified and one is not already present in the Hub record.

Supported Formats

The Digital Hub will accept the following image formats:

  • JPEG
  • PNG
  • SVG
  • TIFF

The Digital Hub will process the following image formats to resized JPEG or PNG:

  • JPEG
  • PNG
  • TIFF

The Digital Hub will not accept postscript formats (PDF, EPS).

Global and Individual Image Settings

When uploading image files, users can perform the following actions for the whole group of images:

  • Turn off image processing
  • Set the maximum height and width
  • Set the default image format to JPEG or PNG

By clicking the gear icon next to an image name in the uploader screen, users can adjust settings for that image that will override the group settings.

Cover Images

Each image in the upload screen has a “Set cover” button. When selected, this indicates that the image is the book cover. An image with a file name ending in “-cover” will be set as the book cover by default. The book cover’s default maximum width and height for processing will be 1800 pixels. Users can override this in the settings panel for that image.

  • Markup for the cover will not be added to ScML. If a user converts an older ScML file with the cover markup, it will still work.
  • If a cover image is present and marked in the Hub, the cover will automatically be added to e-book output.

Short Descriptions

The Image tab of the Files page allows users to add a short description to each image in the project. This text will be embedded with the image callout in subsequent HTML/ePub conversions as alt text and is encouraged for accessibility standards in digital publications.

  • Alt text added in the Hub is limited to 150 characters and cannot contain HTML/XML control characters (<>, &, ", ').
  • If alt text for an image element is already present in ScML, that existing alt text is left in place in the HTML. Otherwise, the alt text entered in the Hub is applied. If there is no alt text provided, an empty alt attribute is applied for validation in ePub 3.

Note: The Hub automatically populates the alt text for the cover in order to meet accessibility requirements.

Accessibility Options

Accessibility metadata is a requirement for creating e-book files that meet current accessibility requirements.

Accessibility Features

The user can indicate whether any of the following accessibility features are part of the e-book file being created. Listing the accessibility features is a requirement for creating discoverable ePub publications.

  • Alternative Text: Specifies whether alternative text is present for images contained within an e-book.
  • Captions: Specifies if subtitles are present for speech and non-speech audio within an e-book.
  • Print Page Numbers: Specifies if the book has page IDs that match the locations of an e-book’s print source page numbers. (This feature is deprecated in favor of Page Break Markers below.)
  • Index: Specifies if the e-book has an index.
  • Display transformability: Specifies how the display or presentation of an e-book (e.g., font color, font size, image size) is amenable to transformation.
  • Long Description: Specifies whether long descriptions are available for images requiring a more in-depth explanation than alternative text.

In addition, scribed books produced through the Well-Formed Document Workflow should meet the requirements for certain other accessibility features. These will be automatically added to certain projects.

An ePub3 with any accessibility field filled out will also automatically have the following features in the metadata: Table of Contents, Reading Order, ARIA.

Books with pages will additionally have these automatically added: Page Break Markers, Page Navigation.

Access Modes

The human sensory perceptual systems used to process or perceive the content. Listing the access modes in a publication is required for discoverable ePub publications.

Sufficient Access Modes

The minimum human sensory perceptual systems used to process or perceive the content. Listing the sufficient access modes in a publication is recommended for discoverable ePub publications.

Accessibility Summary

A brief human-readable description of the accessibility or lack of accessibility in this publication. Adding an accessibility summary is required for discoverable ePub publications.

Conformance Metadata

The Conforms To property is used to indicate that the ePub conforms to a published accessibility specification. Projects can have multiple statements included in their ePub that either describe or link to established accessibility specifications. Users can

  • enter a URL in the description field, or
  • enter a text description and certifying organization.

Certifying organizations are not included in an ePub when a conformance line references a URL. See examples under conformance reporting in the EPUB Accessibility 1.1 Specification.

Scribe does NOT certify e-books against accessibility requirements. It is the publisher’s responsibility to gain the certification of the listed organization or individual before making the ePub available for users. Publishers can list their own organization name if they are self-certifying the conformance level.

Extended Metadata

Additional Descriptive Data

The following are additional metadata fields that can be added to the e-book file.

Note: Only the Languages metadata item is required for valid e-book creation. The other fields are optional.

  • Languages: This field allows the user to select the languages present in an e-book file. By default, the language in an ePub 3 is set to “English (United States).” Languages set in this field will override that default.
  • Description: This field allows the user to add a description/overview of the book that will be included in the e-book’s metadata.
  • Publication Date: Allows the user to specify the e-book’s publication date. Date format must follow the YYYY-MM-DD format.
  • Digital Object Identifier: A DOI is a unique string of characters used to identify digital texts. If a DOI is available for an e-book, it can be added to the metadata here.

Additional Titles

  • Subtitle: Allows the user to add the e-book’s subtitle to the metadata.
  • Short Title: This field allows the user to add a shortened form of the title to the e-book’s metadata.
  • Collection Title: This field allows the user to add a metadata title of a series or collection to which the e-book belongs.
  • Extended Title: A metadata field that allows the user to add a form of the title that includes all of its parts.
  • Edition Title: This field allows the user to add the book’s edition number to the e-book metadata.

Available Conversions by File Type

Note: Users are warned and prevented from running multiple simultaneous conversions in a project record.

.docx (MS Word)

The Digital Hub can convert files of this format into any of the following:

  • .docx (Refined MS Word)
  • .epub (ePub 2 or ePub 3)
  • .txt (InDesign Tagged Text)
  • .sam (Scribe Abbreviated Markup)
  • .scml (Scribe Markup Language)
  • .html (HyperText Markup Language)

Note: It is recommended that .scml is created and reviewed before any conversion to e-book or HTML formats.

.xml (InDesign XML)

The Digital Hub can convert files of this format into any of the following:

  • .docx (MS Word)
  • .epub (ePub 2 or ePub 3)
  • .txt (InDesign Tagged Text)
  • .sam (Scribe Abbreviated Markup)
  • .scml (Scribe Markup Language)
  • .html (HyperText Markup Language)

Note: It is recommended that .xml files are converted to .sam and reviewed in that format before proceeding with any further conversions.

.sam (Scribe Abbreviated Markup)

The Digital Hub can convert files of this format into any of the following:

  • .docx (MS Word)
  • .epub (ePub 2 or ePub 3)
  • .txt (InDesign Tagged Text)
  • .scml (Scribe Markup Language)
  • .html (HyperText Markup Language)

Note: It is recommended that .scml is created and reviewed before any conversion to e-book or HTML formats.

.scml (Scribe Markup Language)

The Digital Hub can convert files of this format into any of the following:

  • .docx (MS Word)
  • .epub (ePub 2 or ePub 3)
  • .txt (InDesign Tagged Text)
  • .html (HyperText Markup Language)

Online Tools

ePub Rezipper

The ePub Rezipper is a tool available only to WFDW subscribers for ePubs created using the Digital Hub. After making any local changes to your ePub, this tool can be used to zip and download a revised ePub.

For instructions and information about this tool, see ePub Rezipper Help.

ePub Validator

The ePub Validator is a tool available only to WFDW subscribers. This tool can be used to validate an ePub file against current validation standards. Files must be 100 MB or smaller.

External Tools

Kindle Previewer

Amazon’s Kindle Previewer is a desktop program that allows a user to convert an ePub file and see how it will behave on a number of Kindle devices, including Fire tablets, e-ink readers, and mobile apps. While this tool can also export .kpf, .mobi, and .azk files, Amazon now only accepts ePub 3 files for distribution purposes due to their enhanced typesetting support.

Ace by DAISY

The Ace app by the DAISY Consortium is a desktop e-book program that allows the user to validate their ePub file against current accessibility requirements. Detected accessibility violations are reported by severity from Critical to Minor and cover wcaga2a, wcag2aa, and Best Practice standards.