Topic: Sol... Those dreadful little boxes

After all this time, I still can't download an ebook from my files. I am using Windows 11.  This has been an ongoing thing, even when I used Windows 10, It would be so nice if this worked. Any thoughts on how to do it?


Her breathing quickened. “They’re gonna know. They’ll come looking for me.”

“We won’t give them the chance.” I crouched low, my nose brushing hers. “Mellie, we have to move further back so they can’t see us. Now.”

She stiffened. “Dawg, I can’t. You go. Get to safety. I’ll stay here and hope they don’t find me.”

“I’m not leaving you,” I snapped.

“You’ll get caught!”

“Not if you stay quiet. When I pull you, don’t make a sound. Understand?”

Mellie’s jaw tightened, but she nodded.

“Good.”

Happy Trails,
MJ

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Re: Sol... Those dreadful little boxes

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Quote Post 2

Re: Sol... Those dreadful little boxes

Hi Marilyn,

Can you send me a private message. Just so I understand, if you download your content using the ebook feature, you get text that looks like this? Can you email it to me?

Sol

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Re: Sol... Those dreadful little boxes

Yes. Will do.

Quote Post 4

Re: Sol... Those dreadful little boxes

Marilyn Johnson wrote:

Yes. Will do.

Try Copy and paste with Ctrl V. Works for me from Windows. Take care. Vern

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Re: Sol... Those dreadful little boxes

Yes, it works when I copy and paste each chapter individually, but when you go to the publish page, there is a button at the bottom that says "download your ebook." That's what gives me the boxes and strange critters.

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Re: Sol... Those dreadful little boxes

Blame Microslough.  Instead of hewing to the international standard for character codes, and character code binary encodings, they remain stuck in the cement of their pre-ISO 646 program code with no readily accessible off-ramp.  It's possible that those boxes indicate a binary encoding that is disallowed under ISO 646.  (Such are often alternate and ambiguous coding that have the potential to carry malware.)

Once programming for mass market apps spread around the world, character sets became a huge problem.  The Chinese (Han) ideographs number over 30,000; Japan mixes two character sets of its own with Han-derived symbols and the latin alphaber, the different slavic nations use alphabets with different characters added to the basic Cyrillic set, and I have no idea how click-speakers' utterences are represented. ISO 646 defines a 64-bit encoding and a subset (Unicode) that, by sharing Han symbols across language boundaries, can be encoded in 16 bits, or a variable number of 8-bit bytes.

Basic competence in ISO-646 probably requires study equivalent to 45 undergraduate credits--a three semester sequence.

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Re: Sol... Those dreadful little boxes

Well, bless your heart, NJC! This explanation’s got more layers than a Mississippi mud pie and just as tricky to cut through. Microslough? That sounds like the retirement home for tired old computers. And ISO 646? Shoot, that’s gotta be tech’s version of untangling Christmas lights in July! I’m as lost as a goose in a snowstorm, but I appreciate you taking the time to spell it all out. I might not understand a lick of it, but I’m in awe that you do! I barely know how to turn my PC on and off, so I'll sit back and wait until somebody fixes the problem. Meantime, I'll work on a new syllabus—'Intro to Tech Philosophy 101'—and maybe head up a rescue team for stranded emojis.

Happy trails,
MJ

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9 Reply by njc (edited by njc 2024-12-02 09:47:27)

Re: Sol... Those dreadful little boxes

Everyone's lost when they first try to understand all the problems and mysterious solutions of character sets.  Even traversing the Basic Multilingual Plane is a trip through the Twilight Zone.  (Is an umlauted vowel one character or two?  Or both either or?)

Oh, emoji are admitted to Unicode (part of the basic multingual plane) as they are popularized.  Look up 'emoji' on WikiP.

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Re: Sol... Those dreadful little boxes

Marilyn Johnson wrote:

Yes, it works when I copy and paste each chapter individually, but when you go to the publish page, there is a button at the bottom that says "download your ebook." That's what gives me the boxes and strange critters.

Sorry, MJ, I've only done one chapter at a time, never tried to download a whole book, so, hopefully someone has a different solution than NJC, lol. Good luck. Take care. Vern

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