Complete-book EPUB quality checklist: record what you inspected

Use a written record, not a vague impression

This checklist is for reviewing a complete reading edition over time, including passages outside an automatically selected sample. Write down the source edition, output filename and reader. Mark each check as inspected, issue found or not yet checked. “Not yet checked” is more useful than a guessed pass because it tells you where uncertainty remains.

Paragraphs and sequence

Find a distinctive passage at the start, middle and end. Read the sentence before and after each passage. Inspect a column boundary and a printed page transition if the PDF contains them. Look for duplicated paragraphs, missing qualifiers, repeated running headers and words joined without spaces. When you find a problem, record the exact phrase and source location rather than a general formatting complaint.

Illustrations and references

Choose one important figure and inspect its outer edges, labels, legend and caption. Locate the body sentence referring to it. Check whether the figure remains associated with that explanation at a larger text size. For a table, verify the relationship between each heading and value; for a formula, check signs, indices and fractions. Keep the original as the reference whenever precise relationships remain unclear.

Navigation and comfort

Open several contents entries and confirm their destinations. Increase body text size, change margins and switch light/dark themes if you use both. Check whether prose reflows rather than enlarging a whole page image. Read a few screens continuously to notice interruptions that a static cover misses. Save observations with the file version so a later revision can be checked against the same list.

Use separate checkpoints for prose and missing labels

The actual paper abstract reflows in Apple Books, while its retained Figure 1 still has clipped lower axes. The actual NASA sample EPUB retains a different labelled hardware figure without manual edits, but only on its selected pages. Record those as separate observations; neither file passes every complete-book checklist item merely because it opens.

Close each checklist item with an observation

Keep the checklist beside the source and exact EPUB version. For each inspected feature, write what you observed and where. When a correction is made, revisit the same passage and record whether the relationship is now preserved. Leave unrelated uninspected features open rather than treating one repair as proof of the whole book. Before a trip, open the actual saved reading file and locate the sections you need. The checklist should tell you what is dependable, what needs the original PDF and what remains uncertain. Keep unchecked features marked as unchecked.

Download and close the complete-book checks

Save the full-book checklist beside the exact source and EPUB. Each row needs a source location, observed EPUB location, result and next action. The worksheet begins with not covered; change a row to pass only after inspecting it. Record defects and retain the output version you inspected.

The pre-purchase sample guide answers whether the available sample supports a buying decision. This checklist answers a larger question after conversion: which required passages and relationships across the whole book have you actually checked? Inspect opening, middle and ending passages outside the sample rather than copying sample results into every row.

Record the real abstract and figure checks separately

The reviewed research-paper EPUB opened in Apple Books on Mac. One View > Increase Font Size action changed the abstract’s line breaks. Repagination initially moved the view earlier; moving right found the same abstract and then the following text. The file was unchanged during that reader check.

Record that observed reflow separately from figure preservation. The saved export retains the three Figure 1 panels but clips lower axis labels, and three equation crops were corrected before reviewed export. A comfortable abstract therefore does not pass the entire book.

Physical-reader transfer, offline reading and spoken screen-reader tasks were not established by this Mac observation. Leave those rows untested until you perform the relevant task with the actual file and reader.

EPUBTurn starts from the original PDF. Record what the automatic sample includes, then inspect the full downloaded book separately if you continue.

NASA source

D. Harold Shelton, Apollo experience report: Lunar module stabilization and control system, NASA, 1975. US government work; public use permitted. Original pages 3–8 extracted; sample selects excerpt pages 4–6.

Related guides

• Check whether a PDF has selectable text before conversion
• What did the automatic PDF sample cover? Use a worksheet
• Prepare a PDF before converting it to EPUB
• How to prepare and convert a selected PDF chapter