Skip to content
EPUBCheck · Stylesheets

CSS-004

Updated:

EPUBCheck CSS-004 is an error message: “CSS documents must be encoded in UTF-8, detected …;.” A CSS file uses an encoding other than UTF-8, which EPUB requires.

The official message

CSS documents must be encoded in UTF-8, detected %1$s;

Default severity
Error. The EPUB breaks a rule of the specification and is invalid. Stores and Send to Kindle may reject it, and EPUBCheck exits with status 1.
EPUBCheck version
5.4.0

%1$s, %2$s… are filled in with the file, value or element EPUBCheck found.

Typical causes

  • A stylesheet saved as ISO-8859-1 or Windows-1252, or with a @charset rule naming one.

How to fix it

  • Convert the file to UTF-8 and change or remove the @charset rule.

Terms used here

Other CSS messages

  • CSS-003 CSS document is encoded in UTF-16. It should be encoded in UTF-8 instead.
  • CSS-002 Empty or NULL reference found.
  • CSS-006 CSS selector specifies fixed position.
  • CSS-001 The "…" property must not be included in an EPUB Style Sheet.
  • CSS-007 Font-face reference "…" refers to non-standard font type "…".
  • CSS-008 An error occurred while parsing the CSS: ….

Message text and severity from EPUBCheck 5.4.0 (W3C, BSD-3-Clause). Explanation by EPUBLab.

FAQ

What does EPUBCheck CSS-004 mean?

EPUBCheck CSS-004 is an error message: “CSS documents must be encoded in UTF-8, detected …;.” A CSS file uses an encoding other than UTF-8, which EPUB requires.

Is CSS-004 an error?

CSS-004 is reported as error by default. The EPUB breaks a rule of the specification and is invalid. Stores and Send to Kindle may reject it, and EPUBCheck exits with status 1.