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Old 01-10-2013, 01:43 PM   #1
JeanneLaska
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Posts: 7
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Montreal, QC
Device: Kindle, Nook
E-readers not recognizing chapters

Hi,

I have both a specific question (see title) and a more general, theoretical one. Let's see what you can tell me on either topic.

Sigil is known as a WYSIWYG editor. Except what turns out, is when Sigil shows you a well-formatted, problem-free ePub, a given e-reader might well show you something quite different, with layout and reading problems coming seemingly out of nowhere. To be honest, I'll even say that what you see on Sigil is never exactly what you get on an e-reader/e-reading app (fortunately, the difference isn't always a problem). Which makes anticipating problems difficult. Especially since said problems are often specific to a single device, and the number of different e-readers is still increasing. In other words, I'll test my ePubs on a Nook, but that gives me close to no idea what the same ePub will look like on a Kobo or a Sony.

And still I like Sigil, and I don't really believe that there's an ePub creator out there that's significantly better. I guess my goal is just to know what and how to change things in Sigil, which may not make the ebook look any different when opened with Sigil, but will actually improve its reading quality on this or that e-reader.

For example, an ebook I made showed huge margins on the Kobo (but didn't on Sigil, Calibre, Nook, or when converted to Mobi for the Kindle). It seems that my style sheets contained an info about page margins which many e-readers and e-reading apps/software ignored, but the Kobo took to heart.

I think a senior ebook maker (which I'm definitely not) should have a list of such "invisible" things to fix. What do you think? Does any of you work that way?

Right now, the thing that bugs me most is actually common to the Nook and Kobo (as far as I can tell). Not only does my ePub show a set number of pages that does not adapt to the e-reader's settings, but the whole ebook is considered as one vast chapter. Even though chapters are actually separate files in Sigil. Can I do anything so the Nook doesn't tell me absurd things like "There are 137 pages left in this chapter"?

My Kobo-owning friend reported that chapters were properly recognized in his Kobo-bought ebooks. (So there is a way to make it work.)

I've also had another problem, similar to the one reported in the following thread: Glitch with page numers (!) in Digital Editions, but the truth is I'd like a solution I can implement in Sigil specifically.

Thanks to everybody who may have an opinion on any of this.
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