Order of Chapters in HTML->ePub

[alias_neo]

I am trying to convert a HTML book to ePUB, it works perfectly except the chapters are all out of order.

The HTML files are named chapter_1.html, chapter_2.html etc.

Is there any way I can cause it to recognise them in order, I don't mind some manual editing.

I already tried renaming the titles within the headers to 1->01, 2->02 etc to see if that helped, but the order just seems very random.

If anyone can suggest a solution I'd be grateful.

Thanks

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by alias_neo

I am trying to convert a HTML book to ePUB, it works perfectly except the chapters are all out of order.

The HTML files are named chapter_1.html, chapter_2.html etc.

Is there any way I can cause it to recognise them in order, I don't mind some manual editing.

I already tried renaming the titles within the headers to 1->01, 2->02 etc to see if that helped, but the order just seems very random.

If anyone can suggest a solution I'd be grateful.

Thanks

If the book has a table of contents or a main index page that links to the other chapters then all you have to do is grab the main page and drag just that page to calibre and during adding the book calibre will grab the rest of the files that are linked from that file.

During conversion this main page or TOC will be used to keep the chapters in order.

[alias_neo]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

If the book has a table of contents or a main index page that links to the other chapters then all you have to do is grab the main page and drag just that page to calibre and during adding the book calibre will grab the rest of the files that are linked from that file.

During conversion this main page or TOC will be used to keep the chapters in order.

I tried this, as per the instructions. My main page contains a TOC of chapters split into subsections, it uses the built in TOC but if go to the options and open TOC the page order is completely messed up and chapters are out of order.

The files are ordered correctly in the directory name "_chapter 01.htm" ... "_chapter 21.htm"

doesn't seem to work.

Any Further suggestions?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by alias_neo

I tried this, as per the instructions. My main page contains a TOC of chapters split into subsections, it uses the built in TOC but if go to the options and open TOC the page order is completely messed up and chapters are out of order.

Is the epub in order? If you go to what options for the TOC?

Originally Posted by alias_neo

The files are ordered correctly in the directory name "_chapter 01.htm" ... "_chapter 21.htm"

I need some clarification, are the chapters in order in the book? Ignoring the TOC if you read the book straight through are the chapters physically in order?

[alias_neo]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Is the epub in order? If you go to what options for the TOC?



I need some clarification, are the chapters in order in the book? Ignoring the TOC if you read the book straight through are the chapters physically in order?

After Conversion .... no.

If I read through Chapter one, it jumps to Chapter 29.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by alias_neo

After Conversion .... no.

If I read through Chapter one, it jumps to Chapter 29.

I have no clue.

Does the html works fine in your browser?

[alias_neo]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

I have no clue.

Does the html works fine in your browser?

Yes, it works ok in the browser, in HTML format, but then that's via links because since it's seperate files it doesn't change chapters until I click the next one.

I'm assuming the problem much be in the chapter search algorithm/expression.

I am corrently playing with modifying the filenames and links but it takes a while as it's a 2000 page book and takes forever (2-3 minutes) to convert even on a high end PC.

[kovidgoyal]

calibre follows links in depth first order if I remember correctly. If your files contain interlinks that can mess up the ordering. I would suggest using an EPUB editor to fix the ordering post conversion, or use the command line ebook-convert tool with the --breadth-first option to convert the html.

[alias_neo]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

calibre follows links in depth first order if I remember correctly. If your files contain interlinks that can mess up the ordering. I would suggest using an EPUB editor to fix the ordering post conversion, or use the command line ebook-convert tool with the --breadth-first option to convert the html.

It's a reference manual of sorts so there are a lot of interlinks.

I think I found a solution however.

I extracted the epub with 7zip and found the toc.ncx which is a plain text XML file, in here the chapters appear in the same incorrect order they do when viewing, as long as I can modify this and zip it back up I should be good to go.

[thomass]

if you ensure that the first link is to next html file on each html file, then calibre gives no error on page order. (On my book I put an 1*1 white image file with links to following page on the top of each page. Outcome was awesome. (I'm aware of the dates. This is for the future reference)
ie:

<body  topmargin="0" >
<div align="center"><center>
<table border="0" cellspacing="1" >
  <tr>
    <td valign="top"><a href="1569.htm" target="_self"><img src="../images/b42.gif" border="0" width="1" height="1"></a></td>
  </tr>
</table>
</center></div>

<p>........

in this case 1569.htm is the next page and b42.gif is a blank gif image