TOC conversion glitches

[Tango Mike]

Newbie/first-time poster, terrified of asking a question previously answered, hasn't found anything like mine and will have to take my chances.

After saving my .doc novel manuscript as .htm, I converted it to .mobi, then used it to create .epub. Both file formats display what I can only call TOC upper/lower-case confusion. Specifics:

All chapter headings in the .doc file are like this: CHAPTER ONE

With two exceptions, all chapters within the TOC listings on both .mobi and .epub versions, either in the panel to the left of the text in Calibre or in the blue-linked TOC at the end of each book, are like this: Chapter One.

The listing for chapter two reads: chapter two.

The listing for chapter six reads: ChAPTER SIX.

Within the text of the .mobi version, all chapter headings are exactly like I typed them in the .doc file: CHAPTER ONE.

But within the text of the .epub version, the chapter headings display the same case irregularities as in the TOC listings.

I would appreciate any information on what might be causing the problem and suggestions on how to fix it.

Thanks.

[jackie_w]

Welcome to the forum

In my time I've done an awful lot of doc -> html (filtered) -> epub conversions, but I have to admit that I've never had this problem.

Is it possible that some of your chapter headings are styled as 'Small Caps' in the .doc file? That may explain why they look like capitals in the .doc but they're not converting to epub or mobi because SmallCaps are not supported.

chapter two and ChAPTER SIX would look like CHAPTER TWO and CHAPTER SIX in MSWord if styled as SmallCaps even though they contain lowercase characters.

[itimpi]

When you save the Word file as HTML, it is best if you use the Web Page (Filtered) option to create the HTML. Also, have you then tried loading that HTML file into your Browser to check what the Chapter headings are at that point. As was mentioned, items like Small Caps in Word would not mae it into the HTML (and thus the Calibre conversion).

[Tango Mike]

Thanks to jackie_w and itimpi for the information and suggestions.

My chapter headings use the Heading 1 style in Word modified to format the text in bold and all caps (not small ones). But about an hour ago I read the following in the B&N epub formatting guide: "Use Caps Lock to type in capital letters if you want text to appear in all capital letters. Do not use the Word format for All Caps." So that may be a problem, but I won't know until I revise the style and manually select all caps for each of the chapter headings.

Another possible source of trouble is my unfamiliarity with terminology. I'd read about Web Page (Filtered), but didn't know until a few minutes ago that Word 2008 (for Mac) Save as Web Page option doesn't use the word "filtered," and the selection for that is "save only display information into HTML."

I find myself feeling like an idiot every ten minutes since trying to do these conversions by myself, but at least now I have something I can try.

Thanks again for the support.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Tango Mike

... I find myself feeling like an idiot every ten minutes since trying to do these conversions by myself...

Don't worry, we've all been there, it can be quite a steep learning curve...

[Tango Mike]

itimpi: As you suggested, I used my browser to open the .htm file (created with the "save as web page" command before I knew how to save it as filtered), and all the chapter headings appear in all caps exactly as I created them in the source .doc file with the Heading 1 style font modified for all caps. Does this tell me anything helpful in troubleshooting the problem? I'm going to re-save the file correctly, but in the meantime I'm just trying to understand more about this. Thanks.

[jackie_w]

Forgive me for butting in, but I don't think it will help. If you open your HTML file in a text editor and find one of your 'wrong' chapter headings you will see something like this if you have used the Word AllCaps styling:

<h1><span lang=EN-GB style='text-transform:uppercase'>CHaPTeR oNe</span></h1>

i.e. you will see that there are some lowercase characters in the heading. The styling text-transform:uppercase works perfectly well when using a browser, but it is not supported by current (all???) reading devices.

If you edit your original Word doc and edit all chapter heading text to uppercase then SaveAs webpage-filtered (or your Mac equivalent) you should be fine.

My version of Word is ancient but the command to change text to uppercase is: Format - Change Case - UPPERCASE

[JSWolf]

There is a lot of mess in the HTML (even filtered) from Word. For your ToC, the best thing is to delete any and all styles from the ToC headers and put <h2></h2> around it. You can define h2 in the CSS to how you want it to look.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

For your ToC, the best thing is to delete any and all styles from the ToC headers and put <h2></h2> around it.

@JSWolf,

That's not strictly true. Styling the headings as Word built-in style 'Heading 1' will put the <h1> and </h1> tags in for him automatically whan saving to the HTML file. This surely must be easier than doing it manually?

Or using 'Heading 2' will create <h2>...</h2> tags if preferred.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by Tango Mike

My chapter headings use the Heading 1 style in Word modified to format the text in bold and all caps

If it's not clear from the other posts, your problem is the "All caps" modification you made. Remove that modification, Check your headings, then save as Filtered HTML and you will be fine. The "All Caps" is hiding the fact that some titles are capitalized and some aren't.

(If this was obvious from the other posts, ignore this )

[Tango Mike]

Starson17: Bingo! I hadn't seen that comment in the guide about only using the caps lock. Went back and removed it from the Heading 1 style. Problem solved. Thanks to all.