Changing "Beginning" Location

[atekayla]

Hi guys, this is my first post so please bear with me...

Prior to updating my Kindle to 3.1, I have consistently used Sigil and Calibre to format and convert my non-Amazon purchased books. The default "beginning" location would then be the book cover page I created, followed by a new page with the book summary, the TOC, then finally, the first chapter of the book. After the update, I've found that this is no longer the case. Some books will default to opening at the first chapter, others to the summary I created, and still others, to the cover page I created.

I don't believe this to be a Sigil issue, because I've opened the files in Sigil and the html is always the same between the books that open at different locations. I also don't believe this to be a Calibre issue because this is happening to a ton of my books prior to the recent Calibre updates.

I'm really hoping to find a quick fix to this problem because I have over 400 freebies that I formatted to my liking and I really don't want to have to go through each book individually, press the previous page button until I reach my cover page then back out, just so it opens to the cover page as the "last page read".

Please help

[DiapDealer]

There are several topics that discuss this in the "mobi" format subforum... such as:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=105188

But basically, unless the cover image is present as part of the ebook's content, you can't get a reader to automatically open to that point. A Mobi's cover art is part of the metadata which you can't tell a reader to "open to."

Add a first page that contains the cover image inline (or add the cover image to the manifest) and mark that as the book's "start reading" point.

[atekayla]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

There are several topics that discuss this in the "mobi" format subforum... such as:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=105188

But basically, unless the cover image is present as part of the ebook's content, you can't get a reader to automatically open to that point. A Mobi's cover art is part of the metadata which you can't tell a reader to "open to."

Add a first page that contains the cover image inline (or add the cover image to the manifest) and mark that as the book's "start reading" point.

I do have the cover image as part of the ebook content. When I open the epub in Sigil, the files are as follows:

Text

titlepage.xhtml

split_000.html

split_001.html

split_002.html

split_003.html

The titlepage.xhtml has the semantic "Cover" on Sigil and opens as "Cover" on my Kindle. split_000.html is the cover I added myself, which was previously opened to as "beginning" on my Kindle prior to the 3.1 update. split_001.html was the summary I created, 002.html the TOC and 003.html the first chapter.

My issue is that now after the update, my Kindle seems to skip over split_000.html through split_002.html and opening to the "beginning" just opens to split_003.html

I've tried to change the <guide><reference href="cover.jpg" type="cover" title="Cover"/></guide> in the .opf file to <guide><reference href="Text" type="Text" title="split_000.html"/></guide>, but after "send to device" on Calibre, it reverts back to the original.

[atekayla]

I was able to solve my own problem, but thank you!

In the off chance that others may need this same solution, here is what I did to fix my problem:

Right click on the book in Calibre and select Tweak Epub and explode Epub. Find the content.opf file and open in notepad, in between the <guide> tags, insert <reference type="start" title="Start here" href="starthere.html"/> (with starthere.html being the file you want to open as your default "beginning" which in my case was split_000.html). Save content.opf, go back to Calibre, click Rebuild Epub, convert to mobi and transfer to your device.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by atekayla

Find the content.opf file and open in notepad, in between the <guide> tags, insert <reference type="start" title="Start here" href="starthere.html"/> (with starthere.html being the file you want to open as your default "beginning" which in my case was split_000.html).

Hmmmmm...

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Add a first page that contains the cover image inline (or add the cover image to the manifest) and mark that as the book's "start reading" point.

I rarely give step-by-step detailed solutions.

Glad everything is working for you now.