ePub TOC page not detected by Calibre on convert

[chyron8472]

I'm editing a fanfiction for my wife to put on her Kindle, but I'm having real issues trying to get the TOC page to detect when converting to mobi.

In Sigil, I am assigning the TOC page as... the TOC page.



But when I convert to mobi in Calibre, it doesn't detect that page as the TOC.




What do I do?

[Manichean]

Moderator Notice
Moved to appropriate subforum.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by chyron8472

In Sigil, I am assigning the TOC page as... the TOC page.

I don't think it is this easy. You point to a html inline TOC but this is not the ePub's official TOC. The official TOC is not in the main html it is held in the toc.ncx file.

When you go to the TOC editor in Sigil does it show what you expect. What shows in the TOC editor is what will be toc.ncx file. I am not versed in creating the TOC, if you get no response here try the Sigil forum.

Good Luck.

[ldolse]

Try following the instructions here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=123170

Apparently Sigil doesn't set the semantic that Calibre needs to do what you want. Those instructions go over how to do it by hand.

[chyron8472]

Thanks for the link.

What I ended up doing was using calibre to convert epub -> mobi -> epub (I backed up my original copy in case this ruined things). This made Calibre create an inline TOC at the end of the ebook which I then, in Sigil, moved to the front of the book (in place of the original TOC), edited it to my liking, told Sigil it was the TOC, and converted back to mobi again.

However, given Ldolse's link, I will have to try this next time:

Originally Posted by DMSmillie

I don't know of any way to do what you want, medwatt, without doing some manual editing of the XML/XHTML files used to create the EPUB and MOBI files. I was hoping someone might come up with a suggestion that didn't involve that, but it looks like it isn't currently possible.

One possible route might be:

1. Create a bookmark at the start of your inline TOC (could do that in Word before creating the EPUB version).
2. Use Calibre's "tweak epub" facility to open up the EPUB and edit the OPF file (using a plain text editor), and add a Guide item of type "toc" to point to that bookmark. E.g.:
   

   <guide>
   <reference type="toc" title="Table of Contents" href="filename.html#bookmark"/>
   </guide>

3. Save and reform the EPUB file.
4. Convert to MOBI format.

I haven't tested this, so I don't know what issues it might throw up, but it might be worth trying.