Release : New Tool to Edit ePubs TOC, Edit with Sigil and keep you TOC

[purcelljf]

This tool has been very useful to me in cleaning up some EPUB files I have (despite the improvements to Sigil 4.0). Thanks to the creator.

[Nigol]

Originally Posted by purcelljf

This tool has been very useful to me in cleaning up some EPUB files I have (despite the improvements to Sigil 4.0). Thanks to the creator.

Your welcome!

Funny thing about your post is that I just click on Forum Spy for the first time and I saw my post appear, just when i clicked on it. This is what I call timing.

I am also working on a new version, but I do not put more effort than i did previously, for lack of time (I used to work on it when it was boring at work, it hasn't for a while) and also I think the program is now pretty much stable.

I do have a couple of feature I already did in the source, but need to tweak a bit before releasing, like downloading a Table of Content directly from the Kobo site.

[purcelljf]

One thing that took me a while to get used to was determining when the utility was processing the file and when it was finished. I usually open windows explorer now so I can see the tmp files being created and their subsequent disappearance.

Yeah, but I had a bunch of epubs I had created with Atlantis Word that had the cover image at the end of the reading order. Also, there were some Epubs that I needed to add a cover image and assign it to the TOC, but I couldn't do it efficieintly in Sigil, since Word Atlantis uses p tags for all the headings. I even had some EPUBs I couldn't open in SIGIL, but by simply using your utility and saving the epub, I was then able to open them in SIGIL. very cool

[Nigol]

Originally Posted by purcelljf

One thing that took me a while to get used to was determining when the utility was processing the file and when it was finished. I usually open windows explorer now so I can see the tmp files being created and their subsequent disappearance.

I know people have stated before that there is no feedback when a file is saved. I will put a message in the status bar in the next version when the file is saved.

But just to be clear the temp folder is there only for 1 reason, for the previews. Every file that is loaded (ncx or opf files) are loaded in memory from the epub and do not use the temp folder. The reason why I had to do a temp folder for the preview is that I need to have the CSS and Images to work properly.

When saving it takes only a second to update the file, and the progress bar at the bottom shows the status of temp files extraction. So when the files is saved the file is re-extracted, so when you see the progress bar filling again, it means that the file is already saved.

Update : Added to source

[Nigol]

I uploaded Version 1.4.0

v1.4.0
- Using SendTo will Save the most recent files
- Opening a file that does not exists anymore will not crash the program and a message will warn you.
- Added a Delete Files in the Add screen (it will remove the selected files from the ePub and delete entries from the manifest & spine)
- Fixed a bug with Mass Rename if the entry selected had different "parents".
- Fixed a crash if a file was in the spine, but not the manifest.
- Added a kind of a HACK to force files with XML version v1.1 to be parsed.
- If multiple css file are present, It will now (hopefully) select the correct one.
- The CSS tag being for margins is now determined by the first class attribute seen (previously it was the body tag, now it will look further if not found)
- The Option from the Mass Rename tool-Words are UpperCase-has changed, instead you will have Convert To Uppercase & To Title Case.
It will work as Described but now doesn't work only on Number that where converted to Words but on all the text.
- Removed Wall of Text from the Mass Rename tool and added a help button that will show it for info.
- Added a Download button in the Add window, that will search the site Kobobooks for the TOC and add the entries found to the detected text menu.
- Added a Select Download Text in the Add window, to help selecting the chapters when using the Download button.
- Enabled Navigation in the preview window. (Note : when using navigation you may see character not correctly displayed,
this is because of IE and when you navigate to it the program does not fix the page, it does not mean that the book will display that way.
Use the preview button to make sure)
- Added a Saved Message or Error Message when Saving in the status bar. (It will be shown during 5 seconds)
- Added a Select Previous Text option in the Add dialog.
- The Decrypt Files setting is now on by default when using a DRM build.

[Nigol]

Small Update

v1.4.1
Added support when filenames with spaces were changed to special character (ex: %20). It happens usually with Sigil 4.

[virtual_ink]

I'm new to epub creation, new to this forum, and I'm not sure if this is the best place to post my query (or what info I should provide). Please let me know if I should be asking elsewhere and/or including some example files.

An epub I received back from Kobo was rejected by Apple (needs subsections listed in the table of contents). A few hours later, I've hand edited my first TOC file (its like learning a new language!). I've finally added all the sub sections, and its validating fine.

However, when testing on the iPad - all the page numbers on the toc only appear when in horizontal view. In vertical view, only the first six chapters/subsections have pg numbers, and those page numbers are mostly incorrect (the cover, copyright and title page numbers are fine).

Is this a known problem? Wondering if I can fix it, or just remove page numbers altogether (which seems sensible/less problematic) but I don't know how to do either. Not having much luck with google so far. Any help much appreciated!

PS: I edited the TOC file in TextWrangler.

[Nigol]

First this isn't related to my App, so maybe not the best place to post. My tool is used to create TOC automatically.

Second, because of the way eReader works, a page on a iPhone or on a Kobo will not be the same, also depends on the formatting you have done. So most reader just calculate the page number (I think 1000 word is a page) or like iBooks it just has a page number for each page, so if you put the fonts bigger, your number of pages will increase.

Because of this there is some reader that put the "real page number" beside the calculated page number (the Kindle I think does this), but it must be written inside the TOC. I do not know what you have done, but my thought is that it is these page numbers you have stated, which is very optional.

Also not knowing for which application you are trying it I can't tell you exactly why you are having this problem. I suggest that you read the ePub Specs for all the information you need and more. Also use software like Sigil and calibre, if my tool can help you give me some feedback.

You must mostly need the navmap part of the TOC, if you have anything else, just ignore it.

NCX Specs
Info on Page Numbers in TOC

[egypt]

Hi Negol,

I wonder if you are working on a MAC version of your tool? Please let me know. Thanks a lot.

[Nigol]

You could try with mono, because it is a mac/linux replacement of .NET framework.

But I did try it briefly with mono in linux and although it worked, They might be small issue like the preview not working. I haven't checked on it further. But since I do not have access to a mac you could give it a try. I think mono is installed by default on OSX.

For linux (on a Backtrack 5 R1 VM) all I did was install mono-runtime & libmono-winform2.0-cil. Running it with
"mono ePubFixer.exe". Since OSX is linux based it should work also.

Tell me of any issue you might have.

[JeremyR]

This might seem like a redundant request, but it would be very nice if this could generate an inline TOC (an html page in the book as well as the real TOC.

It would be very useful for people who want to convert their epub into mobi for Amazon, which for some reason needs two different TOCs.

(Calibre does this, but puts the inline TOC at the end of the book, which Amazon doesn't like

[Nigol]

v1.5.0
- Added a Select All option inthe context menu of the Add window. It will select all the nodes that are expanded.
- Added the Cover Editor to edit the cover without the need to reconvert with calibre. (look in the readme for additional info).
- Added an option to create an Inline Table of Content (look in the readme for additional info).
- Added an option in the setting menu will let you remove margins in the body Style instead of zeroing them. (usefull with the Kobo Touch when margins can not the modified in book.)
- Added support when only .NET 4 was installed (only XP computers, since other already have .NET 3.5 preinstalled)
- Support when Sigil encodes filenames like URLs, they will now be decoded.
- You can set the type of file (Cover & Table of Content) in the Add windows, this is used with the Inline TOC & Cover Editor.
- Deleting a file did not delete the actual file in the Zip. Also it also removes the info in the guide.
- Plenty of Other fix.

• For the Inline TOC, make sure that you set your existing Table of content before (check in the Add window), because if it is not already set, it will not rewrite it, but create a content.html file inside the book. You can also do this with from Sigil.
  
• For the Cover editor please note that when unchecking the Preserve Aspect Ratio, it will resize the image to fit a ratio of 600 x 800 (0.75) and change the html code for the cover so that it fits in a box of 600 x 800. This was done because on my Kobo Touch, this was the only way for it to have it generate a cover without borders. So people with other ereaders, please give your feedback. With it it is basically the same has calibre does.

[Nigol]

New Version available

v1.5.2
- LibTidy didn't work on 64bit systems, the app will now be 32bit even on 64bit systems.
- Added a confirmation box to replace the Inline TOC before doing so.
- Removed Edit HTML Only from Cover Editor, and will make the cover fit to the window, instead of forcing to a 600 x 800 window.
- The id of a Created Inline TOC will be the filename instead of a GUID.
- Added a fix for some files that sigil 0.4.2 can't open, because of a badly formed content.opf file. Opening Sigil or Saving the file through ePubFixer will fix them.
- Bundled a DLL that was required for the libtidy.dll file that is part of Visual C++ Runtime, that if missing from the computer would crash ePubFixer.

[jackie_w]

Hi Nigol,

I wonder if you would explain something regarding cover update?

I notice that if I uncheck 'preserve aspect ratio' then I get an svg cover with this attribute:
preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet"

If I do a Calibre conversion with svg set to 'don't preserve aspect' then I get:
preserveAspectRatio="none"

If viewing in the Calibre epub Viewer, only the Calibre version actually fills the screen - no matter what shape/size the window is. Your version maintains a 3:4 ratio.

Is there some benefit to doing it this way. For users with a 600x800 reader it may not make any difference, but for those with a 7" reader I believe the screen is 600x1024, i.e not 3:4 ratio.

By the way, I'd like to thank you for your work on this utility, I use it all the time

[Nigol]

I did wonder if I should leave it like earlier version where unchecking preserve aspect ratio would change it to preserveAspectRatio="none", but I though that since the image is already re-sized to a 3:4 ratio it won't change anything anything. And that way it might look more correct in the calibre viewer for example.

But like you said I am sure not all reader have the same ratio, so I could revert it like old version and have it put it to "none", but the resizing of the image should also follow.

So I am thinking what about a menu where you can select your aspect ratio, so the image will also follow.

So the preserve aspect ratio mostly only do changes the ratio of the image to 3:4. I do this because on my Kobo Touch, even though it is supposed to resize the image to fit the screen and doesn't always. Maybe other reader don't have this problem.

SO should I just revert it back to preserveAspectRatio="none" like calibre and should I also add a way to set the preferred aspect ratio for the image resizing, if so what are the ratio for other reader or is it only 600 x 1024. The easier way would be to put a menu and select by size since I am sure that a lot of people are not aware of their screen resolution.