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Old 04-26-2011, 11:14 AM   #1
mtrahan
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ePub to Mobi with Calibre: cover is skipped when opening book

I've been working on a ePub file for a couple of days (with Sigil). The formatting seems to work fine in iBooks and ADE. But when I convert the file to Mobi with Calibre and put it on my Kindle, there is one problem: when I open the book, it skips the cover and jumps right to the "about" page.

The tite of the about page is between <h2> tags and is the first item on the TOC. The <h2> element is styled like this in CSS:
Quote:
h2.sectiontitle {
text-align: center;
page-break-before: always;
}
I guess the problem comes with the "page-break-before: always" part. How do I fix this problem (the book skipping cover) if I want to keep "page-break-before: always" in my "sectiontitle" class? Should I put special code in the first file—where the cover is—so that the Kindle explicitly knows that this is the start of the book?

Is it the good way to solve this problem or there is a cleaner way?

Also, not sure if this is a problem with the Calibre conversion? I know Calibre does the best with what input it gets, so ideally, I would prefer to add something in the original ePub with Sigil (to keep the original as good as possible). Or should I edit the output of Calibre conversion—the mobi file, directly?

Thanks in advance for your help.
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Old 04-26-2011, 12:13 PM   #2
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All Kindle books open to the beginning of the text. I've never seen one open to the cover...always have to page back, or "goto cover" to see it.

I've seen mention here, I think, that if you want a Kindle book to open to the cover image, you'd have to include the cover image as a graphic on the first content page.
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Old 04-26-2011, 02:00 PM   #3
mtrahan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK View Post
I've seen mention here, I think, that if you want a Kindle book to open to the cover image, you'd have to include the cover image as a graphic on the first content page.
Yes, this is what I did—my image cover.jpg is displayed on the first file, titlepage.xhtml, which contains this simple code:

Code:
<style type="text/css">
@page {padding: 0pt; margin:0pt}
body { text-align: center; padding:0pt; margin: 0pt; }
div { margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; }

img.sgc-1 {height: 100%}
</style>
</head>

<body>
<div><img alt="cover" class="sgc-1" src="../Images/cover.jpg" /></div>
</body>
Also I just tested on another book, similar situation (cover displayed on first file), but before the first <h2> tag, there was a couple various pages (quotes that goes before the main text, etc.). And when opening the book on my Kindle for the first time, it skipped all those first pages to open where the first <h2> tag appears... So it definitely seems linked. I just noticed though that this <h2> tag had no "page-break-before" in his definition.

I still want to understand what I am doing wrong. Thanks for the help.
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Old 04-26-2011, 02:30 PM   #4
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...I think I've found what I'm looking for on the forum: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=106736

Gotta add a <reference type="start"> entry in the OPF. Guess it has to be added directly to the Mobi file? I'll test a bit later today and see if I can fix the problem that way.
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Old 04-26-2011, 03:55 PM   #5
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Yes the anchor has to be added to the source, and the reference added to the guide portion of the OPF.
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Old 04-26-2011, 04:17 PM   #6
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Thanks for the confirmation. I will try it tonight.

Seems like an obvious question, but just in case: can I do this in the ePub (explode it with Calibre and edit it)? Then convert to Mobi and send to Kindle.

I'm asking because I don't know how to edit a .mobi file—seems much more complicated than ePub.
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Old 04-26-2011, 04:36 PM   #7
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You edit the source that you used for .mobi - usually HTML.
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Old 04-26-2011, 04:46 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by susan_cassidy View Post
You edit the source that you used for .mobi - usually HTML.
Source is ePub. I will try. Thanks for the clarification.
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Old 04-26-2011, 06:32 PM   #9
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Hrm, it doesn't work to add <reference type="start" title="Start here" href="starthere.html"/> in the OPF—"start" type isn't a an accepted value in ePub so I can't do that (since my source file for mobi is ePub). My original file doesn't pass the Flight Crew validation if I leave this part in the OPF...

I guess I could do it just to convert the file to Mobi and then remove it after to keep the original file accepted by validation tools. But it doesn't exactly sound like a clean solution. I'm looking for something I could put in the original ePub file (that would pass validation), so that once converted to Mobi by Calibre my Kindle would open the book (for the first time) at the cover page (which is on titlepage.xhtml)... Is this possible?

Sorry to insist—just trying to find a good/clean workflow before I format/convert more books. I appreciate your help.
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Old 04-26-2011, 06:33 PM   #10
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Quote:
Seems like an obvious question, but just in case: can I do this in the ePub (explode it with Calibre and edit it)? Then convert to Mobi and send to Kindle.
Yes, you can use the Calibre's epub tweak to make those small edits, then rebuild the epub and convert to mobi.
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Old 04-26-2011, 06:54 PM   #11
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I think for ePubs, you're supposed to use type="text" rather than "start", which is a Mobi-ism.

But I've never actually bothered creating real ePubs back from my converted/fixed files; just Mobis good enough to work on my Kindle, so I have no idea whether it'll validate or not.
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Old 04-26-2011, 07:22 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ATDrake View Post
I think for ePubs, you're supposed to use type="text" rather than "start", which is a Mobi-ism.

But I've never actually bothered creating real ePubs back from my converted/fixed files; just Mobis good enough to work on my Kindle, so I have no idea whether it'll validate or not.
"text" is indeed an accepted value!

Unfortunately, there still must be something I'm doing wrong because it doesn't pass Flight Crew. I get this message "attribute 'name' is not declared for element 'a'"...

Here is the line in question: <div><a name="text"/><img alt="cover" class="sgc-1" src="../Images/cover.jpg" /></div>

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong with this <a name="text"/> thingy? It's getting more ePub-specific though so maybe I will try the ePub forum if I can't find an answer soonish.

Thanks again!
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Old 04-26-2011, 07:37 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mtrahan View Post
Hrm, it doesn't work to add <reference type="start" title="Start here" href="starthere.html"/> in the OPF—"start" type isn't a an accepted value in ePub so I can't do that (since my source file for mobi is ePub). My original file doesn't pass the Flight Crew validation if I leave this part in the OPF...
We discussed the same problem in the german subforum yesterday. Our current solution/workaround is using reference type="preface" instead of "start". Try adding <reference type="preface" title="Start here" href="starthere.html"/> to your opf-guide.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mtrahan View Post
"text" is indeed an accepted value!
Yes, "text" is an accepted value for ePub but doesn't give the expected result after conversion to mobi.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mtrahan View Post
I get this message "attribute 'name' is not declared for element 'a'"...

Here is the line in question: <div><a name="text"/><img alt="cover" class="sgc-1" src="../Images/cover.jpg" /></div>
Use the id-attribute instead of name. (<a id=".."/>)
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Old 04-26-2011, 07:43 PM   #14
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Quote:
Yes, "text" is an accepted value for ePub but doesn't give the expected result after conversion to mobi.
Type="text" achieves the expected result when creating the mobi from an ePub with kindlegen, so it must be a difference in calibre's conversion method.
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Old 04-26-2011, 07:51 PM   #15
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Quote:
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Type="text" achieves the expected result when creating the mobi from an ePub with kindlegen, so it must be a difference in calibre's conversion method.
Yes, i think calibre just ignores type="text" (as well as almost all other guide reference types) when converting to mobi.
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