Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
A lot of publisher ePub have both a real ToC and an internal ToC. The real ToC (a lot of the time) will have an entry for this internal ToC. That is plain stupid. I'm already at the ToC. I have no need or desire to go to the internal ToC. So the entry for the internal ToC gets removed. Thus the renumber will happen.
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Jon:
With all due respect, since you are not in the business, you're not grasping the real issue here. You are so "html.toc-blind" that you don't get it.
Many of us have moved on to "optimized ePUBs" for clients--one book to rule them all, in other words. What this means is that we give an ePUB that will work for iBooks, Nook, Kobo and Amazon, amongst others, to a client. What that means is that the ePUB will, of necessity, have an html.toc.
Period. This is the single biggest reason for you to see them.
Moreover, you're making a quantum assumption that
every ePUB-platform displays the ncx. Have you tested every device in existence, to be sure that they do? Of course not, because it's not your job and you don't have "every" device in existence, right? What about those devices that don't? You think every reading app does this?
AND, as I'm pretty sure I've mentioned more than once, the use of the ncx as the "real" TOC is going away in ePUB3. The ncx will not be used for navigation; the "real" TOC will be far more an html.toc than an ncx. I know you know this. Therefore, is there some reason we all can't get over the idea that putting an html.toc in an ePUB is some heinous act of betrayal? I mean, for the love of heaven, you HAVE a functioning ncx, right? So you can go wherever you want? What does having the html.toc cost you? A page flip at most? A speck, an iota of annoyance? The ncx cometh, but now it goeth. Them's the breaks in progress. I personally prefer the ncx, for a million reasons, but...
shrug. I'm not the IDPF.org. I told you before, you should join over
there and raise your voice. Barking about it here is just wasting your breath, so to speak.
And lastly, you are ignoring completely the
most compelling reason for a publisher/author to put an html.toc in the book:
marketing. A potential reader on Nook or Amazon can't see the ncx TOC entries. But they can see the HTML.toc entries, and be enticed by that.
Smart authors can use this to their advantage.
So, unless/until someone comes up with a way for me to make optimized ePUBs with no html.toc in them, that will magically work on Amazon, I expect that you'll keep seeing them in ePUBs. While many of the "conversion" firms out there won't be moving to OE's, many of us will. I mean, why make two books if you can make one?
Just my $.02, FWIW.
Hitch