Table of Contents Issue

[Tango Mike]

Using Word 2008 for Mac (OS10.6.3) I've formatted about 30 books for conversion to epub and mobi with Calibre, and in all cases, I've included a manual TOC within Word that links the TOC to the chapters and the chapters back to the TOC because I believe this is a nice feature for ease of navigation within the eBook. I realize this is not required for Calibre's auto-generated TOC function, and that some feel it's redundant. But whether it is or isn't, the results have been flawless, with both the manual and auto-generated TOCs working as advertised.

All of this previous work has been done with Word document generated from a new file on my computer, but I've now re-formatted a friend's manuscript and something's happening with the auto-TOC that baffles me. The manual TOC function is perfect: Preface, Chapters One through Ten, Appendix A-C, and Bibliography.

But for some reason, the auto-TOC is missing the Preface, Chapter One, all of the Appendices and the Bibliography. As far as I can tell, I didn't create those missing elements any differently than the others, and they all use the Heading1 style. Chapters Two through Ten are listed and functioning.

I checked preferences and found the "Force auto-TOC generation" turned off, but I'd never turned it on before and haven't had this problem. I turned it on and reconverted the file with the same results. Calibre isn't recognizing these seven elements.

Any suggestions on what might be wrong?

Thanks.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Tango Mike

Using Word 2008 for Mac (OS10.6.3) I've formatted about 30 books for conversion to epub and mobi with Calibre, and in all cases, I've included a manual TOC within Word that links the TOC to the chapters and the chapters back to the TOC because I believe this is a nice feature for ease of navigation within the eBook. I realize this is not required for Calibre's auto-generated TOC function, and that some feel it's redundant. But whether it is or isn't, the results have been flawless, with both the manual and auto-generated TOCs working as advertised.

All of this previous work has been done with Word document generated from a new file on my computer, but I've now re-formatted a friend's manuscript and something's happening with the auto-TOC that baffles me. The manual TOC function is perfect: Preface, Chapters One through Ten, Appendix A-C, and Bibliography.

But for some reason, the auto-TOC is missing the Preface, Chapter One, all of the Appendices and the Bibliography. As far as I can tell, I didn't create those missing elements any differently than the others, and they all use the Heading1 style. Chapters Two through Ten are listed and functioning.

I checked preferences and found the "Force auto-TOC generation" turned off, but I'd never turned it on before and haven't had this problem. I turned it on and reconverted the file with the same results. Calibre isn't recognizing these seven elements.

Any suggestions on what might be wrong?

Thanks.

Moderator Notice
Moved to conversions

You need to set up the Conversions TOC template to pick up those additional section headings.
I am at a loss why Chapter 1 is not detected. It might be the markup for that is different.
Note that it might be easier to fix the missing additional TOC items in Sigil than fight getting all the tiny details nailed to add the proper XPATH notation to the detection

[Tango Mike]

My apologies for posting this in the wrong place.

I appreciate the suggestion. The author is planning to offer this book only on Kindle. I'm using a Mac, so I have no alternatives (I don't think) for converting to mobi except Calibre.

For all my conversions to both epub and mobi I've been using doc>filtered htm>Calibre>epub and then again using the original doc for conversion to mobi. I did it this way under the novice uninformed assumption that it would be better than doc>htm>epub>mobi (or vice versa).

I recently began using Sigil for an epub uploaded to iTunes.

To implement your suggestion, if I converted this source .doc to epub with Sigil and then to mobi with Calibre, are there advantages to this workflow other than using Sigil to help correct the TOC issue?

Thanks for your expertise.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Tango Mike

My apologies for posting this in the wrong place.

I appreciate the suggestion. The author is planning to offer this book only on Kindle. I'm using a Mac, so I have no alternatives (I don't think) for converting to mobi except Calibre.

For all my conversions to both epub and mobi I've been using doc>filtered htm>Calibre>epub and then again using the original doc for conversion to mobi. I did it this way under the novice uninformed assumption that it would be better than doc>htm>epub>mobi (or vice versa).

I recently began using Sigil for an epub uploaded to iTunes.

To implement your suggestion, if I converted this source .doc to epub with Sigil and then to mobi with Calibre, are there advantages to this workflow other than using Sigil to help correct the TOC issue?

Thanks for your expertise.

Calibre can't convert DOC, so whatever work flow works out must be a good one (till something better comes along)