table of contents in merged EPubs ?

[Jacques Q.]

Hello.
If I want to merge quite a few "heavy" EPubs (for instance assembling the "Complete Works" of a given writer), it can become really difficult, when reading the EPub thus obtained, to find one specific work in it. The only way I managed to work around this issue (and it's not a very good and efficient one) is to then convert to Word and back to EPub, because Word will usually add a "Summary" section at the beginning that will link to the various parts, but it tends to mix books with parts and chapters and it can become a mess.
So my question is simple : is there a way to create/include a table of contents (an optional one, that is, it's not needed for all merged EPubs) at the beginning of EPubs merged with EPubMerge, the like of what one finds at the beginning of many e-books (like a list of chapters in many commercial EPubs, or a more detailed table with various degrees and subdivisions like in Delphi collections for instance) ?
Thanks a lot in advance for any help.

[enuddleyarbl]

I don't know if it can be done in EpubMerge and I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for. But, in the Calibre Editor > Tools > Table of Contents, you can Edit the TOC and insert an inline version of it. The problem is that it would overwrite anything you already have as that TOC and you'd have to make sure your book is set up to be automatically TOCized using those tools.

For me, under Edit Table of Contents, I use the Generate TOC from all Headings" option. But, I make sure the title of the book on the title page (not the cover page) is set as an <h1> heading. Then if there are any sections in the book, their titles are given <h2>s and the chapters are given <h3>. Without sections, the chapters get <h2>. Then I use the "Insert Inline TOC" to put a copy of the toc at the front of the book for easy access.

In your case, I'd guess the compilation title page would be given that <h1>, each book's title page <h2>, any sections <h3> and any chapter <h4>. But, there are other ways to do it Also, the Edit TOC thing can generate TOCs from links and files (as well as XPath, but I don't know what that is).

[JimmXinu]

The EpubMerge plugin does not have an ability to add an in-line TOC. Nor am I really interested in adding one.

As enuddleyarbl pointed out, Calibre's built-in ebook Edit feature can insert an in-line TOC in your (merged) EPUB. I did a little bit of testing and found:

1. It only puts the TOC at the very front--before the cover, even. But you can move it by just dragging the file in the Edit file browser.
2. It uses the existing metadata TOC as source. So if there are nested entries, they will be nested in the in-line TOC. You don't need to worry about all the TOC generation features unless you are editing the metadata TOC.
3. You can edit the generated TOC as you like without changing the metadata TOC.

Calibre can also insert an in-line TOC using Calibre Convert from EPUB to EPUB. On the Convert > EPUB Output settings page, there are options to 'Insert TOC' and 'Put inserted TOC at end' instead of beginning. I assume it uses the same code as the Edit TOC insert.

While EpubMerge works very hard to change as little as possible, Calibre Convert re-writes basically everything. For many (most?) ebooks this is invisible, but it can sometimes cause problems. The only reason to favor inserting TOC with Convert instead of Edit is because you can do it to any number of ebooks at once.

[Jacques Q.]

Thanks very much, I'll try both options.