image order in an epub

[joseph harris]

The order in which images appear in the images folder appears chaotic. Even while inserting graphics the position does not follow a regular method, not even the order of adding.

I want to put images in order. But I have found no information or feature in the program to do so. Is it possible to change the order of the images list?

TIA

[roger64]

Hi

You can open your book with the Calibre editor, select all the images, right click and rename them in bulk. The editor will not only rename them in the image folder but rename them too within the text files.

[Dr. Drib]

Please post responsibly by posting in the correct forum and by reading our Posting Guidelines.

Now moved OUT of the General Discussion Forum and into the epub Forum.



Don
(Moderator)

[Turtle91]

Image order inside of the folder/zip doesn't matter as long as the filename is correctly referenced in the link. It only matters when you open it in an editor program. IIRC both Sigil and Calibre Editor order the images numerically/alphabetically (0-9A-Za-z).

01-img.jpg
02-img.jpg
Bravo.jpg
Delta.jpg
alpha.jpg
charlie.jpg

Roger mentioned you can bulk rename in Calibre, but you can also bulk rename using Sigil. Simply highlight all the images you want to change in the Images folder of the Book Browser window, then right click on one of them and select "Rename" - or type Ctrl-Alt-R - then Sigil will ask what you want to rename it to. It will automatically increment each of the files you have selected (if you have multiple selected, it wont increment if you only have one selected). eg. Img_ becomes Img_1, Img_2, Img_3 etc. If you wish to give it a specific starting number or format you can. eg. Img_010 becomes Img_010, Img_011, Img_012, etc.

I hope that helps!

EDIT: just realize they will be incremented in the order that they appear in the images folder - from top to bottom. You must individually rename them (1.jpg, 2.jpg, 3.jpg) so that they appear in the order you desire...then do a bulk rename and they will stay in that order.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Image order inside of the folder/zip doesn't matter as long as the filename is correctly referenced in the link.

And this is, after all, the crucial point!

[Turtle91]

Although, now that I think on it, if you are running one of those programs that creates an icon for the epub image order can matter. The programs usually make the icon out of the first image in the folder and/or require it to be named "cover".

Other than that, it is just for organization while creating/editing.

[joseph harris]

Don, My apologies.

Roger,

Thanks for that response, but I am not trying to rename the images. I am working in Sigil and creating the book. The images are already numbered, but the list in the image folder is not in sequence.

What I had hoped is that the program would have a straightforward way to order the images. The alternative is to change the order in an html editor; but the risk of error there is higher!

[joseph harris]

Turtle91,

Thanks for the detail. When readers open the image list, in Sigil or Calibre or where available in readers or apps, I want them to see the images in order. The images are already numbered. They illustrate the story and add to the overall impression.

Notjohn, I appreciate the technical needs of the decoders differ from the human :-).

[PeterT]

But the majority of people will never peek under the covers of an epub via an editor like Sigil or calibre's book editor.

They will instead see the images as referenced from the (x)html files that make up your book.

[joseph harris]

Originally Posted by PeterT

But the majority of people will never peek under the covers of an epub via an editor like Sigil or calibre's book editor.

They will instead see the images as referenced from the (x)html files that make up your book.

That's true, PeterT. But there are those that will.

Now I have found the html in "content.opf" within <manifest><manifest \> and, there, the image list is in the order I want. But it stays chaotic on opening a new view of the epub.

It looks as though it is something I cannot achieve - at least not without going into deeper coding than I am familiar with.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

[Turtle91]

IIRC the manifest doesn't require the files to be in order either, just listed...

In any case, the procedure I gave you will reorder the list of images. You say that they are already numbered but not in order as they appear in the book....that doesn't make sense unless you have something before the number in the filename, OR, you don't have them numbered in the proper order. The files will be listed using the 0-9A-Za-z order I mentioned. Could you give us an example of the filenames you see?

I recommend ordering them thusly (for no reason other than it seems like it will make you feel better ):

cover.jpg
img_01.jpg
img_02.jpg
img_03.jpg

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by joseph harris

Thanks for the detail. When readers open the image list, in Sigil or Calibre or where available in readers or apps, I want them to see the images in order. The images are already numbered. They illustrate the story and add to the overall impression.

Originally Posted by joseph harris

What I had hoped is that the program would have a straightforward way to order the images. The alternative is to change the order in an html editor; but the risk of error there is higher!

Based on these comments, I'm not sure you understand what is being said here. Or, that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how images are displayed.

To display images to the reader you need to link those images from within the html page using code like this:

<img alt="" src="../Images/img_01.jpg" />

You need that code for EACH image that you want to show up in the story.

If your images are given a specific name like "firstimageinchapterone.jpg", "secondimageinchaptertwo.jpg", "Oldman.jpg", "49birdsinTahiti.jpg" and you want them to show up in this order:

1. firstimageinchapterone
2. Oldman
3. 49birdsinTahiti
4. secondimageinchaptertwo

Then you must put them into the HTML in that order. As in:

<img alt="" src="../Images/firstimageinchapterone.jpg" />
<img alt="" src="../Images/Oldman.jpg" />
<img alt="" src="../Images/49birdsinTahiti.jpg" />
<img alt="" src="../Images/secondimageinchaptertwo.jpg" />

The Images folder has absolutely nothing to do with what order they are viewed by the reader, they are simply a container to put all your image files in so the device knows where to go look for them.

When you open Calibre or Sigil, the editor program organizes those files in the alphanumeric order mentioned before (0-9A-Za-z) just for your convenience as the creator...not the reader. The files would be listed in the Images folder as:

49birdsinTahiti.jpg
Oldman.jpg
firstimageinchapterone.jpg
secondimageinchaptertwo.jpg

If you are seriously expecting the reader to go over to the images folder and double click on an image as they get to the spot in the book, then you have things a bit backwards.

Cheers,

[theducks]

Since you are using Sigil

You use the 'place image tool' (black screen icon) to place the code for any image in the (image section) list

You can use the same image (file) as many times as you can click . Common repeated use: fleurons used as scene breakers or chapter head decorations

Again: the file name is solely for YOU, the book designer.
You can use lame names : pic01,pic02...
or meaningful descriptive names like shown in Turtle91's post

The book does not care

[joseph harris]

Turtle91 and the ducks,

Thank you both for your further comments. I see I have not been clear enough.
1. the images are numbered according to their order in the book
2. they were added to the Sigil list, and then, via "+", to the epub in the order they appear in the book.

But, neither in the internal Sigil list, nor in the subsequent images folder that is visible in the left window of Sigil, are they in the order one would logically expect.

Here are the first half dozen as they appear:
Sheppard-10 lower leads.gif
Sheppard-12 to Mr Bird's roof.jpg
Sheppard-13 into Mr Bird's house.gif
Sheppard-14 Thornhill plus.gif
Sheppard-2 escape from condemned hold.gif
Sheppard-3 blueskin cuts wild's throat-150.jpg
Sheppard-6 door with bolt.gif

Even if it were raw computer logic one would expect "1" at the top and "11", "15" and "16" in the top batch. And niether "4" or "5" appear in place. The problem is not in the html, since they are in the desired order in that file, "content.opf".

I am one of those that does open the images folder in the Sigil Window - which is how I have my epub and other ebook (except pdf) mostly open. I had noticed the lack of order in other books, and put it down to adding pics randomly and not correcting.

This time it is sensible to have them in the right order in the Sigil left window. None of the things we have so far covered achieves that. My biggest surprise is that a list correctly ordered in the html appears in a different order on screen.

[PeterT]

Remember there need be zero correlation between the sequence of files within the ePub and the sequence that is displayed by a tool like calibre or Sigil (or even WinZip, or any other graphical tool).

The issue is not what order they are stored within the ePub, rather your issue is the order that Sigil or any other tool decides to display the entities in its file selection browser.

If you want to see the order these files appear in the ePub itself your best bet would be to use one of the command line zip utilities to display the 'directory' of the ePub file since it nothing more than a renamed zip file with the requirement that the first entry in the directory is 'mimetype'*which contains the 'string*application/epub+zip' and be stored uncompressed, and unencrypted.