What exactly is required in the book files for chapters to display?

Aurum2836C · 04-08-2018, 02:15 PM

My stuff:
- Kobo Glo HD (FW 4.3.9084)
- transferring epubs to the device through calibre & the KoboUtilities plugin
- using the reading settings to display progress for current chapter

Some books will display the chapter title/number in the footer, some do not.

I've read a thread that said kepubs need to have 1 file per chapter to enable chapters to display in the footer on a kobo...but what else?

Is there something specific in the html or css like a special id tag that gets picked up? It doesn't seem to be the <title> tag in the <head> & many of the id tags don't match what's displayed when a chapter title is displayed.

Does it take it from the TOC? If so, does it have to be from an html TOC or maybe from the toc.ncx? Most of the displayed chapter titles do seem to match the html TOC versus the toc.ncx file.

Does it have something to do with Adobe Page Templates?

I'd appreciate any insight into this. Thank you.

DNSB · 04-08-2018, 04:08 PM

Basically, you need a kepub not an epub. The few times I've played with kepubs, I've used either the KoboTouchExtended plugin to convert the epubs to kepubs on the fly to send to my Kobo ereader or I've used an external program called kepubify to convert epubs to kepub.epubs and added them to an separate calibre library before sending them.

My personal preference is epubs since I don't like some of the differences in the ACCESS NetFront renderer compared to the Adobe RMSDK renderer. The only time I use kepubs is for the few epub3 ebooks where they make use of epub3 features that cause problems for the Adobe RMSDK such as fixed layout epub3 ebooks.

If interested, you can check the following link for more information: Kobo ePub Guidelines.

Aurum2836C · 04-08-2018, 04:47 PM

I thought conversion to kepub was what the KoboUtilities plugin did. It says I have the KoboTouchExtended driver activated.

If the KoboUtilities plugin does indeed convert epubs to kepubs, then what are those books missing? If conversion to kepub (via the calibre plugin or standalone kepubify) still doesn't generate whatever it is that the footer takes to fill in the chapter title then those books must be missing something specific for the chapter titles.

I did look at the Kobo Guidelines but still can't figure out what actually is used to identify the chapter titles to put into the footer. I even tried to go through the IDPF EPUB Publications with no luck.

I would think it has to be some sort of tag or identifier located in the book files, either from the individual html files themselves or from a compliation of the tags/ids into a content file or from the TOC.

Or could it be something in a hidden file?

jackie_w · 04-08-2018, 07:27 PM

As far as I can tell kepubs display 'chapter number/name – page x of y' as the standard page footer if:

the current kepub content file has an entry in the TOC NCX file. The 'chapter number/name' label will match the NCX label for this content file. **
Reading Settings: Display progress for: Current chapter
Reading Settings: Display progress as: Page number
As far as I'm aware it has nothing to do with any html TOC or Adobe Page Template. I have always removed both of these files from all my books before reading as part of my standard cleanup workflow.

** Note: This is true if your kepub was created from an EPUB2 source. If your source is an EPUB3 I don't know whether the labels come from the TOC NAV file rather than the TOC NCX. I can't easily test this because all my kepubs created from EPUB3 always have one-to-one matching NAV and NCX entries.

FYI: It is the calibre KoboTouchExtended driver which can be configured to do an on-the-fly format-shift (not a conversion) from epub to kepub, not the Kobo Utilities plugin.

Aurum2836C · 04-08-2018, 08:31 PM

Ah ha. That seems to work but with a bit of weirdness...

The books in question did have the toc.ncx file but this didn't seem to register properly until I edited the TOC & saved them again. Not sure why.

I specifically opened these books in Sigil 0.9.9 & looked at them. They all had a complete toc.ncx file with the entries in the original files but the chapter titles only showed up in my device if I opened the TOC (via Sigil), edited at least 1 entry, saved it then sent it to my device via calibre/Kobo plugin with the "edited" version.

This worked only if the toc.ncx file changed at least once in Sigil via the "edit the TOC" menu option. I essentially changed an entry, checked that it actually changed, then changed it back to the original chapter title, checked that it had changed back, closed the TOC editor, saved the epub, added it back into calibre & sent it to my device in the same manner as before.

I don't know if doing the same with the calibre editor would do the same thing. Also, all the books I have in question have been epub2.

Of note, the original book files did show a TOC in my Kobo Glo HD & their toc.nx files looked proper. But when reading these on my device, the checkmark (via the <-> menu) to show which chapter I was on wasn't accurate which says something wasn't right with the TOC matching to the page turns. I didn't change anything in the books in Sigil beyond doing the edit of the text (& then edit back) of the chapter titles in the TOC. I didn't touch any of the actual tags or links in the books. All of those books had a toc.ncx file to begin with, too, that looked otherwise proper & complete. Just some weird quirk of the coding I suppose.

Thank you. Browsing through the forums I realize many people don't like having any footer (or header) at all but I'm of the group that likes to see which chapter I'm on. Plus, I have a preference for box sets/anthologies & I like to see which book I'm on in the set.

Thanks again.

DNSB · 04-09-2018, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aurum2836C

I thought conversion to kepub was what the KoboUtilities plugin did. It says I have the KoboTouchExtended driver activated.

The KoboUtilities plugin does many things but it has nothing to do with converting epub to kepub to send to your ereader. If you have both the KoboTouch and KoboTouchExtended drivers installed, it will allow you to switch between them and access the active driver's configuration dialog. Have you enabled the Enable Extended Kobo Features under the Extended tab in the KoboTouchExtended driver configuration?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aurum2836C

If the KoboUtilities plugin does indeed convert epubs to kepubs, then what are those books missing? If conversion to kepub (via the calibre plugin or standalone kepubify) still doesn't generate whatever it is that the footer takes to fill in the chapter title then those books must be missing something specific for the chapter titles.

A kepub requires a TOC entry for every file in the text segment. For an epub2, if the toc.ncx is missing an entry, it will taken from the content.opf file and Kobo's CMS system will generate an entry. For an epub3, the nav.xhtml document is used first, then toc.ncx, then the content.opf spine entries. Since you are not using the Kobo CMS for the conversion, you may have issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aurum2836C

I did look at the Kobo Guidelines but still can't figure out what actually is used to identify the chapter titles to put into the footer. I even tried to go through the IDPF EPUB Publications with no luck.

I would think it has to be some sort of tag or identifier located in the book files, either from the individual html files themselves or from a compliation of the tags/ids into a content file or from the TOC.

Or could it be something in a hidden file?

See Section 9 (Table of Contents) in the Kobo Epub Guidelines. For an epub2, the key files are the toc.ncx and content.opf documents. For an epub3, the default navigation document is nav.html file followed by toc.ncx and then content.opf. Note that the toc.ncx and nav.(x)html filenames are not necessarily fixed as long the content.opf document points to the correct filenames.

<item id="ncx" href="toc.ncx" media-type="application/x-dtbncx+xml"/>
<item id="nav" href="Text/nav.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml" properties="nav"/>

Another item to check if you have issues with cover images is that the cover image entry in content.opf has the 'properties="cover-image"' tag.

<item href="Images/cover.jpg" id="cover-image" media-type="image/jpeg" properties="cover-image"/>

Personally, I would not recommend editing any of the control files unless you are familiar with editing epubs. If you do, make sure you have a backup copy saved first.

When using Sigil, I would recommend installing both the FlightCrew and epubcheck plugins. I use both for epub2 and epubcheck for epub3. Either does a much better job than the builtin check (the F7 one) and for epub2, there are errors that only one will catch.

Please note that Sigil can make changes to the file structure when you open and save an epub without any notification. The saved epub will match Sigil's standard file structure with 2 directories and one file in the root (OEBPS, META-INF and the mimetype file). META-INF contains one file called container.xml while OEBPS contains the Images, Styles and Text directories, along with the toc.ncx (if present) and the content.opf files. This also requires making changes to files as needed to make sure that links are still pointing to the right file. This is not actually a requirement of the epub2 or epub3 standards but is considered as a good practice compared to jamming every file in the root of the .zip file. Other directories that may be found in the OEBPS directory are Fonts (no extra points for guessing what gets stored there

) and Misc which gets the odds and sods (Apple required files, font information files, etc.).

Aurum2836C · 04-09-2018, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

The KoboUtilities plugin does many things but it has nothing to do with converting epub to kepub to send to your ereader. If you have both the KoboTouch and KoboTouchExtended drivers installed, it will allow you to switch between them and access the active driver's configuration dialog. Have you enabled the Enable Extended Kobo Features under the Extended tab in the KoboTouchExtended driver configuration?

Yes, I double checked via the calbire preferences --> change calibre behavior --> advanced --> plugins --> KoboTouchExtended --> Extended --> checkmark on beside Enable Extended Kobo Features

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

A kepub requires a TOC entry for every file in the text segment. For an epub2, if the toc.ncx is missing an entry, it will taken from the content.opf file and Kobo's CMS system will generate an entry. For an epub3, the nav.xhtml document is used first, then toc.ncx, then the content.opf spine entries. Since you are not using the Kobo CMS for the conversion, you may have issues.

Strangely, the original problem books did have a toc.ncx that visually looked just like the non-problem books in Sigil. Some problem books did have a cover-image tag, some did not yet many of the working books did not have a specific cover-image tag so it didn't seem like that was the problem.

I used to have various plugins in my older Sigil but at some point I stopped adding them with the Sigil upgrades. I'll look into getting those back.

Sigil without the plugins still definitely did something to fix the problem but only if I manually edited the existing TOC - which I did via it's edit-the-TOC menu option & only changed the text portion not the link. So something broken got fixed along the way somewhere.

Thank you so much for the all info! I've still got lots to learn.

davidfor · 04-09-2018, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aurum2836C

Strangely, the original problem books did have a toc.ncx that visually looked just like the non-problem books in Sigil. Some problem books did have a cover-image tag, some did not yet many of the working books did not have a specific cover-image tag so it didn't seem like that was the problem.

I used to have various plugins in my older Sigil but at some point I stopped adding them with the Sigil upgrades. I'll look into getting those back.

Sigil without the plugins still definitely did something to fix the problem but only if I manually edited the existing TOC - which I did via it's edit-the-TOC menu option & only changed the text portion not the link. So something broken got fixed along the way somewhere.

Any change you made to the ToC in Sigil would have triggered a complete rewrite of the NCX file. If there was a problem with it, then this is very likely to have fixed it.

jackie_w · 04-09-2018, 09:43 AM

@Aurum2836C,

Something else you might need to know about reading on a Kobo is that it stores the TOC details in its database when the epub/kepub is originally imported. It may be the only ereader brand which does this.

If you resend a book by copying on top of the original (rather than deleting the original then resending), problems will happen if the TOC has changed or if the book's internal file structure has changed between the old and new versions. Sigil automatically enforces its own specific file structure when you open an epub, so you may not even be aware that the file structure has changed.

If your epub edits are something simple like correcting typos or changing CSS styles then you'll probably get away with a simple copy new on top of old. Unless, of course, the epub/kepub filename has also changed - in which case you'd end up with 2 copies of the same book.

Nothing's ever as straightforward as you hope, is it?

davidfor · 04-09-2018, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackie_w

@Aurum2836C,

Something else you might need to know about reading on a Kobo is that it stores the TOC details in its database when the epub/kepub is originally imported. It may be the only ereader brand which does this.

If you resend a book by copying on top of the original (rather than deleting the original then resending),

Actually, unless the replacement file is exactly the same size, an updated book will be removed and then added as a new book.

But, the KoboTouch driver in calibre cheats. If you resend a book, it updates the stored file size in the database to prevent this from happening. This basically because I find it much more useful to not treat the update as a complete replacement. And if I did need to, I can always delete the book from the device first.

rashkae · 04-10-2018, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

Actually, unless the replacement file is exactly the same size, an updated book will be removed and then added as a new book.

But, the KoboTouch driver in calibre cheats. If you resend a book, it updates the stored file size in the database to prevent this from happening. This basically because I find it much more useful to not treat the update as a complete replacement. And if I did need to, I can always delete the book from the device first.

.....

Ummm, would there be a way to disable that feature?

davidfor · 04-10-2018, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rashkae

.....

Ummm, would there be a way to disable that feature?

I'm assuming you mean in the driver. Not at the moment. I've been meaning to add an option for it, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

04-08-2018, 02:15 PM	#1
Aurum2836C Member Posts: 10 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2016 Device: kobo glo hd	What exactly is required in the book files for chapters to display? My stuff: - Kobo Glo HD (FW 4.3.9084) - transferring epubs to the device through calibre & the KoboUtilities plugin - using the reading settings to display progress for current chapter Some books will display the chapter title/number in the footer, some do not. I've read a thread that said kepubs need to have 1 file per chapter to enable chapters to display in the footer on a kobo...but what else? Is there something specific in the html or css like a special id tag that gets picked up? It doesn't seem to be the <title> tag in the <head> & many of the id tags don't match what's displayed when a chapter title is displayed. Does it take it from the TOC? If so, does it have to be from an html TOC or maybe from the toc.ncx? Most of the displayed chapter titles do seem to match the html TOC versus the toc.ncx file. Does it have something to do with Adobe Page Templates? I'd appreciate any insight into this. Thank you.

04-08-2018, 07:27 PM	#4
jackie_w Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,251 Karma: 16539642 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: UK Device: ClaraHD, Forma, Libra2, Clara2E, LibraCol, PBTouchHD3	As far as I can tell kepubs display 'chapter number/name – page x of y' as the standard page footer if: the current kepub content file has an entry in the TOC NCX file. The 'chapter number/name' label will match the NCX label for this content file. Reading Settings: Display progress for: Current chapter Reading Settings: Display progress as: Page number As far as I'm aware it has nothing to do with any html TOC or Adobe Page Template. I have always removed both of these files from all my books before reading as part of my standard cleanup workflow. Note: This is true if your kepub was created from an EPUB2 source. If your source is an EPUB3 I don't know whether the labels come from the TOC NAV file rather than the TOC NCX. I can't easily test this because all my kepubs created from EPUB3 always have one-to-one matching NAV and NCX entries. FYI: It is the calibre KoboTouchExtended driver which can be configured to do an on-the-fly format-shift (not a conversion) from epub to kepub, not the Kobo Utilities plugin.

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04-08-2018, 04:08 PM	#2
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 46,191 Karma: 168983734 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	Basically, you need a kepub not an epub. The few times I've played with kepubs, I've used either the KoboTouchExtended plugin to convert the epubs to kepubs on the fly to send to my Kobo ereader or I've used an external program called kepubify to convert epubs to kepub.epubs and added them to an separate calibre library before sending them. My personal preference is epubs since I don't like some of the differences in the ACCESS NetFront renderer compared to the Adobe RMSDK renderer. The only time I use kepubs is for the few epub3 ebooks where they make use of epub3 features that cause problems for the Adobe RMSDK such as fixed layout epub3 ebooks. If interested, you can check the following link for more information: Kobo ePub Guidelines.

04-08-2018, 04:47 PM	#3
Aurum2836C Member Posts: 10 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2016 Device: kobo glo hd	I thought conversion to kepub was what the KoboUtilities plugin did. It says I have the KoboTouchExtended driver activated. If the KoboUtilities plugin does indeed convert epubs to kepubs, then what are those books missing? If conversion to kepub (via the calibre plugin or standalone kepubify) still doesn't generate whatever it is that the footer takes to fill in the chapter title then those books must be missing something specific for the chapter titles. I did look at the Kobo Guidelines but still can't figure out what actually is used to identify the chapter titles to put into the footer. I even tried to go through the IDPF EPUB Publications with no luck. I would think it has to be some sort of tag or identifier located in the book files, either from the individual html files themselves or from a compliation of the tags/ids into a content file or from the TOC. Or could it be something in a hidden file?

04-08-2018, 08:31 PM	#5
Aurum2836C Member Posts: 10 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2016 Device: kobo glo hd	Ah ha. That seems to work but with a bit of weirdness... The books in question did have the toc.ncx file but this didn't seem to register properly until I edited the TOC & saved them again. Not sure why. I specifically opened these books in Sigil 0.9.9 & looked at them. They all had a complete toc.ncx file with the entries in the original files but the chapter titles only showed up in my device if I opened the TOC (via Sigil), edited at least 1 entry, saved it then sent it to my device via calibre/Kobo plugin with the "edited" version. This worked only if the toc.ncx file changed at least once in Sigil via the "edit the TOC" menu option. I essentially changed an entry, checked that it actually changed, then changed it back to the original chapter title, checked that it had changed back, closed the TOC editor, saved the epub, added it back into calibre & sent it to my device in the same manner as before. I don't know if doing the same with the calibre editor would do the same thing. Also, all the books I have in question have been epub2. Of note, the original book files did show a TOC in my Kobo Glo HD & their toc.nx files looked proper. But when reading these on my device, the checkmark (via the <-> menu) to show which chapter I was on wasn't accurate which says something wasn't right with the TOC matching to the page turns. I didn't change anything in the books in Sigil beyond doing the edit of the text (& then edit back) of the chapter titles in the TOC. I didn't touch any of the actual tags or links in the books. All of those books had a toc.ncx file to begin with, too, that looked otherwise proper & complete. Just some weird quirk of the coding I suppose. Thank you. Browsing through the forums I realize many people don't like having any footer (or header) at all but I'm of the group that likes to see which chapter I'm on. Plus, I have a preference for box sets/anthologies & I like to see which book I'm on in the set. Thanks again.

04-09-2018, 09:43 AM	#9
jackie_w Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,251 Karma: 16539642 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: UK Device: ClaraHD, Forma, Libra2, Clara2E, LibraCol, PBTouchHD3	@Aurum2836C, Something else you might need to know about reading on a Kobo is that it stores the TOC details in its database when the epub/kepub is originally imported. It may be the only ereader brand which does this. If you resend a book by copying on top of the original (rather than deleting the original then resending), problems will happen if the TOC has changed or if the book's internal file structure has changed between the old and new versions. Sigil automatically enforces its own specific file structure when you open an epub, so you may not even be aware that the file structure has changed. If your epub edits are something simple like correcting typos or changing CSS styles then you'll probably get away with a simple copy new on top of old. Unless, of course, the epub/kepub filename has also changed - in which case you'd end up with 2 copies of the same book. Nothing's ever as straightforward as you hope, is it?

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