Basic question about "one chapter" books

[Filmbrain]

Hi all --

This is probably a very basic question, but I just can't seem to figure it out.

I've imported a text into Sigil that I want to turn into an ebook. Yet the book is, in essence, one long chapter, even though it's 300+ pages.

From what I've learned about ebook creation, it's better to split the text into multiple .xhtml files, as one large file takes longer to open on e-readers.

However, when I do that and read the book on my Kobo Aura (using Calibre and a plugin that turns epub into kepub) it treats each of my breaks as a new chapter, and the page info in the footer while I'm reading reflects that.

Is there a way to properly split a long text into multiple parts but not have it create individual chapters out of them?

Thanks in advance!

[murg]

What you are seeing is Kobo's standard behaviour.

It may be possible that other readers behave differently, but I'd tend to doubt it.

[Toxaris]

No, this is on all readers. It is according to the specifications. A new file always starts on a new page. There is no way around this.
The number of pages are not that important actually. What is important is the file size of the XHTML. It must not exceed 280kb, otherwise some readers will either not be able to open/read it or will become very slow very fast. You can use the report function to check the file sizes.
Even if it is only one chapter, there are usually some break points possible.

[Jellby]

There's no "chapter" definition in ePub, Kobo simply calls "chapter" the internal files, because that's usually how they are split, but there's no one-to-one relationship between Kobo chapters and real chapters.

[Filmbrain]

Thank you all so much for the clarification. Guess I just have to live with it....

[theducks]

do your Split at a Logical point to make it less glaring
A scenebreak
A POV change

[eschwartz]

Scenebreaks/POV changes often get pagebreaks anyway, just split the files there.

[cybmole]

it it is for other folks to read, giving them one 300+page chapter with no table of contents navigation points is not ideal.
I hate reading books where there are no tagged splits that I can pause at/ jump to.

if it's only for your own use then no issue

[Notjohn]

It would be interesting to look at A la recherche du temps perdu in an epub edition. The second chapter, "Swann in Love," is 203 pages in my Penguin hardcover. (I do have a Kindle edition of the French text, but Kindle doesn't seem to choke at long files. It's 5MB and all text. The Penguin edition is six hardcover volumes totaling some 3,300 pages.)

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by cybmole

it it is for other folks to read, giving them one 300+page chapter with no table of contents navigation points is not ideal.
I hate reading books where there are no tagged splits that I can pause at/ jump to.

if it's only for your own use then no issue

I've purchased several books (full length books--even from BPHs) that had no chapters--neither named nor numbered. Just scenebreaks. As such, the toc was mainly for stuff like the dedication, acknowledgements, epigraph, and such. Normally such a format is going to be found in fiction/novels--my point is that chapterless books (or books with very, very long and relatively few chapters) aren't all that unusual.

It's a shame epub can't accomodate this stylistic choice without either a) introducing unwanted page breaks, or b) running the risk of using files that are considered "too big" for standard practice/optimum performance.

Sure, a page break between scene-changes may be minimally invasive, but still... if it's unwanted in certain situations, the format probably needs to evolve to accomodate it.

Ah, well. Probably another discussion for another forum.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

It would be interesting to look at A la recherche du temps perdu in an epub edition. The second chapter, "Swann in Love," is 203 pages in my Penguin hardcover. (I do have a Kindle edition of the French text, but Kindle doesn't seem to choke at long files. It's 5MB and all text. The Penguin edition is six hardcover volumes totaling some 3,300 pages.)

The Kindle is one ereader that has never had the filesize issue.

Considering the original MOBI format was one long HTML chunk regardless of input, that is a good thing... and quite natural.

[cybmole]

ePub spec handles that just fine
Some specific older e ink devices choke, others no not.
I read in mantano app on tablet. It has never failed due to a chapter length

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by cybmole

ePub spec handles that just fine
Some specific older e ink devices choke, others no not.
I read in mantano app on tablet. It has never failed due to a chapter length

A tablet does not count in this... The 'issue' is with the e-ink readers. My old PRS-300 couldn't open those big files at all. My PRS-T1 can open larger files, but will get slower the further the progress in the file/chapter. One time I had to wait 3-4 seconds for a page turn instead of almost instant. It is not some older e-ink devices, but almost all.

[cybmole]

Lack of ram on device then ,not a consequence of e_ink. Aura hd is ok with big files

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by murg

What you are seeing is Kobo's standard behaviour.

It may be possible that other readers behave differently, but I'd tend to doubt it.

The kobo does that only with kpub (epubs are ok). I hate that, I want the global page count.