force table of contents option

[janvanmaar]

Well, I converted Sigil modified epubs to mobi in Calibre a few times and I have tested it right now with the latest versions of both programs, modifying and converting the Calibre manual - the original TOC is preserved correctly. So there must be something specific about this file.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

You're probably correct as it's a single-level TOC.



I don't use Sigil myself. I wouldn't want to imply that either Sigil or calibre has a bug. I do think they do things slightly differently and, personally, I prefer not to mix the two.

thanks to everyone who helped me understand & fix this.i did not test the possible 2nd step redundancy - but your original 3 part suggestion works fine with the calibre mobi reader, thanks. will try on the actual kindle tomorrow but expect it to work there also.

this specific file has now been manipulated by both sigil & calibre, the "magic bullet" was the h3 stuff, & both programs are now handling it as expected.

as for using sigil + calibre generally, I got the recommendation for sigil from this board, as calibre has no find/replace features. I'm now using sigil to fix typos & to remove spurious line feeds, instead of going in & out of .rtf to do that with MS word.

so I maintain & work on an epub version then convert it for kindle. AFAIK there are no sigil like tools for wotking directly with .mobi files.

[jackie_w]

Forget the Sigil vs calibre stuff, I'll edit some of my previous posts to avoid any more confusion.

I've just had another look at the toc.ncx file inside the source epub. It doesn't look right.

This is an extract:

    <navMap>
        <navPoint id="navPoint-1" playOrder="1">
            <navLabel>
                <text>PROLOGUE</text>
            </navLabel>
            <content src="Text/part1.xhtml"/>
        </navPoint>
        <navPoint id="navPoint-2" playOrder="2">
            <navLabel>
                <text></text>
            </navLabel>
            <content src="Text/part2.xhtml"/>
            <navPoint id="navPoint-3" playOrder="3">
                <navLabel>
                    <text>CHAPTER ONE</text>
                </navLabel>
                <content src="Text/part2.xhtml#heading_id_3"/>
            </navPoint>
        </navPoint>

The Prologue entry looks OK. The Chapter One entry is kind-of doubled up. So are many of the other chapters.

If this is tidied up in the source epub, the conversion to mobi should work work OK. I tidied it up by removing the red bits as indicated, for all chapters. However, not everyone would know how to do this nor would they want to.

The conversion settings in post #14 should correct the toc.ncx by recreating from scratch, without having to do manual surgery.

To avoid this problem in the future, one would need to know how the source toc.ncx file got messed up in the first place.

[janvanmaar]

The red part most likely corresponds to the empty h1 tags. But indeed, the history of how the TOC was created would be needed to debug this properly.

[cybmole]

i got hold of the original ebup again & checked. it's toc is exactly as posted above. there are, however, no calibre tags so be seen anywhere, so I have no idea how the epub was created. I have not seen this in any different formats."original source" attached for research only- will remove it later

update - removed now.

[jackie_w]

As you say, there are no tell-tale signs of calibre in this epub. I don't know Sigil well enough to know what to look for. It may just be that the original epub creator thought the TOC was fine because the epub's TOC is fine when you open it in the calibre Viewer or Firefox epubreader. It's only the conversion process which has highlighted the problem.

I guess it will remain a mystery.

I think you'd better remove the attachment before the forum police descend.

[cybmole]

thanks - have done as you suggest - in the meantime I finished the book, whose mystery was slightly less enthralling than this code hunt! - so we can all move on now.