New epub ... TOC not working

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ChaJudLeoBit

On this subject of chapters, if anyone is still around, I'd like to add a question.

I built the TOC of a book in Sigil, but when it was being uploaded to B&N, they said they were not detecting chapters. Anyone know how I can fix this?

Thanks!

Which TOC did you build (write) ?
EPUB does not need an 'inline' (xhtml) TOC

[ChaJudLeoBit]

Thank you so very much for your reply.

I used the TOC builder in Sigil that uses headings. I took a screen shot of the TOC and my manifest to show you.


The B&N instructions say this:

Manifest – The manifest identifies every file contained in the epub – if a file is not identified, it will not be accessible. Example of different file statements:

< item id="pt" href="my_page.xpgt" media-type="application/vnd.adobe-page- template+xml" />
< item id="style" href="mystyle.css" media-type="text/css" />
< item id="image001" href="image001.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg" />
< item id="image002" href="image002.png" media-type="image/png" />
< item id="cover" href="cover_page.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml" />
< item id="toc" href="content_page.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml" />
< item id="ncx" href="toc.ncx" media-type="application/x-dtbncx+xml" />
Note that item id "toc" refers to the physical contents page while item id "ncx" refers to the file that controls eBook navigation.


And I am afraid to make any big changes in my manifest until I understand what I need to change.

Can you offer any advice?

Thanks!
Cat

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ChaJudLeoBit

Thank you so very much for your reply.

I used the TOC builder in Sigil that uses headings. I took a screen shot of the TOC and my manifest to show you.


The B&N instructions say this:

Manifest – The manifest identifies every file contained in the epub – if a file is not identified, it will not be accessible. Example of different file statements:

< item id="pt" href="my_page.xpgt" media-type="application/vnd.adobe-page- template+xml" />
< item id="style" href="mystyle.css" media-type="text/css" />
< item id="image001" href="image001.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg" />
< item id="image002" href="image002.png" media-type="image/png" />
< item id="cover" href="cover_page.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml" />
< item id="toc" href="content_page.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml" />
< item id="ncx" href="toc.ncx" media-type="application/x-dtbncx+xml" />
Note that item id "toc" refers to the physical contents page while item id "ncx" refers to the file that controls eBook navigation.


And I am afraid to make any big changes in my manifest until I understand what I need to change.

Can you offer any advice?

Thanks!
Cat

Did you tell NookPress to use the original file you uploaded, versus a file that they will create "over" the file, inserting their own CSS, etc.?

Hitch

[ChaJudLeoBit]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Did you tell NookPress to use the original file you uploaded, versus a file that they will create "over" the file, inserting their own CSS, etc.?

Hitch

I sent an e-mail to the person who attempted the upload to find out if this was an option. If she chose the second, this would cause the program to be unable to detect chapters?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ChaJudLeoBit

I sent an e-mail to the person who attempted the upload to find out if this was an option. If she chose the second, this would cause the program to be unable to detect chapters?

Well, I suspect that you have two issues.

1. I'm not sure about this one, as it's not clear from your post if your content item in the manifest si simply a sample, or all of it, but I thought you'd said previously that you were splitting the main body of the book into chapter files, but now I don't see that on your manifest; I see a single file indicating content. As I said, not sure about that one.
2. You used a paragraph style for your chapter heads? Not a heading style? Try copying your file, and then regex (search and replace) all your paragraph class headers with Header class headers. Then submit to NookPress, and see if you get a different result.

Never forget: headers are NOT FOR STYLING. They are NOT for crafting how something LOOKS. Headers should not be used instead of creating a CSS class for something like, Bold, 24pt. They are structural. An H2 belongs, outline-wise, below an H1. An H3, below an H2, etc. Somethat like this:

h1.
H2.
H3.

etc.

Paragraphs should go beneath headers, in their appropriate respective levels. It's entirely possible that NookPress only looks for header-classed Chapter heads. It's just an idea as to why NookPress may be failing. If you've not separated out the chapters with splits, do that also.

Hitch

[ChaJudLeoBit]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well, I suspect that you have two issues.

1. I'm not sure about this one, as it's not clear from your post if your content item in the manifest si simply a sample, or all of it, but I thought you'd said previously that you were splitting the main body of the book into chapter files, but now I don't see that on your manifest; I see a single file indicating content. As I said, not sure about that one.
2. You used a paragraph style for your chapter heads? Not a heading style? Try copying your file, and then regex (search and replace) all your paragraph class headers with Header class headers. Then submit to NookPress, and see if you get a different result.

Never forget: headers are NOT FOR STYLING. They are NOT for crafting how something LOOKS. Headers should not be used instead of creating a CSS class for something like, Bold, 24pt. They are structural. An H2 belongs, outline-wise, below an H1. An H3, below an H2, etc. Somethat like this:

h1.
H2.
H3.

etc.

Paragraphs should go beneath headers, in their appropriate respective levels. It's entirely possible that NookPress only looks for header-classed Chapter heads. It's just an idea as to why NookPress may be failing. If you've not separated out the chapters with splits, do that also.

Hitch

I used headers, but I may have chosen H2 instead of H1 because they came out SO BIG. I will go check right now.

I take that back. All chapter headings are H1.
I'll include a screen shot of the chapter list and my TOC.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by ChaJudLeoBit

I used headers, but I may have chosen H2 instead of H1 because they came out SO BIG. I will go check right now.

That is why Hitch already said that the header styles are for structure, not display. By default H1 is big, but you can easily mold into your liking with some CSS. What important is the identification of the header with the header tags.

Have you also created a XHTML TOC as apparently is required by B&N?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ChaJudLeoBit

I used headers, but I may have chosen H2 instead of H1 because they came out SO BIG. I will go check right now.

I take that back. All chapter headings are H1.
I'll include a screen shot of the chapter list and my TOC.

Actually, I was talking, or recalling, Charlene's post in this: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...22&postcount=3 in which she'd used a paragraph class for chapterheads. My bad.

Vis-a-vis this:

I sent an e-mail to the person who attempted the upload to find out if this was an option. If she chose the second, this would cause the program to be unable to detect chapters?

Allowing Nook to make changes to the book allows it to override the CSS, so, yes: it could. Not necessarily will, but could. Why don't you just use your own test account at NookPress and test it yourself? That's what I do when I have a client doing the driving, and I'm not there to see what's happening.

I don't see any immediate reason that your book's chapters shouldn't be detected, except one hairball possibility, which I'd love to say is nuts, but: is it possible that NookPress now also looks for an HTML TOC? Which you don't appear to have in your ePUB? Yes, yes, I know: not needed for ePUB2, and preferably, not used, but I wonder if NookPress is now looking at Word-generated TOC's, which are inline TOC's, for chapters? Just a ponderment.

Also, vis-a-vis this:

I used headers, but I may have chosen H2 instead of H1 because they came out SO BIG.

That's what CSS is for. Fix them there, rather than then choosing a different heading.

Without seeing more, it's very difficult to know what's going on there.

ETA: I see Toxaris got to this post first. What he said.

Hitch

[Simon_M]

Originally Posted by Hitch

That's what CSS is for. Fix them there, rather than then choosing a different heading.

I was going to add this, but you beat me to it! Just to elaborate, level headings (h1/2/3 etc) really have semantic value more than aesthetic - they signify the 'level' of a heading, helping mark out sections from sub-sections and sub-sections of sub-sections. Where possible, best practice is to use the next level down from the nearest parent heading, and if devices style it undesirably then adjust the size using CSS. Each device/rendering engine will have very different ideas of how large/small any particular level heading might need to be displayed at any given font/location.

[mrmikel]

This can be a concept that can be hard to grasp, but there really are two DIFFERENT kinds of tags.

One group, like i, em, b are for prettying up the text. Others like h, are for telling the reader- Attention, this is division of the book, a part, chapter, or subsection.

If it is just for you and you never you use an index, you can get away with mixing them like a mad cocktail party. If it is for publication or someone else, mixing them will give you a hangover as whatever program, publisher or e-reader tries to figure out where the chapters are.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

This can be a concept that can be hard to grasp, but there really are two DIFFERENT kinds of tags.

One group, like i, em, b are for prettying up the text. Others like h, are for telling the reader- Attention, this is division of the book, a part, chapter, or subsection.

If it is just for you and you never you use an index, you can get away with mixing them like a mad cocktail party. If it is for publication or someone else, mixing them will give you a hangover as whatever program, publisher or e-reader tries to figure out where the chapters are.

Actually em is really designed for semantics just as h tags, not for prettying the text. This is why it replaced the i tag. CSS is still used to decide how it should be styled in the book display but em really says to emphasize this text.

And h2 is a perfectly acceptable starting point in a TOC. You do not need to begin with an h1. Some users have been known to use h1 for the title.

Dale

[mrmikel]

I stand corrected. But I don't want to have an ereader decide how it should be emphasized. I like the i!

In most readers, the h1 is very very large, so starting with h2 makes perfect sense.

[LadyKate]

I do my conversions using one file and find that calibre does a great job of splitting the file into chapters when I code it right. Much simpler to keep the entire file together for editing purposes and let the program handle interpreting the code for the splits.

As for not doing a Table of Contents I'm curious why. I personally like a table of contents with a link back for anthologies.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

As for not doing a Table of Contents I'm curious why. I personally like a table of contents with a link back for anthologies.

Because an ePUB2 has an internal TOC already...

[DiapDealer]

An ePub doesn't NEED an inline HTML toc. This is certain.

I see no real downside, however, if it's someone's personal preference to include one. Readers aren't forced to utilize them afterall. "Wolfie don't like 'em" was never a valid enough reason in my eyes.