CoolReader Doesn't See TOC?

[Blossom]

How do I get Cool Reader to see the TOC of a book?
Do I need to convert my books to a different format or add a certain tag?
Right now I'm using a epub which has a TOC but Coolreader doesn't see it.

I'm totally in love with Coolreader. When I found out I don't have font limitations of just 5 custom fonts. I can add as many as I want! I decided to switch to it instead of MOBI.

Now what is the best format for coolreader so the book will see the TOC, skip chapters...etc

TIA

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Blossom

How do I get Cool Reader to see the TOC of a book?
Do I need to convert my books to a different format or add a certain tag?
Right now I'm using a epub which has a TOC but Coolreader doesn't see it.

I'm totally in love with Coolreader. When I found out I don't have font limitations of just 5 custom fonts. I can add as many as I want! I decided to switch to it instead of MOBI.

Now what is the best format for coolreader so the book will see the TOC, skip chapters...etc

TIA

As far as EPUB goes, CoolReader is still a work in progress. I do not see a TOC in EPUB with CoolReader even though I know I created one. My favorite format with the current state of CoolReader is FB2. CoolReader handles those very well, as long as you do NOT use Calibre to create the FB2. CoolReader will create a TOC, on the fly, from all the <title> tags in the FB2 book. You can create FB2 files easily with either BookDesigner or OOoFBTools for OpenOffice. Books created with those tools should easily fit the FB2 Schema standard and pass the FB2 Validator, while the Calibre FB2 conversions unfortunately will not.

[Blossom]

Oh I use BookDesigner to make these books so I can just use the source HTMLs to make a fb2?

Normally I make the book in Bookdesigner then save as HTML import to Calibre and make a MOBI file so I would save it as FB2 instead correct?

I notice epubs made using calibre The links don't work they take me back to the beginning of a book.

Good thing I saved all my source files! I got lots of book to convert now.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Oh I use BookDesigner to make these books so I can just use the source HTMLs to make a fb2?

Yes, BookDesigner makes excellent FB2 files. There is one little bug that can cause problems with some books. BookDesigner outputs " amp;" when it should output " &amp;" ( quotes are mine) when it makes FB2 files. I just do a global search and replace in a text editor to fix that in a few seconds. The reason for the " &amp;" is that the & character is a special character in XML. You also should tell BookDesigner to output UTF-8 character codes.

There is also another program that can do batch conversions to FB2 if your source is HTML. The name of that program is Any2FB2, and can easily be found with a Google search. I have never used it though, so I can not say how good it is. In the case of BookDesigner, what you see in BookDesigner is just about exactly how it will look in CoolReader. Since you are interested in a TOC, you need to be sure that all your chapter titles are tagged with the <title> tag.

Originally Posted by Blossom

Normally I make the book in Bookdesigner then save as HTML import to Calibre and make a MOBI file so I would save it as FB2 instead correct?

Yes, you can also add a book cover, author, and book title metadata when you tell BookDesigner to save as FB2.

Originally Posted by Blossom

I notice epubs made using calibre The links don't work they take me back to the beginning of a book.

If you want to make epubcheck 1.0.5 compliant EPUB after you make an FB2 book, you can do that very simply with the free FB2EPUB program. That program makes a fully specification compliant EPUB from an FB2 in just seconds, but I usually do a few minor changes in Sigil, like removing subtitles from the TOC.

[Blossom]

Thanks so much!

One thing I have learned today is CR3 can't read links with spaces in it. I've also notice you can't select the link at the top of the page. It highlights the second down on any page of links.

I've been using BD to insert a TOC at the beginning of the html as work around for the missing TOC

While I can fix link space issue the other makes it hard to navigate when that is the chapter you want to go to.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Thanks so much!

One thing I have learned today is CR3 can't read links with spaces in it. I've also notice you can't select the link at the top of the page. It highlights the second down on any page of links.

I've been using BD to insert a TOC at the beginning of the html as work around for the missing TOC

While I can fix link space issue the other makes it hard to navigate when that is the chapter you want to go to.

Ahhh, it sounds like you are making an in-line TOC? I have never used that capability because I never did like a TOC placed at the beginning of the book. I use the "Table of Contents" that CoolReader automatically creates from the chapter titles. I just use a very simple TOC, but CR3 will include anything that is marked with the <title> tag. The key that brings up the look aside TOC is CoolReader's "Go to page dialog key" that I have assigned to "3" in my case.

[Blossom]

Thanks again. That works good for FB2 but not so much it seems for EPUB which is why I added the inline TOC because I can hold down 4 key and go to beginning where the inline TOC is if I need to.

I had such a hard time figuring out why CR3 was ignoring my page breaks in epubs. it seems if there is a chapter graphic under the chapter header it wont break the page. Works fine in FBReader Desktop but not in CoolReader Desktop or Lbook's CR.

Also you're source htm file name inside the epub can't have any special characters or spaces or the links just wont work at all. This seems to include Apostrophes too.

Being new to EPUBs this is taking some time to learn. MOBI is a breeze to make compare to them. lol