Forma How to "navigate" an epub with notes?

[carpler]

I recently read a book on my Kobo Forma. The text often had links to notes that were shown not at the bottom of the page but at the end of the book.
I could easily click on the link and reach the page that contained the note, but I didn't know how to go back to the page I started from.
Is there a way to do this easily? Does it depend on how the epub is made? Is there any suitable feature in the Kobo Forma firmware?

[Elektron]

I think there's a "go back to page X" option on footnotes. But if you want easy navigation, use kepubify. The footnotes show in a popup.

[PeterT]

One trick I'm known to do is to click the top right hand corner of the page before hitting the bookmark. That way if there is no back arrow Ivan goto my annotations and return to the correct location.

[Nightflyer]

Press that same link number or letter that you can see on the page where you are reading the note.

The same link number or letter that sent you to the note page should be there on the note page and acts like a return link.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Nightflyer

Press that same link number or letter that you can see on the page where you are reading the note.

The same link number or letter that sent you to the note page should be there on the note page and acts like a return link.

Assuming that the person/software that created the epub bothered to create the backlinks. I've seen several cases where the backlink from the note was to the table of contents page.

[carpler]

Originally Posted by Elektron

I think there's a "go back to page X" option on footnotes. But if you want easy navigation, use kepubify. The footnotes show in a popup.

The case I was referring to was links to notes at the end of the book, not footnotes. I have to upload a book with footnotes and check how my Forma behaves.
I don't know kepubify: I look at it very soon!

Originally Posted by PeterT

One trick I'm known to do is to click the top right hand corner of the page before hitting the bookmark. That way if there is no back arrow Ivan goto my annotations and return to the correct location.

Thank you for this trick: I did not think about it.

Originally Posted by Nightflyer

Press that same link number or letter that you can see on the page where you are reading the note.

The same link number or letter that sent you to the note page should be there on the note page and acts like a return link.

I checked and things are just as you described: thanks for the tip!

[davidfor]

If you are reading books with a lot of footnotes, you should consider converting them to kepub. The kepub reader will generally show the footnote as a popup. You can go to the actual footnote from there or cancel out. If you use calibre, you can use the KoboTouchExtended driver to transform the books to kepubs when sending the books to the device, or convert them and send using the built-in KoboTouch driver. If you do not use calibre, you can use kepubify to do the work.

If you want more information about kepubs, there has been a lot of discussion about them and a search should find it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by davidfor

If you are reading books with a lot of footnotes, you should consider converting them to kepub. The kepub reader will generally show the footnote as a popup. You can go to the actual footnote from there or cancel out. If you use calibre, you can use the KoboTouchExtended driver to transform the books to kepubs when sending the books to the device, or convert them and send using the built-in KoboTouch driver. If you do not use calibre, you can use kepubify to do the work.

If you want more information about kepubs, there has been a lot of discussion about them and a search should find it.

I agree. The last eBook I read that had footnotes I wanted to read, I used KePub and I did get popup footnotes. It worked well.

[Elektron]

I suggested kepubify but apparently they're not footnotes. They're links to notes at the end of the ebook.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Elektron

I suggested kepubify but apparently they're not footnotes. They're links to notes at the end of the ebook.

Which, is how footnotes are implemented in ebooks. Some will be at the end of the chapter, but, collecting them all in a separate chapter at the end of the book is common. In any case, the kepub reader looks at the links and destination and decides if they are to be treated as footnotes. From @carpler's description, they are implemented in the book in a way that is intended to be seen as footnotes and it is probably that is who they will be handled.

@carpler: If you want to test this, rename the book on the device to have the "double" extension ".kepub.epub" instead of just ".epub". That should let you see if the footnotes work. There will be issues with the reading location (always opens to the start of a chapter) and bookmarks, but, you can test the look and feel.

[carpler]

Many thanks again for answers!

Yesterday I did some tests with kepubify, but my lack of knowledge made me make mistakes. I transformed an epub into kepub, but I manually renamed the file created by kepubify in the usual "book-title.epub" scheme and for this I think the ebook was not recognized correctly by my ereader: in fact the footnotes are not displayed in a pop-up window, but they were the usual links.
I believe at this point that I should use the Caliber plugin that you have suggested for the next tests (better solution for a newbie user).
Here are my questions.

1) You mentioned the KoboTouchExtended plugin: the author of this plugin suggests installing the two KePub Metadata Reader / Writer plugins as well. What I don't understand is if you also need to install the other plugin by the same author, KePub Output: isn't the conversion to kepub already done by KoboTouchExtended?
2) Even analyzing the epubs in my possession with Sigil, I saw that the notes are usually reported in two different ways, exactly as @davidfor says: either at the end of the chapter (the note is reported in the same html file) or at the bottom of the book (the note is contained in a separate html file). If the book is successfully transformed into kepub, does the note appear in a popup either way or only when it is a footnote?

Thanks for the attention!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by carpler

Many thanks again for answers!

Yesterday I did some tests with kepubify, but my lack of knowledge made me make mistakes. I transformed an epub into kepub, but I manually renamed the file created by kepubify in the usual "book-title.epub" scheme and for this I think the ebook was not recognized correctly by my ereader: in fact the footnotes are not displayed in a pop-up window, but they were the usual links.
I believe at this point that I should use the Caliber plugin that you have suggested for the next tests (better solution for a newbie user).

As you only used ".epub", it was handled as an ePub. You needed ".kepub.epub" for it to be handled as a kepub. But, kepubify should have named it properly and you should have just put it on the device.

Here are my questions.

1) You mentioned the KoboTouchExtended plugin: the author of this plugin suggests installing the two KePub Metadata Reader / Writer plugins as well. What I don't understand is if you also need to install the other plugin by the same author, KePub Output: isn't the conversion to kepub already done by KoboTouchExtended?

Strictly, if you are using the KoboTouchExtended driver, you don't need the KePub Metadata Reader and Writer plugins. These are useful if you have kepubs in your calibre library. If you just use the driver to transform the books to kepubs, then as far as calibre is concerned, the books are epubs.

The KePub Output plugin is used if you want to convert books to kepub and keep them in the library. You can do this if you want to stick with epubs on the device, but use kepubs where the kepub features are useful. Such as books with footnotes. If you do this, you do want to install the KePub Metadata Reader and Writer plugins.

2) Even analyzing the epubs in my possession with Sigil, I saw that the notes are usually reported in two different ways, exactly as @davidfor says: either at the end of the chapter (the note is reported in the same html file) or at the bottom of the book (the note is contained in a separate html file). If the book is successfully transformed into kepub, does the note appear in a popup either way or only when it is a footnote?

They should appear as popups in either case. My test book works that way.

[carpler]

Originally Posted by davidfor

They should appear as popups in either case. My test book works that way.

I can confirm after my tests: using the KoboTouchExtended plugin in Calibre I was able to convert my epubs to kepub and notes are displayed in a popup window both if they are placed at the end of the ebook, and at the end of the chapter.
I also got the impression that the links were easier to select.
In my previous tests, with normal epubs, I was having a hard time activating links with very small numbers. With kepubs I got the impression that, although the numbers are always very small, the links are easier to activate ...
Thanks for all the support provided!