An auto-toc problem

[erion]

Hello all,
I am relatively new to Calibre.
I have a html file I wish to convert to epub format. It has an inline toc, but I also would like to create an auto-generated one.
The book has chapters and parts which encapsulate the chapters, thus I have set parts to be heading level 1, while chapters as level 2.
I also have a batch file, which uses ebook-convert to add the detection of heading 1 and 2, thus Calibre can generate the multi-level toc.
However, the problem is that if I specify --level1-toc and the --level2-toc options as //h:h1 and //h:h2 respectively, Calibre auto-generates a toc which is based on the 2nd level headings only, i.e. the heading 1 parts are missing.
Here's how my command looks like:

ebook-convert %1 %2 --level1-toc //h:h1 --level2-toc //h:h2 --use-auto-toc

Later on I'd also like to insert metadata automatically after the conversion is done, based on online sources, but that is not important for now

Could anyone explain what I'm missing here please?

Erion

[jackie_w]

Hi erion, Welcome to the forum.

I use the GUI so I'm not a commandline expert, but I think you're missing a --chapter conversion option.

In the GUI to detect chapters at <h1> or <h2> you need this code:

//*[name()='h1' or name()='h2']

so my guess is you need to add something like

--chapter "//*[name()='h1' or name()='h2']"

to the command you showed above.
(I get confused with quotes usage on the commandline, so apologies if I haven't got it exactly correct)

[erion]

Hi,
This seems to solve my problem wonderfully. The question is though, if I specify the xpaths for the multi-level contents, how come they are not used... seems a mystery to me.
Anyways, thank you very much for your quick reply and your solution, it's really appreciated.

Time to look for an epub auto tagger...

Cheers,
Erion

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by erion

...if I specify the xpaths for the multi-level contents, how come they are not used... seems a mystery to me...

I think the --chapter and --leveln-toc options are to be used in tandem, but the --chapter option seems to be the most important, telling calibre how to split the chapters.

For instance, (at least in the GUI) if you run your conversion with just the --chapter option set as specified and leave the --level-tocs blank then you still get all the <h1>s and <h2>s in the epub TOC, but they have a flat hierarchy instead of the <h2>s being children of the <h1>s. So it appears that the --level-tocs fine-tune the --chapter.

If I've got this completely wrong maybe someone more technical can chip in and enlighten us.

[kovidgoyal]

IIRC the toc level options, if specified (and if they match) take precedence.

[jackie_w]

Thanks for quick response. So it seems I've got things the wrong way round. You learn something new every day.