Cover Page Break?

[Themus]

Is there a simple fix for the problem where in an ePub, right after the cover is displayed, the next page begins without a break?

I have seen this in other ePubs and some not, where the internal cover is immediately followed underneath it with the next 'chapter.'

I have tried creating a cover in Calibre and Sigil and in both cases, the result is the same. Text for next chapter falls right below the picture of the cover. I have looked at the CSS but not sure what 'makes or breaks' the ability to have the cover on a separate stand-a-alone page.

In my ePub under Sigil, the cover is a separate html file called cover.

Any help would be appreciated.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Themus

Is there a simple fix for the problem where in an ePub, right after the cover is displayed, the next page begins without a break?

I have seen this in other ePubs and some not, where the internal cover is immediately followed underneath it with the next 'chapter.'

I have tried creating a cover in Calibre and Sigil and in both cases, the result is the same. Text for next chapter falls right below the picture of the cover. I have looked at the CSS but not sure what 'makes or breaks' the ability to have the cover on a separate stand-a-alone page.

In my ePub under Sigil, the cover is a separate html file called cover.

Any help would be appreciated.

IMHO this is a bad practice

Coverpage is semantic that is/can be applied to ONE file and ONE image . (there are other semantics that can be applied to files of differing purposes)

You have a huge Monolithic file: Cover-frontmater-bodytext...
Performance sucks on older readers (if they don't just choke on file of 260K+)
To emphasize my point: Default Calibre conversions will break huge files below 260K).

If you choose to ignore this advice, just Merge the files, remove the Page-break-before from the styles(eet)

[Themus]

I think I get the point you are trying to make. Manual page breaks are a no-go. But if I further understand you, the assumption is I have one big epub file. Actually, my ePub is comprised of over 24 chapters, each a separate html file [as displayed by Sigil].

My dilemma is that while the cover is a separate html file, and hence a separate 'chapter' it doesn't act like it. Instead, the next html file merges as the bottom of the cover. I've seen this in other free ePubs, but I have also seen it where it looks correctly: the graphic of the cover is a separate turn of the page from the next chapter.

So if not a page break of some sort, how is it being done in other ePubs?

Thank you.

[eschwartz]

You say the cover is in its own file.
You say when reading the book that the cover is part of the same pageflow as the first chapter.

This is confusing, since it should be impossible.
All devices/apps, without exception, are supposed to render individual html files as their own pageflow (a/k/a "chapter").
pagebreaks manually inserted in the CSS are a second way of doing this (which not all apps/devices comply with).

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Themus

I think I get the point you are trying to make. Manual page breaks are a no-go. But if I further understand you, the assumption is I have one big epub file. Actually, my ePub is comprised of over 24 chapters, each a separate html file [as displayed by Sigil].

My dilemma is that while the cover is a separate html file, and hence a separate 'chapter' it doesn't act like it. Instead, the next html file merges as the bottom of the cover. I've seen this in other free ePubs, but I have also seen it where it looks correctly: the graphic of the cover is a separate turn of the page from the next chapter.

So if not a page break of some sort, how is it being done in other ePubs?

Thank you.

This sounds good but does not totally explain what you see

Some devices/programs (calibre viewer) have a scroll mode and a paged mode. The scroll mode butts the files visually. (there would be no breaks seen within your book with this feature )

Having a style: page-break-before: always; at the start of the text section, might be honored

[Themus]

Sorry, I must be missing the obvious. Here is all I know. I have a Samsung Tab Pro running Moon+ Reader Pro. The novel "Rider of the Silences" the cover is displayed as the first page, alone. The very next page, and I mean another page, is the banner for feedbooks.

The novel I am questioning has the cover displayed a bit smaller, but the story introduction is on the same page, right below the cover page.

Both books are in Calibre, and brought into Moon Reader via Calibre Companion.

I'll eventually work it out I reckon. But I did want to clear up the confusion.

[eschwartz]

And the reason is, that the cover must be in the same file, internally. Calibre Companion, FWIW, will not change the internal layout.

Is it possible there are two covers, one on it's own page and the other in the main chapter flow? You might not notice, since "turning" the page will still display the image but add some text at the bottom...

[Themus]

I just opened the ePub in question and the very first file is titlepage.xhtml and the second file is part0000.html. The cover alone is in the titlepage.xhtml. The introduction or prolog is alone in the second file part0000.html.

[DrChiper]

I think it is a Moon+ reader issue:
you can configure it to use the Moon+ internal CSS settings, or to follow (more or less) the Epubs CSS settings. Both behave differently when scrolling through the book in which one uses a continuous flow, while the other uses a paged approach. I think you have to experiment what suits you best and adapt the internal Moon+ CSS settings accordingly.

[cybmole]

moon+ reader has it's own ideas of how a book "should" flow.
it takes not a lot of notice of anything you specify, unless you force it to use " publishers CSS" & then it goes out of it's way to look absolutely awful. ( no margins anywhere, tiny text...) so that you learn never to use that option again!

for example moon+ decides how big your chapter headers ought to be & ignores what the CSS says.. it thinks that small screens should not honour blockquotes so those indents get stripped out..... some centered stuff gets arbitrarily uncentered, as it pleases...

some folks like how it chooses to display stuff ( it is after all a very popular reader) - others (like me) hate it, but there's lots of other free & premium app options to try.

[Themus]

It is almost a year later and I still run across this problem occasionally. Just downloaded a free epub by Zane Gray. All the chapters break properly accept the cover page, following page and table of contents. In Moon Reader they run together right after each other as if one long page.

I have fixed this before by deleting front matter html files, but really don't want to do that on this one. It there a way to get Moon Reader to see there should be a page break in those first few pages?

[jackie_w]

One thing you could try is to use calibre's TOC Editor to make sure that each separate html file has its own entry in the TOC (the ncx version of TOC not a TOC which is just another html file with hyperlinks).

It's a long time since I used Moonreader but I have a vague memory that 'pages' were merged together if they didn't have their own TOC entry.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Themus

It is almost a year later and I still run across this problem occasionally. Just downloaded a free epub by Zane Gray. All the chapters break properly accept the cover page, following page and table of contents. In Moon Reader they run together right after each other as if one long page.

I have fixed this before by deleting front matter html files, but really don't want to do that on this one. It there a way to get Moon Reader to see there should be a page break in those first few pages?

Without the CSS and the actual structural arrangement of the problem EPUB, it is hard to guess.

Does the EPUB validate? Many render engines ignore tiny errors. Others (MRSDK) ignore the stylesheet with errors (or somewhere in between ). Does the file include a XPGT

Every book is different. Even if they came from the same publisher-series

[Themus]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

One thing you could try is to use calibre's TOC Editor to make sure that each separate html file has its own entry in the TOC (the ncx version of TOC not a TOC which is just another html file with hyperlinks).

It's a long time since I used Moonreader but I have a vague memory that 'pages' were merged together if they didn't have their own TOC entry.

Jackie that was it!. All I had to do was create a few entries in the TOC by Sigil for the Cover, Front_Matter and Forward and the page breaks are just as they should be. I spent hours on this over the year and bingo you had the simple answer!

Very much appreciated.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by theducks

Others (MRSDK) ignore the stylesheet with errors (or somewhere in between ).

Mrs. Duck?