Can I break up an HTML file using a TOC?

[wellesradio]

I have some public domain ebooks in epub that contain a Table of Contents, but it seems that the books contains only a small handful of HTML files, each with multiple chapters in them. However my e-reader only recognizes chapter progress within “sections”, meaning within each HTML file and not according to the TOC which is just linking to paragraphs within each HTML file.

I’d like to break up the chapters into their own separate HTML files using the TOC as a guide. I’d like to be able to do it automatically rather than manually.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by wellesradio

I’d like to break up the chapters into their own separate HTML files using the TOC as a guide. I’d like to be able to do it automatically rather than manually.

In Sigil, select Tools > Table of Contents > Generate Table of Contents or simply press CTRL+T.
If you see all chapter titles, you can simply insert a Sigil split marker tag before each chapter heading tag. For example, if all chapter headings are <h1> tags, you'd use:

Find:<h1
Replace:<hr class="sigil_split_marker" /><h1

and then select Edit > Split at markers followed by Tools > Table of Contents > Generate Table of Contents.

If the TOC is empty when you select Tools > Table of Contents > Generate Table of Contents, you can use KevinH's TOCSaver plugin to change paragraph tags to heading tags or insert hidden heading tags.

[exaltedwombat]

If the document consistently gives chapter titles a particular tag (and doesn't use that tag elsewhere) a simple Search and Replace to insert "sigil_split_marker" will do the job.

But if the code were that organised, I suspect the TOC would have been sorted out already. You may have no practical alternative to finding the chapter titles you want to list in a TOC and applying the h1 tag manually.

How many chapters? Some jobs are really too small to be worth automating.

[hobnail]

In addition to what's said above, what I also do in order to have chapter breaks only before chapter headings is to join all of the chapter files into one large html/xhtml file, then do the splitting as per above. (But I've forgotten how I joined the separate files so hunt around and experiment.)

[DNSB]

To continue from what @hobnail said, I also tend to join all the chapter files into a single file since Gutenberg has a love for having massive files with chapters split between the files. To do this, I select the files I want to merge, and then right click and merge or Ctrl-M. After this, I insert the split markers and split.

Quite often the split markers are simple to insert but at other times, the regex to insert the split markers can be a learning experience.

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Quite often the split markers are simple to insert but at other times, the regex to insert the split markers can be a learning experience.

Indeed. I'm all in favour of learning experiences. But sometimes you have to balance an hour's research into Regex with the time taken to manually insert 16 chapter breaks!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

Indeed. I'm all in favour of learning experiences. But sometimes you have to balance an hour's research into Regex with the time taken to manually insert 16 chapter breaks!

While it might take longer to learn regex, once you've learned it, it will eventually take less time.

[exaltedwombat]

But when that hour results in the conclusion that chapter's AREN'T marked in any consistent and unique way.... :-( If these were well-constructed EPUB files we wouldn't be having to do this job in the first place.

[wellesradio]

Thank you all for the replies. There were quite a lot of chapters and a number of books. It required a combination of all your suggestions. One book had a TOC that linked to subsections of chapter and I didn't want to create a new TOC as it would only link to the main ones, so I used the search function for <title> tags (fortunately the chapters had them) and inserted splits then broke the files up from there.

Now why isn't there a shortcut for file renaming? I do loathe having to right-click and scroll through a pop-up menu to rename an HTML file. I'm surprised double click doesn't do the trick as that's the way it works on my system folders.

Edit: Found it! CTRL+OPTION+ENTER
Tomorrow I'll be asking for advice on how best to eat with a spoon.

[KevinH]

Try Sigil's regex renamer to bulk rename files.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by wellesradio

Tomorrow I'll be asking for advice on how best to eat with a spoon.

My trick is to use it with the curved side down.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by hobnail

My trick is to use it with the curved side down.

But which end to hold?

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[hobnail]

Reminds me of that childhood limerick:

I eat my peas with honey

I've done it all my life

They do taste kind of funny

But it keeps them on my knife