Titlepage conundrum

[DyckBook]

Calibre seems to create a titlepage.xhtml file in every book that is really just the cover of the book.

According to Miriam Webster a title page is: "a page of a book bearing the title and usually the names of the author and publisher and the place and sometimes date of publication"

So, I've faithfully changed the name of titlepage.xhtml to cover.xhtml and changed the name of the titlepage from whatever it was index... or something to titlepage.html.

But that's just me, right?

[Brett Merkey]

But that's just me, right?

Yes, that is just you.

Convert to AZW3 and you will find your titlepage.xhtml has been regurgitated as part0001.html. The relation between format specifications and the ancient print specs is tenuous.

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by DyckBook

So, I've faithfully changed the name of titlepage.xhtml to cover.xhtml and changed the name of the titlepage from whatever it was index... or something to titlepage.html.

But that's just me, right?

I do exactly that. I rename titlepage.xhtml to cover.xhtml
Then I create titlepage.xhtml to comply with your description of what the page should be- name of book, author, publisher, same as what you would find two or three pages in from the cover in a paper book.

I have wondered about that also, and why it is like that.

[hobnail]

There's a calibre plugin called Generate Cover; I've never used it on a book that has a titlepage.xhtml or cover.xhtml. I use it on books I've entirely redone that came from Project Gutenberg, Faded Page, etc. It uses the book title and author from the book's metadata, what's in the content.opf file in an epub, which is easy to set up/edit with Sigil's metadata editor.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Karellen

I do exactly that. I rename titlepage.xhtml to cover.xhtml
Then I create titlepage.xhtml to comply with your description of what the page should be- name of book, author, publisher, same as what you would find two or three pages in from the cover in a paper book.

I have wondered about that also, and why it is like that.

Except that doing that will cause issues if you ever do something to regenerate titlepage.xhtml. Yes, it probably should be "coverpage.xhtml" or just "cover.xhtml", but, that is not what was decided. Changing it now in the code would be painful. And I have looked. I just accept this and if I need a separate title page, just call it "title.xhtml".

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Except that doing that will cause issues if you ever do something to regenerate titlepage.xhtml. Yes, it probably should be "coverpage.xhtml" or just "cover.xhtml", but, that is not what was decided. Changing it now in the code would be painful. And I have looked. I just accept this and if I need a separate title page, just call it "title.xhtml".

Yes, I have noticed that converting from epub to epub renames cover.xhtml to titlepage.xhtml and my titlepage.xhtml gets renamed to titlepage_1.xhtml

[hobnail]

I forget what the problem was but I was occasionally having problems with title pages not working in EPUBs. Running the Modify ePub plugin fixes them. So now as part of my voodoo when I make a book entirely from Project Gutenberg and make its cover page with the Generate Cover plugin I run the Modify ePub plugin as the final step. I also run the Polish Books plugin beforehand, although people tell me it's not necessary to use them both but since it's voodoo I'm not messing with what works.

[Brett Merkey]

In any case, Calibre provides the means by which the *visible to the reader* table of contents can conform to the traditional or expected names for these pages.