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Differences between HTML Code and Reader results

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:57 pm
by Karoline
Hi everyone. I was revising my reports and found an interesting situation. When using Voice Dream Reader for IOS I will often get a list of headings that lead to the different sections of the book. When going into the HTML code, there are no headings. Anyone know what is different in the text what is causing this? Different font? Colour? or

Re: Differences between HTML Code and Reader results

Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 5:20 pm
by ka.li
Hi Karoline,
I believe it's using the links from the TOC.xhtml file in the epub. I used "Wild and Beautiful is the Night" to test this since it had no HTML heading tags. I edited the TOC.xhtml file by removing a few links and when I repackaged the epub and loaded it into Voice Dream, I couldn't navigate to those sections anymore when I set it to heading.
Hope this helps.

Re: Differences between HTML Code and Reader results

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2019 5:47 pm
by Danny
Hi Ka and Karoline,

Exactly. To expand on this a little, there are two different types of table of contents features. One is a Table of Contents page that is included in the text, just like a regular book. This is just for the reader's benefit, and the one we check to insure links are clickable. The other is an internal navigation file that provides the reading application with a list of sections in the book. This allows applications to offer their own table of contents feature. In a version 3 ePub, because the navigation file is coded in HTML, it is possible for the same file (Toc.xhtml in your example Ka) to serve as both, though this is not always the case.

In the case of a version 2 ePub, the navigation file is not coded in HTML, rather it is a specialized format of XML that cannot be rendered directly to the user. Thus, for a version 2 ePub to have a table of contents in the book, it must be a separate file.

It's important to remember that it is the spine that points the reading application to the navigation file. Often it is called toc.ncx or toc.xhtml, but this can change. Daisy's Fundemental Test Book, for instance, calls it nav.xhtml.

Anyway, to return to your question, Karoline. Readers that support both Daisy and ePub books like to offer an ePub to the reader as though it was a Daisy book. As such, it calls the navigation provided by the navigation file in the ePub headings. This is completely inaccurate, and has certainly been a point of frustration for me, too. Readers such as EasyReader in fact use real headings very little, if at all. Thus, it is possible to have a book with wonderfully-coded headings that lacks a navigation file, and such readers will report the book has no headings whatsoever.

Producers of version 3 ePubs are wise to include both toc.ncx (for backward compatibility), and toc.xhtml (for richer navigational features in the new format). It can be interesting to make a small change in one of these files, to determine which your reader prefers. It can give a clue to whether it was built to support ePub 2 or 3 natively.

I hope the above adds more clarity than unnecessary information.

Re: Differences between HTML Code and Reader results

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 10:08 am
by Karoline
Thank you Danny. So, unless you know all of this, you could not give an accurate report. I thankfully went with the HTML accounting for the reports. I am glad to have asked the question. Thank you for your response.