Introduction

This project developed a new table of contents (TOC) version based on visualizations. The TOC applies to ebooks of the EPUB format in the fiction book genre. This project lays the foundation to build software that on the input of an EPUB file a new one is outputtet containing a this work's TOC.

The prototype is based on the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck obtained from the free ebook source EpubBooks. The finalized EPUB file can be read on the device PocketBook InkPad Color 3. Compatible ebooks must be from Project Gutenberg and EpubBooks.

Here are the instructions on how to get the TOC applied to your ebook.

Requirements

The project makes use of OpenAI API, a user of this product is necessary. It is used to extract data from the book's text.

Setup

Download this project.

Create a .env file in the main folder to store an API key to OpenAI API.

OPENAI_API_KEY=" "

Create the following folders in the main folder: compressed, extracted, and epub-files.
Insert the input EPUB file in the just created folder epub-files.

Go to the file src/generate-toc.ts and modify the following constants filename, keeping the folder name. The epubPath is the path to your stored epub file. The extractedFolder is the folder name you want the unzipped EPUB to be stored. Foldername is of your choice.

export const epubPath = "./epub-files/steinbeck-of-mice-and-men - Epubbooks.epub";
export const extractedFolder = "./extracted/steinbeck - epubbooks";
export const folderName = "steinbeck/";

Run in the terminal

npm start

The output is found in the folder compressed

Remarks

Depending on your credential on OpenAi, the rate limit might exceed when running the code. In this case run the functions one at a time in the file src/generate-toc.ts.

The AI prompting related functions can be found in the files src/utils/chapterHandling.ts and src/utils/sectionHandling.ts. The functions in these files can run one by one too to avoid exceeding the rate.

The table of contents is now made for books containing up to 8 chapters. Exceeding this number will result in a TOC not fitting on one page. If you want to apply the TOC to books with more chapters, you need to modify the layout to get the page a suitable diviosn of the TOC's visualization. The involved files to modify the TOC are found in templates/scripts, templates/html, and templates/style.