When your manuscript is split into chapter files, the book's order comes from the order you select the files in, not from their file names. Numbering files 01_, 02_ changes nothing if you select them in a different sequence. Miss that and you ship a book with chapters out of order.
This article uses the verified route: selecting one manuscript file per chapter, building contents from their headings, and specifying a cover image. Inserting a page-break mark inside one file was verified, but converting several such boundaries into chapters and mixing that file with chapter files were not completed end to end. Positioning the cover and contents, and entering metadata, are covered separately.
The verified route uses one file per chapter
Manuscripts can be split into chapter files or carry internal boundaries in one file. The exported result verified for this article uses the first approach:
- Prepare one file for each chapter included in this EPUB
- Put the chapter name intended for the contents in that file's heading
- Select those files in reading order
With two chapter files, that route produced the selected reading order and contents built from the headings. Do not infer the same result for several boundaries inside one file or for a mixed arrangement. Export that exact arrangement and verify chapter count, reading order, and contents before adopting it.
The usual approach
Most people prefix file names with numbers so the folder order matches the book order.
With everything in one file, chapter boundaries are usually marked with blank lines or symbols.
Relying on name order breaks when you insert a chapter
Embedding numbers in names is comfortable right up until you add a chapter.
Suppose a new chapter belongs between the second and the third. There is no number between 02_ and 03_. You either invent 02_5_ or renumber everything after it. When numbering is the source of order, each insertion adds filename maintenance. Whenever a filename changes, check any manuscript or external note in which that name may have been recorded.
The other fragility is splitting on blank lines. Scene breaks in fiction are blank lines too. Without a way to distinguish them, chapters break where you did not intend — or fail to break where you did, because you left only one blank line.
A mismatch between filename order and selection order can be found in the pre-export plan. If blank lines or another internal delimiter are used as chapter boundaries, the chapter count cannot be established without completing the conversion path that interprets them.
In rune Studio the selection order is the book order
rune Studio takes the files you select and uses that order as the book's order. File-name numbering is not consulted.
I verified this by driving the development build from the command line. Selecting two chapter files and checking the order returned:
title page → contents page → chapter one → chapter two
Chapter names were taken from the manuscript headings, and each carried a flag for contents inclusion. To change the order, change the selection order. No renaming.
Splitting one file into several chapters
There is an operation for placing a page-break mark at a chosen location. The development-build test confirmed insertion of 《《｜Page Break｜》》 and nothing beyond that result. This article does not claim that several marks become several chapters or that a mixed file arrangement produces the promised EPUB. If you choose that approach, export a file containing multiple marks and verify reading order, contents, and chapter count before using it. For the verified route described here, keep one chapter in each selected file.
The selection is remembered
The selection and its order are recorded. Checking this returned the remembered order and whether each file is still openable. The next rebuild starts from the same arrangement.
The order can be confirmed before exporting
You can also check how the book would come out without exporting. Doing so returned the chapter count, the output location, and which chapters appear in the contents. That avoids discovering a miscount only after looking at the finished file.
Include the verified output in the split decision
Split into files or keep one? Searchability matters while writing, but the exported result matters too.
One file can make a whole-work search easier, but that convenience does not establish how the EPUB will divide it into chapters.
Chapter files let you open only what you are working on, which matters when you want the manuscript beside reference material and prefer small files.
To use the result verified here, keep chapter files and select them in order. A one-file route should be adopted only after a separate end-to-end export confirms its chapter count, reading order, and contents.
The cover and contents are decided separately from chapter order
A word on the other half of the title. The cover and the contents are settled somewhere other than chapter order.
The cover is an image specified against the volume, not selected as one of the chapters. Specifying a cover image and exporting on the development build added a cover page to the front of the reading order. One caution: a short relative path failed as not found, and the full path worked.
The contents is built from the headings of the chapters you selected. Exporting from two chapter files listed both chapters in the contents. Change the chapter order and the contents order changes with it. There is no separate contents to edit.
So: settle the chapter order and the contents follows; specify one image and the cover is attached. Where the cover, title page, and contents sit in the book is specified separately again.
Who this suits, and who is fine without it
It suits books with many chapters, and writers who add chapters as they go. Collecting a serial means additions continue to the end.
Two or three chapters in a settled order works with any approach. File-name numbering is enough.
Scope note: the verified export covers chapter-file order, contents, and a cover, plus insertion of a page-break mark as a separate operation. Division from that mark, mixed arrangements, store validation, and per-device rendering were outside this verification.
Summary
- Book order comes from selection order, not file names
- Embedding numbers in names breaks when a chapter is inserted mid-sequence
- The verified route uses one selected file per chapter
- Page-break insertion is verified, but conversion of several internal marks into chapters is not promised here
- The order can be confirmed before exporting, so miscounts do not surface only at the end
For a first step, list the chapter files for this build, select them in reading order, and check the planned chapter count and contents inclusion. If you can explain the order without filename numbers, you are ready to stop relying on names.
See the current product scope on the Rune Studio product page.
