Why does scrivener insist on putting the contents page right after the cover page every time when I view the compiled mobi file in the Kindle app for PC software? This is the same behavior when I view the mobi on the Kindle previewer. This is so irritating. I’ve tried to move the contents page after the dedications page with software like sigil, but it still insists on showing the contents page right after the cover page in the Kindle app for PC after I convert the edited epub file to a mobi file. Why is this?
Also, in the contents section of the compiler dialog box, you choose which sections you want to compile. This automatically creates a table of contents in the resulting mobi file and If you already have a contents page in your front matter it ends up with 2 table of contents pages in the mobi file. Two contents pages show up on the Kindle app for PC. This is annoying. what can I do to solve this issue? Thanks.
Hello Scrivtrex, Hopefully someone with decent knowledge of mobi and kindle can put you right. I believe though from some of the past posts and questions on this forum that it is the Kindle software that decides a lot of the settings for your work. Compiling is not the be all and end all of formatting.
Hi guys. Thanks for your replies, but I have a question though. When I compile my manuscript to an epub format in Scrivener, it still places the contents right after the cover page. I verified this by opening up the epub file with Sigil which is an application used to edit and make epub files. In Sigil, the contents came right after the cover page. So, from this, it is clear that this problem does not have anything to do with mobi or kindle, but with Scrivener. Do you guys agree? If so, how can I fix this issue so that I can place the contents anywhere I choose in the compiled file or omit the contents page all together? Thanks.
Omitting the Table of Contents is simple: in the compile dialogue, on the right hand side there is a row of icons at the top — choose the one of the far right (looks like a ToC…) and untick ‘Generate HTML table of contents’.
As for how to place the ToC somewhere else, this seems to be covered in the manual at S22.2 Contents in eBooks:
(I’ve not tested this as I don’t use ebook — you should probably read the whole section of the manual first.)
I don’t see this in the compile dialog box interface. I am using Scrivener 1.9.7.0 for Windows and I am not using the Beta version of scrivener 3. Could you or someone post a screenshot of this from Scrivener 1.9.7.0 so that I understand exactly what you are referring to, because, like I said, I don’t see a row of icons at the top. Also, I don’t see an option that says “Generate HTML table of contents” anywhere in the compile dialog box that I can untick. Am I missing something?
My apologies, for some reason I thought you were using Version 3 and I don’t have Windows 1.9 to hand.
But I’m fairly sure that the same feature to place the ToC was available in earlier versions — there should be a comparable section in the Windows Manual explaining how to do it.
No problem. I placed the <$toc> tag in an empty page, but it does not move the contents to that page. It still shows up right after the cover page in the Kindle for PC app. In fact, it only shows the plain text “<$toc>” on that page. Am I doing something wrong?
It may simply be that the Windows version as yet doesn’t have that feature — and you may not be able to turn the inbuilt ToC off. I don’t have V1.9 so I can’t test, sorry.
Chapter 22 in the Windows manual covers Tables of Contents and how to create them (basically you create a special document in the binder) but I’m not clear whether that overrides the ebook ToC or not — I couldn’t see anything to say where you could turn off the ebook-generated ToC.
I hope somebody can answer your questions better than I – good luck!
When I look at the placeholder list (Mac v 3) it says for <$toc>
“Used when compiling ebook formats only. If the <$toc> placeholder appears in an otherwise blank document when compiling to an ebook format, and if that document’s title matches the title assigned to the table of contents (in the Compile options), then this document will be replaced with an automatically-generated table of contents. This allows the user to determine where the automatically-generated table of contents should be placed in cases where it is not wanted at the very start of the ebook. (Tip: Set up your Compile options so that there is a page break before this document and the document’s formatting is not overridden.)”
Note the “…and if that document’s title matches the title assigned to the table of contents (in the Compile options)…”