Hi there,
I just started working with Scrivener and have the following problem.
I imported files from MS Word and set up a novel with 5 chapters and about 60 scenes using the novel template. Everything works great with the exception of the automatic ToC when I compile an epub.
The automatic ToC omits some of my scenes, others appear several times with different page numbers.
I tried to set up a manual ToC that looks fine and everything can be clicked when I click on it in the text file. But when I compile, I get the right scenes but some are actual links, others are only text that cannot be clicked. I don’t see any difference in the actual files/scenes.
And when I hit “Table of Contents” in iBooks, I get a ToC that looks like the one that gets created automatically so with scenes missing and others showing up several times.
Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong. The way it is, I don’t seem to be able to create an epub with a valid ToC. I could actually live without one, but even when I don’t let it create a ToC, iBooks shows one anyways that has the same problems as described above.
The main thing to know is that only files that start in new sections can be included in the ToC, because of the way a ToC is really just an HTML file linking to other HTML files. So, under “Separators”, make sure that section breaks are set between the right file types. “Section break” in .epub/.mobi is the same as “Page break” in other formats. One way of testing that you should be getting the right result is to compile for PDF / Printing first, then choose “PDF” > “Open PDF in Preview” from the print panel. This will open a version of your compiled text in Preview.app. There, check that each document title you expect to appear in your ToC starts on a new page - if it doesn’t, it won’t turn up properly in an eBook ToC. (When compiled to eBook, each section that starts on a new page will be put into a separate HTML file, meaning that the ToC file can link to it.)
One thing you could do is post a screenshot of your binder here, telling me which documents you would expect to appear in the ToC. If I can see the structure of your binder, I can give you some more precise tips on how to set things up to match your project. It can be fiddly at first, simply because Scrivener doesn’t impose any particular structure and therefore has to leave it partly up to the user to find the settings that best match the structure they have decided on.
Hi,
thanks for the quick reply. This was very helpful indeed, even though my problem was only partly solved.
I checked “Pg break before” during compile which made sure that I got entries for all my sections/files. So that solved the mysterious omissions (I am still not sure why some sections showed up and others not).
Then I found a setting View->Page View under which I finally found the culprit: in my original word files, there were page breaks that I had forgotten about. These did not show up in normal view, but did show up in page view and resulted in bogus ToC entries.
A-ha - glad you found the culprits! I didn’t think of that. Is the table of contents working okay now? Let me know if you have any more questions.
All the best,
Keith