Export, but no Table of Contents?

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Is it possible to export for various publications but not include a table of contents?

The titles of my chapters/sections would lead to spoilers should anyone look at their names.

I suppose I could rename them, but I’d prefer to just not include a table of contents. Is that possible? Perhaps it’s against the terms of publishing with Amazon or Apple?

2

If you go into the Table of Contents compile option pane on the right-hand side of the compile overview screen, you’ll find a checkbox to disable the readable ToC: Generate HTML table of contents.

This will not make the book entirely impossible to navigate around within however. Those readers that use a software navigation menu will still have a ToC. It’s more difficult, and not recommended, to leave that kind of navigation out of the book (imagine if you lose your place, the only way to get back to where you were will be to painstakingly flip through pages).

So ultimately if your chapter names are spoilers, it might be better to use one of the Layouts that rewrites the chapter name to something generic, like “1” or “Chapter One”.

But another approach has the best of both worlds: if you do want the name to be visible once you do get to that chapter, you could include it as a non-title element by editing a Layout and adding it to an area that isn’t considered part of the formal title. For example:

  1. In editing the stock “Ebook” compile Format, select one of the Section Layouts with a generic heading, like “Chapter Heading”.
  2. Click on the Prefix tab, and insert the “<$title>” placeholder, followed by a carriage return (formatting will expect there to be one after the heading).
  3. Enable the Place prefix after title checkbox.
  4. Apply the “Subtitle” style to the prefix, which will match how chapter breaks look with the “Chapter Title” Layout.
  5. Optionally, remove the carriage return from the Title Prefix field, in the Title Options tab—otherwise you’ll get too much space between the heading elements.

Now when you compile, only the “Chapter One” part will be considered the formal heading—as for what is inserted into both the “printed” ToC and the software navigation menus—but on the actual page itself you get what can be seen on the right-hand side:

[size=80][/size]

3

Awesome and super helpful reply, thank you!

I must have done something without knowing it while doing some compiling testing, because all of my chapters just say a number, not their names, which is perfect.

Now if I could only figure out how to stop the first three words of each section from being in all caps, I’d be 100% happy.

4

You’re welcome!

That’ll be in the “New Pages” tab, for the Section Layout that prints scene text (probably “Section Text”): Number of opening words to make uppercase.