I have been going crazy trying to figure out what’s wrong. I have compiled a previous eBook with no problems but on my current project, not all of the elements of my compile folder are included once I do the compile. I have tried everything, but only 2 out of 6 of the elements are present in the compilation. The ones that are included are the first and last items in the Front Matter list.
Ann Werner
Are all of the front matter items checked off in the “Include” column, in the Contents compile pane?
I don’t have the front matter at all in the list - I did try that but when I did, the table of contents came up not as the chapter links but with the <$toc> placeholder. I do have the Include Front Matter box checked at the bottom of the contents page, which is what I did with the last project and everything came out fine.
That probably explains why they aren’t there then, if something isn’t in the Contents list it won’t be included in the compile. You mention having the “Include Front Matter” checkbox enabled, but is the right folder selected? It should be pointing to the folder where you have these six items. You will see the six items added to the top of the main contents list above, immediately, when the right folder is selected.
The name of the file containing that token must match the name given in the Layout compile pane for, HTML table of contents title, otherwise it won’t work and that is the result you’ll get: a bare token.
Another thing that may cause that is if HTML contents generation is disabled, naturally.
I understand about the Table of Contents and how it must match what is in the binder when you get to that pane. But what I can’t figure out is why the first and last items in the Front Matter folder get included and those in between don’t. The cover shows up and so does the Table of Contents, but the other materials- the title page, the copyright, the other books by me and the acknowledgements don’t. Neither the cover nor the Table of Contents are listed in the Content pane, but they show up.
In that case, as you describe it, this is expected behaviour—these aren’t actually “Front Matter” items, as in the official feature (obviously they are, but not in the Scrivener feature sense). If you supply a cover image in the Cover compile pane, and have the setting to generate a ToC in the Layout pane, then you will always have these things in your book, regardless of whether you use Front Matter as a feature. The cover image, in fact, isn’t even a part of the book content (the Kindle just makes it act that way), and the ToC section is dynamically built by Scrivener and will never appear in the Contents pane because it isn’t a real item.
The only occasion when you’d have a ToC section in the Contents pane is if you make one yourself—and ordinarily you wouldn’t need to do that unless you don’t like where Scrivener puts it by default (that is when you would use the <$toc> token), how it looks or what is included within it.
So with that mystery settled, I think, we come back to the original problem: for some reason the correct front matter folder is not selected. Click on the front matter drop-down menu in the Contents pane, and select the folder that contains the six items you’re looking for.
Okay, I’m getting there. Got all the documents to show up, however, they are not in the order I have them in the Front matter folder. The Contents page shows up just after the cover picture and before the title page and the rest of the front matter. Additionally, the things like Title Page, Acknowledgements etc. show up in the Table of Contents. I know there must be some way to hide those in the Table of Contents. I’ve done it before! I’ve never had this much trouble with compiling an eBook in Scrivener. My first time out I did it no problem!
Can you figure out what I’m doing wrong? At least I have all the components, thanks to you!
You know what? I don’t even CARE anymore!!! Nobody ever looks at the front of an eBook anyway. I got what I needed and that’s all I need. Thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate it and you’ve made my life a little easier, which is a good thing!
All right! For future reference, you know how you have a ToC page with the <$toc> code in it to tell Scrivener to put the ToC in that position? Well you can also replace that code with a fully custom ToC that you design yourself. At that point it’s entirely up to you to make the internal links (using Scrivener Links to point to each section you wish to link to), in what order, with whatever formatting you desire; it is fully free-form. As long as that section matches the Layout pane name, it will override the generic automatic one.
And as the positioning the cover page, you can’t do that in Mobi, for the reasons I was stating earlier, it’s not actually a part of the book content itself—you can’t even target it as the starting point. The Kindle software inserts the graphic as a virtual page on the device so you can page back to it, and that is it. Some publishers will insert a redundant cover page—just a simple section (like a title page) with nothing but the picture in it, so that you can place it wherever you want and even define it as the starting point—but then you end up with two cover pages, for those that take the time to flip through, so it’s a bit of a kludge.
In other words, from your description, I think you’ve got it set up as best you can if you’re just relying on Scrivener to put the e-book together. You could take it further with dedicated e-book editing software, but like you say it’s not a big deal—most people just want to jump to chapter one and start reading your book. 
I thought of generating the table of contents manually but it’s too much trouble. 
As for the cover, when uploading to either Anazon or Barnes and Noble, I always upload the cover separately. The copies I’m doing now are for reviewers so they’ll have a cover photo on their eReaders. Thanks again for your help!
Did you know about Edit->Copy Special->Copy Documents as ToC?
Select all of your chapter documents (or folders if you have scene documents in chapter folders) in the binder, visit that menu item, and then go to your table of contents document and paste (CMD-V). That workflow is pretty nifty, I must say.
Cool! I did not know that. Thanks for the tip!