I noticed that a recent publication has been slow to become fully distributed. When I requested feedback from retailers, I found that Apple IBook Store registered a complaint: Incomplete and/or inaccurate TOC. This seemed odd to me because my EPUB files have been compiled in Scrivener and no specific action needs to be taken to generate a table of contents.
How do I resolve this problem? It has affected several, but not all, of my titles. The generation process for all is exactly the same.
Suggestions?
Have you checked your epub file for a TOC?
It’s totally simple to generate one. Add a Contents page to Front Matter. Select the chapters/scenes you want included in the TOC. Edit > Copy Special > Copy Documents as structured link list.
Paste that into your Contents page and it’s done.
Copy and pasting using Copy documents as ToC will give you page numbers as well, but for eBooks that’s not valid as they don’t have page numbers.
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Apple iBook has produced complaints that other distributors do not. The last one I had complained that the toc indicated a different page number for one chapter than was displayed by that chapter when accessed. My ePub2 had absolutely no page number references at all. The page numbers eventually turned out to be an artifact produced by iBook themselves when processing prior to publication.
Before publishing any ebook, I check it out for conformity with epub specs in Sigil with its epubcheck plugin. Any adjustments required are easily edited in Sigil.
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I have used this technique to generate TOCs for pdf files, but not for EPUB files. Is that what Apple IBooks is looking for? Part of the problem with such feedback is how to respond to an unspecified problem.
When I checked my EPUB file for page number anomalies, I did see some, but I just scratched my head as to how to deal with it because I did not generate the page numbers myself.
I have used Sigil for years, but in this case I am not sure what to look for because I did not generate TOCs myself. Does Apple IBooks object to the EPUB standards that everyone else appears to follow?
My ePub export from Scrivener works just fine on Apple Books, Amazon, D2D
epub doesn’t use page numbers because the pages differ according to the device being read on.
Something the struck me, @T2Pneuma, are you compiling to ePub2 or epub3? It’s not clear from your posts, and that might make a difference.
Mark
PS Remove your email address from your avatar… that’s asking for trouble!
What sort of problem do you see with listing an email?
What is the default EPUB setting in Scrivener?
Just in principle… it makes it easier for spammers trawling the internet.
Mark
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Could depend which version of Scrivener you are using, I think Scrivener 2 compiled to ePub2, which is now deprecated. I haven’t ever compiled to ePub, so I don’t know if it possible to compile to ePub2 with Scrivener 3, though it still has the also deprecated .mobi for Kindle.
Again, in principle, the more background information like that you give, the easier it is for any of us to help find solutions.
Mark
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You can compile to epub 2 or 3.
I’ve found compiling to epub 2 throws fewer issues with Apple Books.
I distribute to Apple (and other small outlets) via D2D. D2D agreed that my epub2 file was ‘perfect’. It appears that Apple provides its own page numbers for iBook readers. Given the really small proportion of sales that Apple generates, I eventually gave up on trying to ‘correct’ their issue. It wasn’t worth the time.
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