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carrie1009
Known Participant
September 15, 2018
Answered

TOC not appearing in epub

  • September 15, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 3934 views

Hi all....I have indesign 2014cc and making an epub....made the toc, included the styles, etc. when I export to epub the TOC is simply not there....i can SEE it in indesign, upon export, there's nothing, not even a blank page. Am I missing clicking something somewhere?

thanks for any help, been trying to find the answer for 3 days now! exasperated!

carrie

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer TᴀW

Ha, well, what you need to do is to make it part of the text flow of the book itself.

So, in InDesign, cut the text of the TOC, and delete the text frame/s (and pages) it was in.

Then paste the text of the TOC wherever it should go in the book, somewhere at the beginning, presumably.

It will now appear in the right place when exported to ePub.

Of course, if you need to update it in any way in InDesign, it will now be a problem to do so, because technically, the TOC itself no longer exists, as far as InDesign is concerned. But in that case, just generate a new one, and repeat the steps above (i.e., cut the text, delete the frames, and paste where needed.)

2 replies

Community Expert
August 31, 2021

Hi Alice,

create and update your TOC always on the pasteboard, not on a document page.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

TᴀW
Legend
September 15, 2018

Are you talking about the TOC not appearing in the ePub navigation pane, or an actual TOC that should be part of the ePub text itself? In my answer below, I'm presuming the former...

When you export the ePub, you should see the "Export Options" dialog appear, which allows you to set things like font embedding in the ePub, cover image, etc.

One of the things you can set there (under the General tab), is options for the Navigation TOC. There are 2 options: "File Name", and "Multi Level (TOC Style)".

It sounds like you should be choosing the Multi Level option. Then select the name of the saved TOC.

It should then appear in the navigation pane of you ePub.

However... if you mean that the table of contents simply isn't appearing as part of your actual ePub, read on...

What could have happened is that you inserted the TOC as separate text frame in the appropriate part of the InDesign document, but since it's a separate text frame from the main text, it's also a separate story. So InDesign will first export the entire contents of the first story (i.e., your entire book), and only then deal with the second story (i.e., your TOC).

If that's the case, you may find that the TOC is actually there in the ePub -- right at the end of the book! Is that in fact the case?

Ariel

Visit www.id-extras.com for powerful InDesign scripts that save hours of work — automation, batch tools, and workflow boosters for serious designers.
carrie1009
Known Participant
September 15, 2018

part of the epub itself...an actual page..

holy cow it's at the end!!! how do i fix that? i love you already!

TᴀW
TᴀWCorrect answer
Legend
September 15, 2018

Ha, well, what you need to do is to make it part of the text flow of the book itself.

So, in InDesign, cut the text of the TOC, and delete the text frame/s (and pages) it was in.

Then paste the text of the TOC wherever it should go in the book, somewhere at the beginning, presumably.

It will now appear in the right place when exported to ePub.

Of course, if you need to update it in any way in InDesign, it will now be a problem to do so, because technically, the TOC itself no longer exists, as far as InDesign is concerned. But in that case, just generate a new one, and repeat the steps above (i.e., cut the text, delete the frames, and paste where needed.)

Visit www.id-extras.com for powerful InDesign scripts that save hours of work — automation, batch tools, and workflow boosters for serious designers.