EPUB export warning(s) TOC Text Anchor not found : 90

[dianas90461003]

I’m frustrated and at a loss at trying to fix the errors I get while exporting an InDesign book file to epub. Like, ’TOC v34.epub’ level of frustrated. I’ve tried the steps mentioned in these threads several times, in case I missed something: https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/toc-text-anchor-not-found/m-p/14191338#M547998  and https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/toc-text-anchor-not-found/td-p/12769002 without success.

Also, I don’t have any hidden layers or hyperlinks with bad urls. Or any urls. I fuss as little as possible with TOC text, having the epub TOC style do the formatting. My book and ID files are in the same folder. I’ve added h1 - h3 tags to the export settings in all the paragraph styles. I’ve synchronized all the files in my ID book. I noticed when showing hidden characters, that even after I’ve trashed the TOC, removed it from the book, and/or don’t have it open, the blue colon character noting the text anchor still existed on those headings. So I deleted the headings and made new ones  (via copy paste to and from another program) so there was no blue colon/text anchor, hoping that would delete the ones with errors. Then doing a save as with a new name, and adding them again to the book. AND doing the save as IDML to ID purge. That didn’t work either. I don’t know what to try next, short of just doing away with HTML TOC altogether and just going with the Nav version (that works!), but that makes people above me antsy. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[jane-e]

@dianas90461003 

I've moved your post from Using the Community to InDesign for you.

If it were me, I'd break it into chunks. If your book is 200 pages, export 100 pages. If you find an error, export 50 pages, then the other 50, et cetera. Also keep an eye on the Bookmarks panel.

Jane

[dianas90461003]

Thank you!

[dianas90461003]

Thanks for your response. I've been using the articles panel to only export the TOC text frame.  That's where the errors are. Is there another way to export only specific pages to epub?

[dianas90461003]

There's nothing in the Bookmarks panel.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Are you exporting to reflowable or fixed-layout (FXL) EPUB?

And your last exasperated idea may be the correct one. There is little value to an in-text TOC in an ebook; you can include a deeper, more useful one in the dynamic TOC. Text TOCs, IMHO, just clutter up the layout.

That said, you do need to create separate, named schemas ("styles") for both the in-text and dynamic TOCs. You can't share one, you can't rely on the [default] one and you MUST save each one after making any change or it will be lost the next time you try to update it. Once that's done, generate a fresh version for each, place the inline one, place/delete the dynamic one... and try again.

As for partial exports, no EPUB is going to be happy with a TOC that might have links in parts of the book not exported. That would have to be very carefully managed if it can't be avoided altogether.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

And a secondary level: the problem can be both TOC entries that have lost their destination anchor AND fragments of old anchors, as you discovered. Try this: delete all TOCs and try exporting the book until you get no TOC or 'bookmark' errors of any kind (use the IDML->INDD purge to clean the files out WITHOUT a TOC in the mix, that is). Then, when the book exports cleanly, build those new TOC 'styles,' update them, and try the export immediately, without any further editing, page/component document renumbering, anything.

You can't do much of any editing or things like reordering a Book or selecting parts of it to export after generating TOCs. The kind of breakage you're seeing is the inevitable result.

[dianas90461003]

Thanks so much for your comments and suggestions. I need to step away from it for the day and will start again in the morning. 

[dianas90461003]

Oh, and yes, it's a reflowable layout.

[dianas90461003]

I took you advice and exported the whole book, not using articles. Thought I'd try it WITH the TOC first. And it exported without any errors! I'm flabbergasted. I took an online course through Linked-In learning called InDesign to EPUB which said to use the articles panel to test small sections. So that's what I did with the TOC. My word, I've been fighting with this for a week. Thank you so, so much!!!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

There is a vast amount of EPUB information out there that varies from grossly outdated to simply poor practices. Most of it is over in the "build a bear" world where gurus still mandate using old hacker tools to build EPUBs one file at a time, but I've read far too much lousy info in both the Kindle-making and InDesign-export arenas as well. It's exasperating.

Even the best of the tutorials, such as those on CreativePro and I think here on Adobe tend to be very rushed, reducing complex, breakable steps to a few clicks, leaving no margin for anything going wrong.

Just a heads-up as you progress. You need to learn to evaluate the information against time, expertise and (often) flat-out pointless prejudice against someone else's method.

FWIW, I've never used the Articles feature in structuring e-books. We had a discussion of it fairly recently and some good points were made for the feature, but only on a specialized basis, not a primary method.