• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

TOC - Ebook

Explorer ,
Nov 16, 2022 Nov 16, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi, I'm having difficult with the TOC in my ebook. The book is all one document and I've created the TOC within it, checked the 'make text anchor in source paragraph' etc. I've now watched a ton of videos and read loads of articles on how to do it, but the problem I'm having is that the TOC always appears at the end of the document, not the beginning, when I export it as Epub. I've tried everything to get it to stay at the front, but no luck! (Also, the copyright page is repeating at the end of the document when exported, again no idea why!)

TOPICS
EPUB

Views

823

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 16, 2022 Nov 16, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Your issue stems from the reading order (more specifically, the text placement order) of your document flow.

 

When creating reflowable epubs, the file placement sequence drives what's placed in the epub from first to last. Of course natural workflows dictate that navigation tools like the Index and Table of Contents are the last items created, to be inclusive of all the rest of the finalized content. That stands in contrast to epub structure, where it might be nice to place the Index last, but defeats the purpose of having a ToC in the first place.

 

You need to set the structure of your epub by ordering the articles/text blocks the way you'd like them tio bve, rather than the sequence InDesign creates. You do that through the Articles panel, and you can get more information on how to do that through this link.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Randy

 

 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 16, 2022 Nov 16, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Your TOC must have its frame anchored to the paragraph you wish it to follow. Just placing it on a page, as you do for print, will mean it's a separate object/text flow, and will follow the primary flow in the exported EPUB.

 

Using ID's article order does not always control this behavior. An EPUB must be a single text flow, and any additional blocks/flows will follow the primary one.

 


â•Ÿ Word & InDesign to Kindle & EPUB: a Guide to Pro Results (Amazon) â•¢

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 16, 2022 Nov 16, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

That works too. A single text thread, in order, creates the simplest reading order: just one, with the total order in your preferred sequence from beginning to end.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 16, 2022 Nov 16, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I'm not sure there's any truly reliable alternative to a single (ID) text flow. I recall experimenting with article order and discarding it as a technique; I'd have to go tinker again to see why.

 

EPUB is like a web page: it all has to be one flow, in the desired order. Multiple chunks will not behave predictably. Even if there are multiple XHTML segments, they are controlled and ordered by the overall structural code, and that's created in a linear model.

 


â•Ÿ Word & InDesign to Kindle & EPUB: a Guide to Pro Results (Amazon) â•¢

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Nov 16, 2022 Nov 16, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks all for your help. I've tried ordering the book through the articles and that doesn't work. There is no anchor sign on the text box around the automatically generated TOC, so I don't know how to anchor it .... I've attached the opening pages, including the TOC. Sorry, I'm totally new to learning InDesign. Done the paperback version, but really struglling with exporting to Epub!

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 16, 2022 Nov 16, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Place your TOC frame where you want it in the text flow.

 

With frames showing (work view, not preview), drag the blue box at upper right on the TOC frame to an anchor point at the end of the immediately preceding paragraph.

 

The whole TOC will be inserted at that point. Pro tip: the TOC box does NOT have to be large enough to show all of a long TOC, and you can't anchor multiple frames anyway. The only aspects of the TOC frame that matter are its width (it should be full margin width unless you want it narrower), and that it's anchored where you want it to appear.

 

ETA: Additionally, you don't necessarily need an in-flow TOC on an EPUB. Both EPUB and Kindle are built to use the dynamic, reader-managed TOC. You can have two different TOCs as well, one placed in the text and one optimized (perhaps with more levels of entry) for the dynamic TOC.

 


â•Ÿ Word & InDesign to Kindle & EPUB: a Guide to Pro Results (Amazon) â•¢

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Nov 16, 2022 Nov 16, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Oh that's so helpful - it's working now! Just one question - it's showing both the title and the subtitle of each chapter as a separate (and underlined) link. How do you stop the subtitle being a link / underlined? Thank you so much!

 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 16, 2022 Nov 16, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Each paragraph style you list for TOC inclusion will be a separate entry and link.

 

If you don't want the subtitle to be a link, remove that style from the TOC list.

 

If you want to include both title and subtitle as a single TOC link... there are ways to do it, but it can get quite involved. TOCs are built pretty firmly around one paragraph of one style being one TOC entry, with or without an associated page number.

 


â•Ÿ Word & InDesign to Kindle & EPUB: a Guide to Pro Results (Amazon) â•¢

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Nov 16, 2022 Nov 16, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Removed from the list - sounds so obvious when you say it!! Thank you! One more question - do you have any idea why the copyright page is showing both on the second page of the ebook, and repeating a couple of pages from the end on the Epub? It's not showing in InDesign as repeated - is there some hidden 'coding' that I may have inadvertenly put on this page, and if so what / how do I fix it?! Thank you.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 16, 2022 Nov 16, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

As far as I know, elements in an ID file will appear once and once only in an EPUB export — the usual problem is getting them to appear in the right place (as with your TOC) and with the desired formatting. But there was another post recently where someone claimed material was being repeated in their EPUB export, and I don't recall whether it was resolved.

 

Do a text search of some keyword unique to the copyright page (publisher name, the © symbol, etc.) and see if a second example shows up. The only thing I can think of is that you have a duplicate page that is off the page layout (out on the pasteboard) somewhere, and it is falling to the end of the export for the same reasons as the TOC (that is, it's a detached text frame).

 


â•Ÿ Word & InDesign to Kindle & EPUB: a Guide to Pro Results (Amazon) â•¢

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines