I’m finally forcing myself to learn compiling, first for ePub.
My question is how to leave certain items out of the TOC. Currently every item complied shows up in the TOC. I do use front matter (only cover and title page) but in the manuscript, preceeding a folder containing chapter one, are four text documents:
–an opening quote
–a timeline of the backstory
–a page containing (again) the book’s title
–a letter from one character to another that serves as a type of prologue
Is there a way to have these in the ePub itself, but not in the TOC?
Also:
–for the opening quote, is there a way to center the quote on the page without simply using padding?
The table of contents for e-books is automatically generated based on the page breaks, so the only way to avoid sections appearing in the TOC coming directly out of Scrivener is for them not to be on their own pages, probably not what you want. A better option is to use a tool like Sigil to edit the EPUB after compiling. If you’re creating a Kindle book too, you can open the edited EPUB in Kindle Previewer to have it automatically converted to MOBI using KP’s built-in KindleGen.
Thank you MM. I had discovered Sigil after posting that and used that as a workaround.
Two more questions. The first I’m repeating from the original post above: for the opening quote, is there a way to center the quote on the page without simply using padding?
Also, I have saved my custom compile preset on one computer. Is there a way to export this to use on another machine?
Sorry I missed your earlier question. You mean how to centre the quote vertically? There’s no way to do that other than padding. Maybe you could rig something with a table or container divs, but not within Scrivener; it would have to be afterward. Tables always seem a bit hairy, though, and ebook devices usually have only limited CSS support. You’d need to do a little research and testing to see if the devices you’re marketing for would handle it or what would happen if they didn’t.
You can export a compile preset by clicking “Load Preset…” in compile and then selecting the preset from the list and choosing “Export.” Move that file to your other machine, then import it the same way.