Formatting - advanced(??)

[Mick]

I use Scrivener and it does a reasonable job of formatting for Kindle (MOBI format). However, I would like to customise some parts which can't be formatted by Scrivener. In particular, the table of contents.
I can do this using Calibre (recommend this to anyone with multiple formats / devices) BUT if I edit the TOC, I end up with two copies - one at the front and one at the end!

Has anyone got any recommendations for other formatting tools that might help me out?

Thanks in Advance.

[An]

Mick wrote: "I use Scrivener and it does a reasonable job of formatting for Kindle (MOBI format). However, I would like to customise some parts which can't be formatted by Scrivener. In particular, the table of..."
Hi,
the Kindle Gen program , the amazon's one.
But I personally do not see the two TOC as a great problem, since the second one is on the very end of the MOBI file and where the place of the first one should be is entirely your choise

[Mick]

Must try the Amazon one. I guess I only want to suppress the second TOC because it's not present on professional books?

[An]

Hi Mick, teoricaly such a suppression is possible but I myself was not motivated to even try to obtain.

Here an usefull discussion about the Calibre usage
https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thre...
.............
Note that there is a dedicated explanation about how to implement the TOC in an ebook, just search KDP site for "Create a Table of Contents with a Navigation Document "

Sadly, todays professional books are no more "MOBI 6" format ebooks. Even using calibre you can try to learn AZW3 book format creation. I've failed miserably in my attempts ha-ha

[An]

Was too curious about what the look obtained with the scrivener is and I've just downloaded the free sample of your book from the italian store.
And it was a question of a glimpse for understand what your tiny error with the formating in calibre was -- in calibre on the left menù you have the option "MOBI Output" so you have to absolutely uncheck "Put generated Table of content at start of book instead of end" and you'll be done.
please, have the sample of my book(it's a word file, styled+calibre) and you'll see how I've opted for the cover being just in the begining of the book. If that option "Put generated Table of content at start of book instead of end" is checked than the TOC automatically goes at start and cover image dissapears(calibre misteries ha-ha)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MF76JB...

[Mick]

Thank you so much An - I wish I could read Italian (I can manage a bit of Spanish and they seem quite similar....).

You have given me much more to experiment with. I will report back any progress.

[Pam]

I know there are 2 TOCs in an epub, the one in the external NCX file and the internal HTML one which you can produce to cater for the odd ereader that doesn't handle the former.

Haven't tried editing the TOC when trying out Calibre so haven't reproduced your problem. Will have a go when I next get a chance but am super busy at the moment with NaNo and editing my book. I have done quite a bit trying out Calibre and also Sigil and am gravitating towards Sigil which involves doing things a little bit more manually, because Calibre produces a lot of odd styles even when you've gone through the Smashwords style process (as documented in their formatting guide).

[Pam]

Should add that I gave up on Scrivener for formatting because the Windows version doesn't preserve central formatting or blocked paragraphs (where wanting to block the first para of a chapter/scene) whereas the Mac version has options to tick for both of these formatting things in the Compile function. Was quite annoyed about that.

[Mick]

Thanks Pam. You've reminded me that I haven't finished last years NaNo!!

I've just discovered the ncx segment and will have a play. I've got the Mac version of Scrivener so quite fond of it - I also use the iPad version which is a bit restrictive but good for little amendments etc.

Thanks again