Creating a Table of Contents for Kindle using InDesign

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mcsolas

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I finally have exported my ebook into the kindle marketplace. However, I am running the kindle previewer app and just noticed a few things. When I previewed the epub using iBooks, the table of contents seemed to load just fine.

However, when I check the TOC on the kindle previewer, it doesn't appear to be working.

The source file is in InDesign. I used the create TOC command to build it, which makes hyperlinks but didn't create bookmarks. Will I have to manually add to the document in order to get this working properly?

Are there any tricks to using the Create TOC command and having it make these bookmarks. I had 'create pdf bookmarks' checked when I made the TOC, but the links it makes show up in the hyperlinks dialog, not in the bookmarks dialog. This makes me think I need to do this step by hand. I am not sure what the difference is between the two in InDesign....

Also, I found that in the previewer, the NCX view works fine, it shows both levels of the TOC I created ( I used H1 / H2 to have main items and subitems ). Just the Cmd-T "TOC" menu doesn't load.
 

randi.lee

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Are you using the online Kindle previewer, or the downloadable one? I've been told by Amazon staff that the online viewer is glitchy and to stick to the downloadable previewer for a better glance at how my finished product will look and perform.
 

mcsolas

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Are you using the online Kindle previewer, or the downloadable one? I've been told by Amazon staff that the online viewer is glitchy and to stick to the downloadable previewer for a better glance at how my finished product will look and perform.
I was using the Kindle previewer app (OSX version).

I figured out after I posted that I could download a preview and I loaded it into the kindle app I have on the computer and it looked way better. I was very relieved as the TOC loads just fine on it.

I found another export option that helped it load better (with the secondary menu) in the iBook app. I am going to do the same type of export now, fix a few things to center the header images and re-upload and see if I can make more improvements on the TOC. Since its essentially a cookbook that I am uploading, I like having the various recipe titles in the TOC so people can get to what they want to make as quickly as possible, to make this ebook something that people will hopefully reference often ( and want to share with friends ). The book is already getting this type of response :)
 

mcsolas

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Thanks for linking me to those FAQ's. I saw there is two articles towards the bottom that talk more specifically about the TOC. I also learned how the NCX file relates to the publishing process. It seems to be not as relevant these days but its good to know what it was for.

I also exported it to html now that I better understand the process and that an EPUB file is essentially a zipped html doc. I loaded it up in DW and took a look at the html. One thing I really noticed is that its not exporting the page breaks... this alone might merit me moving in and touching up some of the process. At the least, to better split up the chapters since I was having trouble with that.

In the future, I am starting to think that I am just about to move the whole document into DW since I am more familiar with that app and I can generate ultimately, a cleaner document... although.. I have learned how to make use of a lot of the features in InDesign. Maybe I will just use it for cleanup work. Tough call.. but at least I am learning a lot about the process.
 

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In the future, I am starting to think that I am just about to move the whole document into DW since I am more familiar with that app and I can generate ultimately, a cleaner document... although.. I have learned how to make use of a lot of the features in InDesign. Maybe I will just use it for cleanup work. Tough call.. but at least I am learning a lot about the process.

My experience is that you get the best results when hand-coding. Use whatever app you want for dumping the file into ePub, but then clean it up and hand-code a good style sheet. Sigil works well for this; it also generates the TOC.NCX file.
 

mcsolas

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My experience is that you get the best results when hand-coding. Use whatever app you want for dumping the file into ePub, but then clean it up and hand-code a good style sheet. Sigil works well for this; it also generates the TOC.NCX file.
Thank you! I just tried that app out and it works to help open up the EPUB file which is exactly what I needed to try and get this done.

I am having trouble unpacking the EPUB file. Found a few posts with mac specific workflows and also an EPUB unzip/zip app but it crashed when I tried to open it. The only thing I wish Sigil could do is help pack/unpack the file so I could work on it in DW. As is, I think I am going to copy & paste the main documents xhtml file over, work on it then move it back. I only need to add a few line breaks to really have it to the place where I want it. I figured out a nice find and replace query last night that helped me do that fairly quickly.

I also have another thread open in which a suggestion was made as to how I may be able to do this without proprietary markup. Going to test this method out as well!
 

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You can edit the individual HTML files in DW, then import them into Sigil and save the final project as ePub. I prefer just using Sigil's code view, but the method I described should work just as well.
 
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