[Jnassise]

Can anyone tell me where an ebook opens when compiled via Scrivener for Windows?  Before the front matter?  After the front matter?

(I know the Mac version has an "Open after front matter" checkbox in the layout pane of the compile screen, but I don't see the layout pane at all in the Windows version, never mind that particular command...)

Thanks!

 

[Jnassise]

I LOVE your covers.

Thanks Carina. Much obliged.

 

[SA_Soule]

I have no answer for your questions, but I just wanted to say that I LOVE your covers.

Me, too. ;-) Those covers are stunning.

 

[KOwrites]

Can anyone tell me where an ebook opens when compiled via Scrivener for Windows? Before the front matter? After the front matter?

(I know the Mac version has an "Open after front matter" checkbox in the layout pane of the compile screen, but I don't see the layout pane at all in the Windows version, never mind that particular command...)

Thanks!

When I check the Kindle previewer, it seems to open up on the Table of Contents (the last page of the TOC) in fact for my books. I don't know that there is a way to correct it. I have Parts in most of my novels, so I didn't want to mess with changing/tweaking it (somehow) because the next page they see is the Title page and then Part 1 via scrolling which is what I want.

I've been having some problems as of late with compiling and finally found a video on YouTube that suggested compiling an ePub first, and then converting it to Kindle via the Kindle Previewer. That worked like a charm. Let me know if those kinds of problems are coming up for you as it relates to Kindle and I'll track down the guy's video.

 

[Jnassise]

Someone out there has to know the answer to this....

 

[marken]

You'd think setting the start point in an ebook is a trivial technical issue, but the industry as a whole has managed to make it unnecessarily difficult. The various ebook formats and readers do different things.

Mac Scrivener has an "<$ebook_start>" placeholder for setting it in a generic way. In my experience, this works with EPUBs and appears to work with MOBIs until you upload them to Amazon. Amazon then does something to break the start and relocate it to the second page of the TOC. Only about a million people have this problem, but no one wants to own the solution. One fix may be to leave the cover unset in Scrivener and let Amazon add it, but you'd have to experiment.

Ultimately, the start location gets set in EPUB using an attribute in the content.opf file:

http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/2011/11/where-should-ebook-begin.html
http://epubsecrets.com/where-do-you-start-an-epub-and-what-is-the-guide-section-of-the-opf-file.php

But to get to that, you have to break out some more serious tools. On Windows, maybe Jutoh would be the easy way out. The online doc say it has a %STARTPAGE% macro you should be able to stick into the file somewhere and get the right result for the format, akin to Scrivener Mac's ebook_start. But YMMV.

 

[Jnassise]

Thanks Marken.  Should have specified that I was looking to make the change in a mobi file, not epub.  But all's well that ends well, as I managed to figure it out.

-J

 

[Simply Unbound]

This doesn't really answer your question, but for what it's worth I believe the "Front Matter" feature was added to Windows Scrivener quite recently.

When I compiled my first book a couple of years ago, I included all my front matter as though it were just another part of the book. Only later (within the last year or so) did I notice a special "Front Matter" folder had magically appeared in my new Scrivener projects.

Then again, if it doesn't help you create files that automatically skip past the front matter, does it actually serve any purpose?

 

[nektgen]