I've just published my second eBook on Smashwords.com. I’m concerned because, when I published my first eBook on their site, I had the devil’s own time of it, especially because of the difficulty in formatting, bookmarking and hyperlinking all of the elements of the Table of Contents. The whole point of the exercise is to enable the reader to switch easily back and forth from the table of contents (ToC) to a specific chapter and back again to the table of contents.
After the third or fourth failed attempt at it, I really began to debate the sanity of such an idea. So, I reviewed again why Smashwords felt was advisable or even necessary to include a hyperlinked table of contents in the book.
Since my book was a work of non-fiction, organized into named chapters, Smashwords advised a hyperlinked ToC because it added value to my book by making it a lot easier for the reader to find something in a particular chapter by enabling them to jump from one chapter to another. (Apparently, eReaders have the technology to detect automatically my linked ToC in their ePub, Mobi and PDF readers.)
So, convinced that I had no other choice in the matter, I studied all the harder how to build a hyperlinked ToC that would perform as it should in the eReaders. As usual, I had no problem with bookmarking and hyperlinking the chapter names in the ToC to the chapter headings in the text. It was getting the reader back from the chapter to the ToC that wasn’t working for me.
Then, on this final go around, I discovered something that I’d been overlooking before: “Some authors prefer to link their chapter headings back up to the Table of Contents. Other authors prefer to insert other text, such as, “Back to Top.” I chose “Back to Contents.”
The results became my recipe for eBook Table of Contents formatting success:
1. Type the Table of Contents
Immediately after your title/copyright page and before your other pages, type your table of contents, using Normal paragraph style, left-justified.
2. Bookmarking Individual Chapter Headings
a) Highlight the first chapter heading.
b) In MS Word, select “Insert”, then “Bookmark.”
c) Click “Bookmark.”
d) In the Bookmark window, type in the name of your first bookmarked chapter heading, without spaces or punctuation between words.
e) Click the “Add” button.
f) Repeat this procedure for each succeeding chapter heading until all are bookmarked.
3. Return to the Table of Contents Page
a) Highlight the “Table of Contents” heading at the top of the table of contents.
b) Select “Insert”, then select “Bookmark.”
c) Name this bookmark “TableofContents”, “Contents” or “ToC.”
d) Click the “Add” button.
4. Hyperlinking to Chapter Heading Bookmarks
a) In proper order, highlight each chapter heading in your ToC.
b) Click “Hyperlink”
d) In Word’s hyperlink menu on the left side of the “Hyperlink” window, click “Place in This Document” to see the ToC chapter heading bookmarks in the main window’s right-hand side.
e) Select the appropriate bookmarked heading in the main window.
f) Click the “OK” button.
g) Repeat this procedure in sequence for each chapter heading in your ToC. Be sure that each heading in the ToC turns the color blue and is underscored.
5. Linking the Chapters Back to the Table of Contents
a) On the line at the end of each chapter, type “Back to Contents” or “Back to Top” in the Normal parargraph font, and format it as 10 pt, right-justified.
b) Highlight it
c) Click on “Insert”, then “Hyperlink”.
d) Select the small “Place in this document” window in the “Hyperlink” window.
e) Select the “Table of Contents” heading in the main “Hyperlink” window.
f) Click the “OK”, then check to see if the “Back to Contents” legend has turned the color blue and is underscored.
g) Repeat this same procedure at the end of each chapter, applying the “Table of Contents” name to each.
6. Troubleshooting Tips
a) After all links are found to be underscored, before you test them, click Insert: Bookmark, then uncheck the box that displays “hidden bookmarks” to discover any unwanted bookmarks. Delete all the unwanted bookmarks to make your ToC work more reliably.
b) Carefully test each each link to see if they’re operating properly
c) If you edit names of bookmarks or the linked text, you might damage the viability of your links; if you have edited any, be sure to remove those former intra-document hyperlinks and re-apply them.
d) Do not use Microsoft Word’s automatic Table of Contents generation feature!!
6. Testing Your Links
a) Check to see if all links are underlined
b) Ctrl+Click each link to make sure that each goes where it is supposed to go.
Here is the ToC I was working on:
Table of Contents
Preface: “Fleshing Out” the Life of Jesus
Part 1: A Portent of Things to Come
Chapter 1: Mary’s Conception of Jesus
Chapter 2: Jesus’ Birth and Childhood
Part 2: Jesus’ Public Ministry
Chapter 1: The Baptism of Jesus
Chapter 2: The Temptations of Jesus
Chapter 3: Jesus Calls His Apostles
Chapter 4: Jesus Begins His Public Ministry
Chapter 5: Jesus, Teacher
Chapter 6: Jesus, Healer
Chapter 7: Jesus Rejected in His Hometown
Chapter 8: Jesus Feeds Thousands
Chapter 9: Peter Confesses Faith in Jesus
Chapter 10: The Transfiguration of Jesus
Chapter 11: Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem
Chapter 12: Jesus Cleanses the Temple
Part 3: Jesus’ Passion, Death and Burial
Chapter 1: Jesus’ Last Seder, First Mass
Chapter 2: Jesus’ Agony and Arrest
Chapter 3: Jesus’ Criminal Trials
Chapter 4: Jesus’ Torture, Crucifixion and Death
Chapter 5: The Burial of Jesus’ Body
Part 4: Jesus’ Glorification
Chapter 1: Jesus’ Resurrection
Chapter 2: Jesus’ Later Post-Resurrection Appearances
Chapter 3: Jesus’ Ascension to His Father
Here's the format I'm using to return the reader from the chapter to the ToC:
Back to Contents
Chapter 2: Jesus’ Birth and Childhood
It is spring, nearly six months since Mary’s return from the home of Zechariah and her cousin Elizabeth. Mary is well into her third trimester. Recently, Roman soldiers had come to Nazareth to announce to the townfolk there the decree of the Emperor Caesar Augustus, proclaimed byPublius Sulpicius Quirinius, who was sent by
I thank the Holy Spirit for His inspiration to the solution of this problem. It enabled me to have my first eBook accepted into Smashwords’ Premium Catalog, which permits distribution of my book worldwide to many more online booksellers. With His continued help I hope to be able to do it again.
