Recipes
Introduction
Managing the Table of Contents
Table of Contents and ebook navigation
Book cover image
On this page we’ve collected recipes of how to solve certain problems and how to manage common tasks when converting books using the Bookalope tools. Please contact us if you want to suggest a topic!
Like many other document editors Bookalope manages the Table of Contents (TOC) for you: it assembles the TOC from the headings in your document. However, you need to tell Bookalope where exactly it should place that generated TOC.
Remember that the paragraph labels on the Structure page contained one particular label: the TOC item. That paragraph label is the key to telling Bookalope where to place a TOC. If in your book you label a number of consecutive paragraphs as TOC item, then Bookalope will know that these paragraphs are, in fact, a TOC.
So, when you confirm the Structure on the page, Bookalope removes all TOC item paragraphs and puts a placeholder in their stead. On the Content page you will then see that placeholder:
Also note that we have marked the paragraph Table of Contents as chapter title and set its kind to “toc”, therewith telling Bookalope that the chapter it opens contains a TOC.
And so, if Bookalope encounters a chapter that’s marked as “toc” but which does not contain a TOC, then Bookalope will insert one. Furthermore, if you export your document as an ebook and if your book does not contain a “toc” chapter then Bookalope will insert one (that’s because the ebook accessibility standard requires it).
In addition to the TOC that’s visible to the user as part of the book, ebooks contain additional, internal navigation information. That navigation information is also constructed from the book’s headings information, but it contains all headings — whether they’re visible in the book’s TOC or not.
That means that while you can control whether a heading shows in the book’s TOC or on the page itself (see also here), you can not control the ebook’s internal navigation information. To ensure proper accessibility to all of your ebook’s content, Bookalope manages the internal navigation completely transparently for you!
As book designers we really do judge a book by its cover. Having an appealing book cover image is important, which is why Bookalope takes extra care of this step.
If you upload a file format which contains an explicit book cover image (e.g. an ebook) then Bookalope extracts that image and manages it automatically as the book’s cover image. If you upload metadata that contains cover image information then Bookalope handles that as well.
You can manage the book cover image of every Bookflow through its metadata page:
Here, you can browse for a local file to update the existing cover image, or you can click the Picture icon to have Bookalope generate a cover image for you (the text Generate cover image will be displayed). However, if you don’t want a book cover image at all for your book, click the Trashcan icon.
By default, Bookalope takes care of the cover image’s alternative text. If you enter a text here, though, Bookalope will use your text instead.
