15.3 | Additional NavPoints for Long-form Fiction &etc.

Additional Custom Navigation Points

This section is specifically for the long-form fiction folks or anyone who wants to add extra, custom navigation points into their files.

These additional nav-points are called “anchors”. 

These custom anchors generally do not get pagebreaks. They can, but it's kind of hard to come up with a scenario in which that would make practical sense.

Anyway...

We insert anchors with using Sigil’s handy-dandy Insert ID function.

TIPS:

• Place anchors at the start of a paragraph. When users navigate to these anchors, their e-reader or app will display the anchored text in the first line visible on the screen. Placing the anchor at the start of the paragraph prevents an awkward huh? moment when the anchor opens a page mid-sentence.

• At least one text character must be selected or highlighted in order to attach an anchor. (Sigil will scold if you don’t.)

HOW TO INSERT AN ANCHOR:

1. Pick whichever spot in the story body where you’d like to place an anchor.

2. Highlight a single text character, or an entire word or scene-break character-string or whatever.

3. Click the Insert ID icon, the one that looks (shockingly enough) like an anchor:

Once you click that icon, this pane pops up:

A name or "ID" must be assigned to the anchor. A coherent naming scheme would be a good idea. I wussed out with the Fantasy Heights series and simply used Roman numerals for both the anchor ID and the TOC entry (more on that later), but to each their own.

ACTION list:

1. Devise and finalize an anchor scheme.

2. Place the desired number of anchors into the story block.

3. Name the anchor IDs appropriately. No spaces or punctuation will be allowed in these anchor labels.

Fair warning: Be advised this easy Insert ID business is less than half the battle. A lot more work is required during the table-of-contents stage.

At this point, please return to the regular tutorial to create the table of contents. Afterward, each custom nav-point must be manually added to the TOC using the following method.

Adding Custom Anchors to the EPUB Table Of Contents

Now that the TOC has been created, long-form-fiction/custom-anchor folks have some extra work to do.

Each custom anchor needs to be manually added to the TOC, too.

For demonstration purposes, I added one anchor to the second chapter of Scandal named Mark II.

Here are the steps required to add an anchor ID to the TOC:

1. Tools menu > hover over Table Of Contents > select Edit Table Of Contents.

2. Click On the Chapter Two header and then click the Add Below button. (Obviously, users will have to tailor Add Above or Add Below to what they’ve got to work with: Presumably you’ve used a title header of some sort at the start of the story block. Click on the story block's TOC entry, and then click the Add Below button.) See Figure 1 below.

3. In the Edit Table Of Contents pane, click into the blank space Sigil just added. It will turn brighter blue.

4. Click Select Target. (It’s the bottom button, underneath Add Above, Add Below and Delete.)

5. A Select Target pane opens. See Figure 2 below.

6. Select the desired anchor ID and click OK. (In my case, I’m selecting the one with the href name #MarkII at the end.)

7. Repeat until all additional anchors have been added.

8. Once all custom anchors have been added, click OK in the Edit Table Of Contents pane.

9. Don’t panic. Yes, those TOC entries showed up blank. This is easily fixed with Sigil. See Figure 3 below.

10. Double-click into the toc.ncx file. (Find it near the bottom of the Book Browser pane.)

11. Locate each set of blank <text></text> tags in the toc.ncx file and enter the desired TOC label (as shown in Figure 3).

12. Sigil will update each of the changes you make; keep your eye on the Table Of Contents Pane.

13. Once all your TOC entries have been added and labeled as desired, click Save.

Find more information on this TOC entry stuff here. 

Figure 1: The “Edit Table Of Contents” pane

Figure 2: The “Select Target” pane

Figure 3:

Back to Create the EPUB Version