Will E-Books Change The Way We Handle The TOC?

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Ransom

Kindle's way of getting to the meta-Toc is a bit of a chore. First push one button, then another, then another. That's gotta be a big pain for people who aren't very well schooled in the "multi-fucntional button discipline."

It's an even bigger pain when the azw has no TOC, so pushing those buttons does no good.

A bigger pain still that the kindle does not support TOC in PDFs that do have TOC.

[speakingtohe]

Kindle does support going from chapter to chapter with the right arrow if the chapter headings are correct, even without a TOC. That is sort of useful sometimes.
Helen

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The thing is, the link would only be for the chapter header. So if you are in the middle of a chapter, it's a lot easier to bring up the external ToC then it is to find a link or find the internal ToC. It takes me three presses to go to the external ToC from anyplace inside the book. That is not what I would call a hardship. But having the Chapter header linked back to an internal ToC does not look as nice as not having that link. Also, it takes extra screen turns to get past the internal ToC. And in some eBooks that have a very large number of chapters, that can be a lot of extra page turns. If we don't need/want to use the ToC, the external ToC does not get in the way at all. If we do need/want to use it, the external ToC is better.

I'm not saying that I want the intext ToC over the meta-ToC menu, just that if there is a intext ToC, I prefer it to be linked. For most things, having the ToC menu is preferred, but on the chance you're looking at the intext ToC, you should be able to jump immediately to something without pulling up the other ToC.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I personally like a linked internal TOC... it's very easy to pop around in a book with one and actually faster for me on both my Nook and my Sony than using the "go to" menu.

I also like seeing exactly how many chapters there are. Maybe I'm just used to print books, but I like having my internal table of contents.

How is an internal ToC faster to use if you are in the middle of a chapter and have no links to jump to the internal ToC? It's not. It's a lot more of a problem to get to the ToC. But the external ToC is always the same number of presses to get to. And no, it's not easier to use an internal ToC on a Sony.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

I'm not saying that I want the intext ToC over the meta-ToC menu, just that if there is a intext ToC, I prefer it to be linked. For most things, having the ToC menu is preferred, but on the chance you're looking at the intext ToC, you should be able to jump immediately to something without pulling up the other ToC.

To me, it's just silly publishers are putting an internal ToC just to appease Amazon.

[travger]

I prefer my (linked!) toc to be in the beginning, even if it's just 'Chapter xx'; seeing it gives better feel for the length of the book.
Toc in the end seems to me somehow unnatural, maybe like knock on the forehead: did you find all the chapters? missed any?