: Re: What files to include in the toc.ncx I learned to format epubs working from samples that I opened up in the Oxygen XML editor ... as well as from the Elizabeth Castro and Paul Salvette books.

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A few things here: for starters, I agree that not all the stuff that is front matter in print should be in the front for an ebook. We generally move the copyright page to the back, for example, as well as praise for the book and anything else that seems ancillary.

Bear in mind that ultimately it's the <spine> of the content.opf file that does the organizing of what goes where, not the table of contents. The <spine> is what reading systems will look to to see what comes next. The playOrder attribute in the ncx is not needed, and in fact in epub 3.0 they've done away with the ncx file entirely and replaced it with a toc.xhtml.

Finally, you can include the [guide][1] in your ncx file to indicate things like the cover, the start of the main content, and so on. Most reading systems will ignore most of that, but a number of them will default to opening on whatever you specify to be the start of the content—Kindle and iBooks will both do this, for example. Here's an example <guide> from the IDPF:

Check the guidelines for the particular retailers you'll be using for more details about the <guide>; as I recall, Amazon only wants you to mark the start of the content and the cover.

EDIT: The above link doesn't seem to be showing up; here's the URL: www.idpf.org/epub/20/spec/OPF_2.0.1_draft.htm#Section2.6
Further Edit: You can get the <guide> functionality in epub 3.0 with <nav epub:type="landmarks">: www.idpf.org/accessibility/guidelines/content/nav/landmarks.php

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