For my part I’m not changing things like asterisks. My reformatting has been simple and minimalist.
I have added the words “Part x” at the split points. I like this because I can scroll up to the top of a section and see where I am. I’ve looked at some of the ones without this and find that I get “lost” as to my location. Not all readers make the currently active section obvious. Anyway, adding “Part x” is all I’m doing in terms of modifying the document.
I have gotten frustrated by the TOC problems. Stanza on my iPhone seems particularly flaky about TOC navigation. Sometimes it seems like it doesn’t like the approach I’m using in large files but later I’ll go back to the SAME file and it will navigate fine.
I’ve considered making all of the headings (title, author’s name and section breaks) level 3 to see if this make the problem less obvious, but I haven’t tried it yet. The format I’m using (the one described in the help screen on the wiki) produces a format that I like and seems to work perfectly on all of the PC-based epub programs.
Now, if someone knows of a formatting approach that works better on real e-book readers, then I’ll be happy to change. For me, portable readers are the “real” target environment and we should try to make things look as good as possible for those devices.
Bob
