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Glossary

What is the EPUB navigation document?

Updated:

The navigation document is the XHTML file that holds an EPUB 3's table of contents, as a nav element with epub:type="toc", and optionally landmarks and a page list. Every EPUB 3 must have exactly one, marked with the "nav" property in the manifest.

Why it matters when you convert a PDF to EPUB

This is where the chapters EpubCC detects in a PDF become a clickable table of contents on the reader. The entries must point to documents inside the EPUB and follow the reading order, and a page list must be there when the content marks printed page breaks.

How EpubCC handles it: nav.xhtml lists every chapter and, inside each chapter, the headings of the next level down (up to 200 per chapter), each linking to an anchor in the chapter file. Chapters come from the PDF outline when it has one, otherwise from the first heading level that appears on at least two different pages.

Related terms

EPUBCheck messages about this

  • NAV-003 The Navigation Document must have a page list when content document(s) contain page breaks (epub:type="pagebreak").
  • NAV-010 "…" nav must not link to remote resources; found link to "…".
  • NAV-011 "…" nav must be in reading order; link target "…" is before the previous link’s target in … order.
  • RSC-012 Fragment identifier is not defined.
  • OPF-096 Non-linear content must be reachable, but found no hyperlink to "…".
  • OPF-096b No hyperlink was found to non-linear document "…", please check that it can be reached from scripted content.
  • NAV-001 The nav file is not supported for EPUB v2.
  • NAV-006 Content documents contain "figure" elements but the Navigation Document does not have a listing of figures (epub:type="loi").

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FAQ

What is the EPUB navigation document?

The navigation document is the XHTML file that holds an EPUB 3's table of contents, as a nav element with epub:type="toc", and optionally landmarks and a page list. Every EPUB 3 must have exactly one, marked with the "nav" property in the manifest.