Table of Contents

Fixed-layout books include a thumbnail table of contents allowing for easy visual navigation. This visual table of contents is the default for fixed-layout books. A traditional list table of contents is also created using the HTML5 <nav> element for EPUB 3 books. The list table of contents is very helpful with large books with distinct chapters or sections such as cookbooks. However, the list table of contents is not very helpful with a short picture book and may be suppressed for those books. To suppress the list table of contents for an EPUB 3 book, include only one item in the <nav epub:type="toc"> block in the navigation document—the thumbnail table of contents will still be available. The following shows a thumbnail table of contents:

Fixed-Layout TOC example

In fixed-layout books, epub:type="page-list" for EPUB 3 can be used to define the page numbers that Apple Books assigns to each page. For example, the first page of the book is page 1 by default, but in some books, this may be the cover page and shouldn't be numbered. You can use pageList or epub:type="page-list" to define an empty string to that page so that it is not numbered. Similarly, you can define i, ii, iii or a, b, c then 1, 2, 3 for page numbers. Using <pageList> or epub:type="page-list" in fixed-layout books requires Apple Books 2.0 or higher.

The following shows an EPUB 3 example of epub:type="page-list" within an <nav> block:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" epub:prefix="ibooks: http://vocabulary.itunes.apple.com/rdf/ibooks/vocabulary-extensions-1.0">. . . <nav epub:type="page-list"> <ol> <li><a href="page001.xhtml"> </a></li> <li><a href="page002.xhtml">i</a></li> <li><a href="page003.xhtml">ii</a></li> <li><a href="page004.xhtml">iii</a></li> <li><a href="page005.xhtml">iv</a></li> <li><a href="page006.xhtml">v</a></li> <li><a href="page007.xhtml">vi</a></li> <li><a href="page008.xhtml">vii</a></li> </ol> </nav>. . . </body></html>

Note: In the prefix example above, the space between ibooks: and http:// is important; it needs to be a single, regular space character and not a return, non-breaking space, or any other kind of whitespace.