The table of contents

The table of contents is two different documents that happen to share a name.

In print, it is a lookup tool: a reader with the book in hand checks where something is. In an ebook, it is the navigation system: reading systems build their go-to menus from it, and a reader who never opens a contents page is still using it every time they jump. The print version can be omitted from a novel; the ebook version cannot be omitted from anything. Mixing up the two jobs is how books end up with a contents page in print that lists nothing findable, or an EPUB whose menu says “chapter one, chapter two” because nobody told the file what the chapters are called.

What the print contents lists

The rule: list what a reader might want to find. That is broader in nonfiction than fiction.

Always listed:

• Parts and chapters, in order.
• Back matter that gets consulted — appendices, endnotes, glossary, bibliography, index. These are the entries nonfiction readers actually navigate by, and their absence from the contents is the commonest omission.
• Front matter that carries content: the foreword, preface, introduction and acknowledgements when they sit in the front.

Never listed:

• The title page, copyright page and dedication — front matter the reader does not consult.
• The contents itself.

Sometimes listed: subheadings inside chapters, in reference and technical books where the section is the unit of use. In a narrative book they are noise. Fiction usually lists nothing beyond the chapters — and a novel’s print contents is optional for the same reason: nothing in it is looked up. When a novel does run one, it is often styled — a poetry collection or a literary novel may carry an unnumbered contents as part of the book’s face.

How a print contents is set

Chapter title, then the page number, on the same line, connected by a dot leader — the row of periods that carries the eye from the title to the number. Subentries indent under their parent; parts sit above their chapters with a little more space.

Two mechanical facts produce most contents-page defects:

The page numbers must match the final pagination, which means the contents is built after the book is typeset — it is the last piece of front matter finished, because every page in the book is its input. A contents typed before the layout exists can only be wrong.

The contents regenerates rather than updates. Any change that moves a page — a margin, a chapter, an opening redesigned — reflows the book and invalidates the numbers. The contents page is the only part of a book that is recomputed, and treating it as ordinary text means hand-maintaining a number for every chapter through every revision.

Word does this correctly if the manuscript uses real heading styles — the connection between styles and the auto-generated contents is the reason preparing a Word manuscript insists on them.

The ebook contents is structural

An EPUB’s contents is not a page — it is a navigation document: a machine-readable list of the book’s parts, in order, with their destinations. The reader never sees it directly; they see its consequences, which are the go-to menu, the progress bar’s chapter names, and the scrubber that jumps between sections.

Three consequences follow:

• Every chapter must be in it, under its real name. “Chapter 1” as a literal entry when the chapter is called The Long Rain is a defect the reader hits in the menu a hundred times.
• The back matter goes in it too. On a phone, the notes or the appendix are unreachable except through the contents. An unlisted appendix is an appendix the ebook does not have.
• Retailers expect it. A reflowable book without a working linked contents fails review at the stricter storefronts and reads as unfinished at the lenient ones; the validation errors it produces are covered in why your EPUB was rejected.

The ebook contents exists even when the print contents would not. A novel with no print contents page still ships a navigation document listing every chapter — the print convention and the ebook requirement are independent, and the ebook’s is not optional.

One list, two renderings

The mistake to avoid is maintaining the print contents and the ebook contents as two documents. They are one list — the chapters, in order, under their names — rendered twice: once with page numbers and dot leaders, once as links. The list is the book’s structure, and the structure is already somewhere: it is the chapters.

Build the list from the structure and both renderings stay true. Maintain two documents by hand and they drift — the page numbers first, then the titles, until the menu in the reading system and the page in the print edition disagree about what the book contains.

---

A contents page is the book’s structure, published. Which is why it should never be typed, only generated: the chapters already know what they are called and, once the book is typeset, what pages they start on.

Nueel generates the contents from the book’s actual sections — one entry list that drives the printed page with dot leaders and page numbers, the anchors in the HTML, and the navigation document in the EPUB — and regenerates it whenever the text moves, because the structure it describes is the same one being typeset.

Common questions

Does a novel need a table of contents?

In print, usually not — a novel read front to back has no lookup work for the page to do, and most print novels omit it. In an ebook, yes: the contents list is the navigation document every reading system builds its go-to menu from, so the file needs one even when the print edition would not.

What belongs in a book's table of contents?

Whatever a reader might want to find: the chapters, the parts, and the back matter that gets consulted — appendices, notes, glossary, bibliography, index. Front matter appears selectively: the preface, foreword and acknowledgements are listed; the title page, copyright page and dedication are not.

How do I make a table of contents in Word?

From real heading styles. With the chapters marked as Heading 1, References → Table of Contents builds the list and — the part that matters — can update it when the page numbers move. A contents page typed by hand cannot be updated, only retyped, which is why it is always wrong.

Why do my contents page numbers not match the book?

Because the contents was built before the pagination settled. Every change that moves a page — a widened margin, an extra chapter, a redesigned opening — invalidates the printed numbers. The contents is the last page that is finished, and it is regenerated, not edited.