# What is the EPUB navigation document?

Source: https://epublab.com/glossary/nav-document/ (updated 2026-11-03)

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 EPUBLab 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.