Can I add a table of contents?
There are two different things called a table of contents in an ebook, and it's worth knowing which one you're asking about.
The navigation your reader already has
Every EPUB we build is fully navigable. It carries a chapter list that the reading app uses for its own contents menu — the one you reach from the app's toolbar in Apple Books, Kindle, or Thorium.
You don't switch this on and you can't switch it off. It's part of the file, it's what makes the book navigable for screen readers, and it's why the EPUB reports proper structural navigation. See EPUB accessibility.
The visible page
Separately, you can add a Contents page you can actually see — a page in the book itself, listing your chapters as tappable links, sitting in the front matter where a printed book would put it.
Turn on Contents page in EPUB in the formatter's settings.
Whether you want one is a genre question:
- Novels usually don't. Chapters are numbered, readers move linearly, and the app's own menu covers the need. A visible contents page in a novel is mostly a page readers swipe past.
- Nonfiction, memoir, anthologies, short-story collections, cookbooks usually do. Readers jump around, chapter titles carry information, and seeing them laid out tells you what the book contains.
If your chapters have real names rather than just numbers, that's a good sign a visible contents page earns its place.
Print interiors
The print PDF does not include a contents page. If you want one in the paperback, add it to your manuscript before uploading — but be aware you'll be typing page numbers that only become correct once the book is formatted, so do that pass last.