EPUB Landmarks: Show the Reader Where the Book Begins

An independent publisher opens a new ebook and chooses the reading app’s command to go to the beginning. It lands halfway through the introduction. The cover looks fine and every chapter link in the table of contents works. Yet a reader who uses the shortcut misses the first page of the story. The fault may be in a part of the EPUB the publisher never sees on the page: the landmark that tells a reading app where the main content begins.

That small instruction deserves a separate check. A contents page tells a reader what is in the book and how it is organised. A start landmark gives the reading system a destination it can use for a particular action. The distinction becomes useful when an ebook has several plausible beginnings: a cover, a title page, an introduction and the first chapter.

Give the shortcut a specific job

The W3C EPUB 3.3 specification describes landmarks as an optional part of the navigation document. Each landmark link identifies the structural role of its destination. One recommended role, bodymatter, identifies the main content. A reading system can use it to take a reader past the front matter when they start reading. The specification describes a possible use; it does not require every app to present the same button or open every book in the same way.

Keep landmarks selective. A book may benefit from a shortcut to the beginning and another to a glossary or index. Listing every chapter as a landmark would repeat work already done by the contents. The companion guide to checking the ebook contents page and reading menu covers that chapter navigation. A landmark check asks where a structural shortcut should take someone, even when those chapter links already work.

Decide which page you want a first-time reader to reach

Imagine a practical guide to photographing ceramics. It begins with a title page and credits, then a short section explaining how to use the lighting exercises. Chapter one opens with instructions that assume the reader has seen that section. If an editor sets the start landmark to chapter one because it is the first numbered chapter, readers who follow the shortcut may miss the preparation. For this fictional book, the how-to section could be the better start, with chapter one still easy to reach from the contents.

Make that decision by opening the proposed destination and reading the first few lines as if you had never seen the book. Does the text orient you? Does it refer to a diagram or an instruction on the previous page? If a chapter is split across files or an editor has added a new section, ask for the destination to be checked again after export. The intended starting point is an editorial decision; the link is how you express it in the file.

Check the exported EPUB from two directions

First ask the person preparing the file to identify the destination of the bodymatter landmark in the exported navigation document. The link should point to the intended file or section. If it points to a heading within a file, check the exact landing spot rather than assuming the file name tells you enough. A link that resolves can still land at the wrong heading.

• Open a fresh copy in a reading app. Use the app’s start or beginning command where available. A copy you have already read may reopen at its saved position, which answers a different question.
• Check the line you land on. Note whether the heading and the first meaningful paragraph are both available. Then return to the contents and confirm readers can still reach sections that come before the landmark.
• Repeat in another app or a distributor’s preview where practical. Record the app and the result. If the app offers no dedicated shortcut, check its first-open behaviour and the ordinary navigation separately.

Keep the preview results with the file you tested. If a distributor converts the upload, a check of the local EPUB describes the local file. Inspect the converted preview when one is available, and record which copy produced the unexpected jump. That makes it easier to tell whether to revise the source file or investigate the reading system.

Make the correction easy to verify

A useful correction note names the action, the current result and the intended destination. For example: ‘In a fresh copy, Go to Beginning lands at Chapter 1. It should land at the heading How to Use the Exercises. The contents should still link directly to Chapter 1.’ The editor can check both routes after exporting again. Keep the note with the book’s release checklist so the next edition has a known destination to test. A note that says ‘fix the beginning’ leaves room for someone to change the visible contents without changing the landmark.

Test again when a new edition adds a preface, renames the opening section or rearranges the spine, which is the publication’s reading order. Keep the front matter available to people who want it. The aim is to make the shortcut useful without making other routes harder to find. Once you can show where it lands and explain why that is the right starting point, you have tested something the cover and chapter list could never prove on their own.

Source

• World Wide Web Consortium, EPUB 3.3, section 7.4.4: the landmarks navigation element, and its neighbouring sections on the table of contents and page list.