Missing EPUB chapters or wrong contents links? Check both

First check whether the chapter is actually missing

Search for a distinctive sentence from the beginning of the chapter. If the sentence appears but the chapter is absent from the contents, the immediate problem is navigation. If the sentence cannot be found, compare nearby passages with the PDF to check whether the content was omitted or placed somewhere unexpected.

Those problems need different fixes. Adding a contents entry will not restore a missing paragraph. Repeating a full conversion may not repair a link that simply points to the wrong heading.

Choose three sections to inspect: one near the beginning, one in the middle and one later in the document. That gives you a better check than repeatedly opening the first contents entry.

EPUBTurn offers a sample reading edition for PDFs you are allowed to upload; keep the original available for checking.

A printed contents page is not the whole navigation system

A PDF may show a contents page with titles and printed page numbers. In a reading edition, a useful contents entry needs to lead to the corresponding section. The original page number alone is not enough when the text can form different screens at different font sizes.

Check the reading app’s contents menu as well as any contents page inside the book. A title that appears in one place may be missing from the other. Open each of your chosen entries and look at the first paragraph, not just the heading at the top of the screen.

If the source uses decorative chapter titles, a conversion may need more interpretation than a document with clear text headings. Keep the original nearby so you know which headings are meant to divide the book.

Follow the paper’s section headings

Use a section heading you can locate in the ten-page research PDF, such as Methods, and find the corresponding location in your reading copy. If a contents entry is supplied, follow it and compare the first paragraph with the source.

A heading appearing somewhere in the book does not establish that a link targets the right paragraph. Search for the heading if the link is wrong, then distinguish a missing destination from missing content. We have not established a complete navigation result for every converted file in the comparison.

Keep headings that carry meaning

Some repeated text is page furniture: a publication name at the top of every page, for example. A chapter heading is different. Removing both indiscriminately can leave readable paragraphs with no useful structure.

Watch for a new section that starts halfway down a printed page. A rule that treats only the top of a page as a chapter boundary may miss it. Likewise, a large heading in a sidebar should not necessarily become a main chapter.

If several entries lead to unrelated passages, note the specific titles and destinations. Precise examples make the problem easier to investigate than a general request to “fix the contents.”

What to check in an EPUBTurn sample

Upload your PDF to EPUBTurn and inspect the available sample. Check headings on the selected pages and try the navigation entries that refer to content included in the sample. A short sample may not include every chapter opening, so absence from a sample is not automatically absence from a full conversion.

Before relying on the complete EPUB, inspect a later chapter and the final section too. For a manual or reference book, navigation can matter as much as paragraph flow because you may open the book to find one answer rather than read from beginning to end.

A practical stopping point

You should be able to open a section from the contents, recognise its opening passage and return to the contents when you need another section. Keep printed page citations in the original PDF if your work depends on them.

Try a free EPUBTurn sample to check the reading structure before continuing. For the broader review, use our quality checklist alongside the source PDF.

Use a navigation record that also checks endings

Open the chapter navigation checklist or download the CSV. For every required chapter, record its source heading, distinctive opening phrase and previous chapter’s final sentence. Follow the contents link, then inspect the opening and ending separately. A working destination cannot prove an ending is present.

If the chapter text exists but the destination is wrong, follow the link-repair guide. If the sentence is missing everywhere, investigate missing content before rebuilding navigation. The checklist is a manual record, not an automatic EPUB inspector or an EPUBTurn feature.

Do not confuse content with the chapter label

The actual NASA sample EPUB retains selected content under a generic Frontmatter chapter. Its real content can be useful while navigation remains less informative than expected. Test a contents entry and the passage it reaches in your own result. A fresh conversion is worth considering for widespread reading problems, but adding a link remains a separate editor task.

NASA source

D. Harold Shelton, Apollo experience report: Lunar module stabilization and control system, NASA, 1975. US government work; public use permitted. Original pages 3–8 extracted; sample selects excerpt pages 4–6.

Related guides

• How to fix footnotes mixed into EPUB paragraphs
• How to repair broken internal links in EPUB
• Why EPUB page numbers differ from the PDF