Navigational Headings

Navigational headings are a feature in DITA maps that enable you to name sections without using a parent topic. Map titles do not display in a table of contents. You need to insert navigational elements in your DITA map to display map titles in the output. Navigational headings are created with the topichead element.

Note: For more information, see Maps with Map Hierarchy.

Maps Without Navigational Headings

You can create maps with submaps. For example, each chapter of a main map can be organized in its own submap.

Figure 1. Map with Submaps but without Navigational Headings. In this example, the Main Map (outlined in green) contains a hierarchy of submaps (outlined in blue).
example map with no navigational headings
Figure 2. Navigation in Output. Publishing the Main Map generates this navigation in a PDF output. The topic titles (Topic A, Topic B, Topic C) show but the map titles (Getting Started, Interface, Features, Controls) do not. To show map titles, you need to define navigational heading elements in the map.
example PDF output of a map with no navigational headings

Maps with Navigational Headings

Here is an outline of a main map with submaps and a navigational heading for each of the submaps.

  • User Guide (main map)
    • Content Editor (topichead)
      • Content Editor (submap)
        • Interface (topic)
        • Using the Content Editor (topic)
    • Source Editor (topichead)
      • Source Editor (submap)
        • Interface (topic)
        • Using the Source Editor (topic)
Figure 3. Map with Submaps and Navigational Headings. This example shows a map with navigational headings for each submap in the Map Editor and is followed by the source code of the map you would see in Source Editor.
Example of a map with navigational headings
CODE 
<map id="ditamap-user_guide-7358">
    <title>User Guide</title>

    <topichead>
        <topicmeta>
            <navtitle>Content Editor </navtitle>
        </topicmeta>
        <mapref format="ditamap" href="content_editor.ditamap"/>
    </topichead>

    <topichead>
        <topicmeta>
            <navtitle> Source Editor </navtitle>
        </topicmeta>
        <mapref format="ditamap" href="source_editor.ditamap"/>
    </topichead>

</map>

Create a Navigational Heading

Insert navigational elements in your DITA map to show map titles in the output.

  1. In the Content Library, double-click a map to open it in the Content Editor.
  2. Right-click the map element, and select Append element > topichead from the Context Menu.
    To add a topic head element, the user needs to right-click on the map element, choose to append element and select topichead from the list.
  3. Hover over the topichead element and click the gear icon.
  4. Fill in the Navtitle field with the title of your navigational heading.
  5. Drag a map from the Content Library or the pane on the left and drop it onto the topichead element.
    Dragging and dropping a submap onto the topichead element
  6. If a dialog appears, select mapref element and click Insert.
The map is added as a child of the topichead element.
A submap as a child element of a topichead element.