Navigation Tools

Another class of standard page and document features could be called navigation aids. These tell you where you are in the document, how to get elsewhere, or where your eye should go next. When these elements are badly handled, using a book—especially a reference work or manual—can become a frustrating chore.

In the following sections, we’ll look at a handful of the major aids: page numbers, running heads and footers, and jump lines (which tell you where the text that ends in mid-sentence is continued). Indexes are covered in their own section later in the chapter.