Book Has No Home Page

A book project’s chapter list must include a home page such as index.qmd.

Q-5-36 — Book has no home page

A book project’s chapter list must include a home page: a file whose name starts with index..

What this means

Every book needs a landing page — the page readers see first, and the target of the book’s title in the sidebar. Quarto recognizes it by name: a file whose name starts with index. (for example index.qmd or index.md), listed in book.chapters. No such file appears in this book’s chapter list.

The index page does not have to be first in the list — Quarto moves it to the front of the render order automatically — but it must be present.

Why this happens

• The landing page has a different name — preface.qmd or home.qmd instead of index.qmd.
• The index file exists on disk but was never added to book.chapters.
• The index entry has a typo — index.md in the list when the file on disk is index.qmd.

How to fix

Rename your landing page to index.qmd (or add one) and list it in book.chapters:

book:
  title: "My Book"
  chapters:
    - index.qmd
    - intro.qmd

The home page is typically unnumbered — mark its heading with {.unnumbered} so it does not consume a chapter number:

# Preface {.unnumbered}