diff --git a/doc/config.rst b/doc/config.rst
index 8084580c4..1108a145a 100644
--- a/doc/config.rst
+++ b/doc/config.rst
@@ -757,7 +757,7 @@ the `Dublin Core metadata <http://dublincore.org/>`_.
 
    Additional files that should be inserted before the text generated by
    Sphinx. It is a list of tuples containing the file name and the title.
-   Example::
+   If the title is empty, no entry is added to :file:`toc.ncx`.  Example::
 
       epub_pre_files = [
           ('index.html', 'Welcome'),
@@ -769,7 +769,8 @@ the `Dublin Core metadata <http://dublincore.org/>`_.
 
    Additional files that should be inserted after the text generated by Sphinx.
    It is a list of tuples containing the file name and the title.  This option
-   can be used to add an appendix.  The default value is ``[]``.
+   can be used to add an appendix.  If the title is empty, no entry is added
+   to :file:`toc.ncx`.  The default value is ``[]``.
 
 .. confval:: epub_exclude_files
 
diff --git a/sphinx/builders/epub.py b/sphinx/builders/epub.py
index 02c1fc9a3..17191182c 100644
--- a/sphinx/builders/epub.py
+++ b/sphinx/builders/epub.py
@@ -439,6 +439,8 @@ class EpubBuilder(StandaloneHTMLBuilder):
         level = 1
         lastnode = None
         for node in nodes:
+            if not node['text']:
+                continue
             file = node['refuri'].split('#')[0]
             if file in self.ignored_files:
                 continue