A system and method are provided for creating and managing electronic documents, complete with navigational elements, suitable for distribution over a computer network, such as the Internet. The invention includes a method for adding both linear and hierarchical navigation to the electronic document, as well as a method for the generation and management of the appropriate navigational links. The invention also includes a method to apply custom designs to the electronic document through the use of a templating mechanism. The electronic documents produced by the invention are composed of static text and images, do not require any dynamic server process and can be hosted by any Internet Web server software or hosted locally on any computer system or read-only medium, requiring no proprietary hosting technology.