InDesign’s Flexible Table Of Contents Feature
A table of contents (TOC) can be found in many documents and acts as a roadmap enabling the user to quickly find a particular section of the document. The ability to create TOCs automatically is a useful facility found in most word processing and desktop publishing (DTP) programs.
The mechanism used by most programs for generating the table of contents is what we might call style-tracking; one or more styles are designated as being associated with the table of contents. When the table of contents is created, all text in the designated style(s) is added to the list of items, usually with the appropriate page number next to it. In this article, we will look at how this feature is implemented in Adobe InDesign.
InDesign has three commands associated with the creation of tables of contents, all of which are found under the Layout menu: Table of Contents Styles, Table of Contents and Update Table of Contents. The Table of Contents Styles command is used to define the settings and attributes of the table of contents. When you choose the command, you are given the choice of either editing the built-in, default table of contents or creating a new one. As this choice implies, the table of contents facility can be used to create a list of any items occurring within the document, as long as the text associated with the items uses styles.
The first TOC setting is the title which will appear at the top of the list of items, along with the style in which you would like the title to appear. Next, you need to specify which styles you would like to include in your TOC. All of the styles which your document contains are shown in a list on the right. Simply double-click on each of the styles you wish to include in your TOC, in order of priority. Finally, you need to specify the attributes of each of the styles which are to be included in the TOC. The key attributes are the level, the style you wish to use to list items at that level and the position (or omission) of the page number.
Once the table of contents style definition is complete, you are ready to create the table of contents itself. To do this, simply choose Table of Contents from the Layout menu, choose which table of contents you wish to create and click OK. The cursor will then change to the loaded text icon; at which point you click to place your text. If you modify the settings of your table of contents at any time, just use the Layout – Update Table of Contents to bring your listing up to date.
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