By: Michael Murphy
December 31 2006 • 7:50 AM
The InDesigner - Episode 34: Long Documents, Part 2 - Tables of Contents
Continuing the Long Documents series with the same book files used in Episode 33, this installment covers how to create an automated, dynamic Table of Contents for an InDesign book. Along the way, I emphasize the unique and critical relationship between an InDesign Table of Contents and Paragraph Styles, without which none of this would be possible.
Download it now or watch it in your browser:
The InDesigner - Episode 34 (25.3 MB, 13:50 minutes)
Excellent job, Michael. Definitely the clearest description of how to set up a TOC in InDesign I’ve ever seen!
Thanks so much, Steve. I consider that high praise coming from you. I enjoyed learning about TOCs as much as figuring out how to make it clear to the world at large. Now go enjoy your New Year’s Eve already! :)
I found this web site very useful, I am now going to have to look up a few other episodes to fully understand since I am new. Can you use this same Style for a Index at the back of a book as well as the TOC? you are great. Thanks again.
Mark — Indexing is a separate function that I will be covering as the last part of this series on working with long documents. However, Indexing is not a style-based feature. Keep an eye out for the indexing episode later this month.
Great job Michael!
Hi fellow mike, ;)!
I just want to send over a huuughe THANK YOU !
Your constantly improving my skills by adressing the right topics in a very “real world style ” scenario…i escpecially like your examples with the subtle details you´re driving our attention to…. So to come to an end, is it possible to send me a version of your toc file?
I constanly get errors when updating sections in my version of the “book”.
Thanks in advance. Mike
I followed this over and over again and just can’t seem to get it working for me and my book.
I have all my para styles linked and synced to the other docs in my book file.
I’m curious - can the para styles I want included into my TOC not be on my master/template..and need to be on the pages themselves in my docs?
Thanks for any insight on this issue.
Craig — If the text that needs to be “pulled in” for the TOC is on your master page, you will have a problem. The master page item that’s using the style to be picked up by your TOC settings needs to be released from the master page in the document.
If you’re following my example from the video, the chapter titles appear on that opening right-hand page with the butterfly graphic. The chapter name text frame on each of those opening pages was released from the master page prior to generating my TOC.
Michael - what exactly do you mean by “…relased form the master page..”? Do i need to just copy and paste from the master into the docs page spreads to fix this problem?
Thanks so much for the quick response and help.
Don’t copy and paste, Craig. To release an object from the master page, Command-click (Ctrl-click on the PC) on it where it appears on the document page.
Thanks Michael. Was not familiar with that function. That helps a ton!
Good to go now. Thanks again!
Thanks for this. I found it whilst looking for information on how to set up a “List of Illustrations” in Indesign CS3. I’ve not found that info anywhere. Just a brief mention in Adobe LiveDocs that it can be done, but no tips on best way to go about it.
This could be a good topic for another tutorial.
Regards,
Jonathan