Automate Your (Pretty) Table of Contents • InDesign

[@sophieanjuli4616]

Your content and level of skill in InDesign is next level. InDesign is becoming a more niche skill as each year goes on… Thank you so much! Keep on making content like this!

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

So nice of you!

[@FW4lk3r]

I've searched a lot for a solution like that. Thanks a lot

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Happy to help!!

[@itisthatblack]

YOU HAVE JUST CHANGED MY PROFESSIONA LYFE!!! I am so grateful. Thank you

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Happy to help!

[@thepurpleufo]

I've never had to create this kind of TOC, but if I ever do, your tutorial will be invaluable. Thank you for all these great videos.

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Sweet!

[@LicoreAlt]

Absolutely perfect tutorial. Love it 🩷

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

So glad!

[@sidebusiness]

Keep Up the Good Work Kayla... I love your Videos... Always waiting for your Videos. Love From Pakistan

[@slashfear]

Awesome video. Just what I needed. Thank you.

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

So glad!

[@Oyekezie_Hyacinth_Anayo]

Super content. It didn't take me a second to subscribe. Love from Nigeria 🇳🇬

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Thanks for subbing!

[@kylerhatigan]

Thanks for taking the time to make such a great tutorial!

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

You're very welcome!

[@EnjoymentFamily]

Thank you so much! 😘

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Any time!

[@noahelam]

Pretty good job

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

*Thumbs up*

[@Rocadamis]

Another great video. I should be helpful to many. I wish I had seen this before I had to learn it all on my own many years ago. For Mac people the em dash is opt+shift+-, the en-dash is opt+-. I make my chapters separate documents and put them sequentially in a book file. I found this especially useful when working with large books. I name each document as Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. and use the variable "File Name" where I want the chapter title to appear in the document. If I need to change my chapters around (which happens often) I just change the saved document's name and it is instantly reflected where I have the variable in the chapter. Thanks for the lesson in some of the numbering codes. I really like your font choices. Very clean and neat. I was wondering why you didn't just change the page number style as well as the H2 style in the Content dialog and just generate an update instead of doing the search and create all overrides for these?

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Yes, I do sometimes use a Book Doc with InDesign Files comprising each chapter, mostly in instances where I have extremely image-heavy files that aren't necessarily reflowable. When I do have a book that's completely reflowable, it saves me a lot of styling time to have everything contained in one file. I think what you're referring to-as far as the overrides go-is that my TOC entries got pulled WITH attached Character Styles and I wanted to remove those.

[@Rocadamis]

@@beckysgraphicdesign Using the Book doc has numerous advantages (whether text or images). I used to build my books like you as one long doc, but I learned from a publishing colleague that it was much easier to organize and jump from chapter to chapter in the book doc than with one long document. In the latter case, you are scrolling or having to look through the Pages list to find the tiny thumbnail for the chapter you want to see, especially with books over 150 pages. Using the book doc, your chapters are clearly defined and you can open several chapter tabs at the same time, which really helps with continuity and being able to jump from a similar topic in two or more distant chapters. I can't tell you how many times this has helped with keeping certain references consistent throughout a book. For example, in one chapter an author refers to a place by one name and spelling and in another chapter they use a slightly different name and spelling. This has happened with people's names too. Of course, doing a global find and replace can fix this, but catching it is the trick. It's easy in the editing process to miss something like this, where having several open tabs will visually connect similar topics. I do the editing (both grammar and content) as well as layout and publishing of my books, so I find this a big help. It's also way easier to set up chapter titles and numbers (as I mentioned with variables). I set up my all my books this way now (make my book templates this way) and it has been an absolute game changer for me. Additionally, if you change a paragraph style on-the-fly in one chapter and you want it to be global, there is a simple click at the bottom of the Book panel to synchronize styles of all the book documents.

[@deborahjones6175]

Awesome tutorial--thank you for making this.

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

You're very welcome!

[@ksnnia]

Thanks for the tutorial!

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

You bet!

[@TheChriskas]

loved that video , greetings from Poland :-)

[@DoanggThaoVy]

THANK YOU

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

You bet!

[@jeielos939]

Thank you for this videos. I'm learning so much. Pls what does "make text anchor in source text" mean?

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

A "text anchor" is a snippet of code that can be referenced by a PDF or eBook for navigation to that "anchor." Basically, helps with clickable in-document links.

[@arbain2848]

the best tutorial

[@graphd]

Thank you so much for your video! It helps a lot!

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Glad it helped!

[@brianhainey9452]

Super Informative!!!...Question, if you manually create Bookmarks, can you then sort their names to show in alphabetical order???

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Meaning, if you create text anchors?

[@brianhainey9452]

@@beckysgraphicdesign No maam. Ive created 70 bookmarks in InDesign. And the TOC list the bookmarks as they appear in the book. My goal is to view the TOC in an alphabetical order, an not, a chronological order. Is this possible?

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Ohh, I see what you're saying. Hm..... so this TOC, does it need to be hyperlinked, or is it for print-only? There is a script for alphabetizing selected lines: Window>Utility>Scripts>Javascript>SortParagraphs.jsx

[@brianhainey9452]

@@beckysgraphicdesign Ive seen that solution, and it did not work for me. I ended up just creating my on "TOC" with hyperlinks to the appropriate pages within the document. Thank you So Much for your assistance & time!!!

[@denhamk]

Fantastic Video.. I managed to figure out my mistakes!!! Would have been great if you showed how you kept space between the lines? At the moment mine are all squished together. 😁 And THANK YOU for showing me about finding and replacing character styles! I wish this worked for font replacements as well. I can find the incorrect font but I can't replace it with the paragraph style that I want.. hope they'll include it in 2037! Edit: So I figured out how to add some styling to my lines after I create my ToC. But my issue is now this.. If I manually add a space between my sections because adding indents is not an option.. when I update my ToC all my manual edits disappear. Is there no way to retain my manual styling? Note I'm not doing any manual styling to the page numbers or its content.. just the space between sections.

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Correct-manual styling will be overwritten each time you update. Are you trying to add leading or "Space After" between your entries? This can be done in the Paragraph Styles. You can also use "Left Indent" if you need to do an indent.

[@denhamk]

@@beckysgraphicdesign yikes… Then I better leave that till the very end. So.. I have added space after my level-1 headings and they look ok .. but there is no way to add space after to just one part of the level -1 paragraph styles unless I create another paragraph style targeting just that particular heading and the add space before to that style so that it will push the entire section to the next page. ..

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Oh, I see what you're saying-it's a matter of assigning styles to the BOOK contents rather than an issue styling the TOC. Yeah, it takes a while to build a good styling system that also works seamlessly with an auto-generated TOC.

[@maximaphily601]

I followed this video and it was very helpful. BUT, when I do it step by step, my Table of Contents in InDesign is in "reverse order". So the last chapter is first and the first chapter is last, same for subheadings inside each chapter etc., Very confused right now!

[@marlasota]

May I ask what you are using to capture your screen? Especially nice is how keystrokes appear on the screen.

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

I am using OBS Studio to record, which is free, then Carnac the keystroke indicator, which is also free!

[@marlasota]

@@beckysgraphicdesign thank you sharing this info!

[@maximaphily601]

Did it a second time, this time it "almost worked" (I did nothing different, very confused!). Now the first two sub headings of Chapter 1 appear above Chapter 1, but under Chapter 1 the balance of the subheadings are in correct order. From Chapter 2 onwards, everything is perfect. Strange.

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Huh. Have you checked your Chapter Titles and subheads for "overrides"? AKA, make sure your paragraph styles and character styles don't have a plus-mark on them? Also, check the "levels" in your TOC settings. You want the Chapter Titles to be Level 1 and the Subheads to be Level 2.

[@maximaphily601]

@@beckysgraphicdesign Yes I checked for overrides (+) before first doing. Yes had the levels correct too. I decided to start fresh with a new file, and import all my styles etc into the new file. All worked fine in doing so. So there must have been something in the old file somewhere. Thanks for replying!

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Great!

[@alexandercuellar]

Hi, How can I prevent the name of a chapter when it is very long from touching the page number?

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Unfortunately, there isn't really a good way to avoid this problem when using a text variable, because InDesign sees it as one long character, not a set of words, BUT, if you will put a manual line break in your chapter title (using Shift+Enter), the text variable will become only the first half of that chapter title, since there's now a line break in it.

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

Oh, unless you're talking about a right-hand text wrap on your TOC. In that case, apply a last-line right-hand indent to your paragraph style-that will take care of it and wrap that line away from the page number.

[@alexandercuellar]

@@beckysgraphicdesign Hi, I really appreciate your help. Thanks!!!!

[@ayesharanepura6715]

Thank you so much.❤

[@beckysgraphicdesign]

You're welcome 😊