Building a Table Of Contents In Mac Pages

[@OleOlson]

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Writing a few short books, and each chapters needs to be divided into subchapters. You explain things so damn clearly, it's a real talent.

[@teresuhhh]

right

[@davidcking7]

Very timely, for me, Gary. I'm in the middle of creating a Pages songbook (in Word) to learn how Pages works. I was so used to the Word TOC that Pages had me confused. You've solved the mystery for me ... big THANK YOU!!

[@teresuhhh]

You are my favorite mac person to watch because you have very clear explanations about what you are showing us how to do. Also, you're not talking and clicking at a mile a minute like others I've watched. Thank you for teaching us this, you rock!

[@macmost]

Thanks!

[@andrewfinch2009]

This is one of your best tutorials, Gary. I write a lot of reports; this will save so much time. Thank you

[@robschulerofficial]

2 mins in - exactly what I needed. Thanks.

[@champnessjack1154]

Such a good tutorial! Thank you. Pages combined with iCloud allows me to edit on a laptop but view on my phone or iPad (for lyrics during performances) in such a way that the lyrics for a song fit on a single page. Shortening the distance in the table of contents between headings and page numbers mean they always show up on any device, so I can click to jump to that song. Brilliant.

[@mikecusick4327]

Macmost always my first choice to refresh my memory on things I don’t use very often. Thanks

[@wrightohn3]

Divinely informative . . . thanx so much!

[@DeborahGordillo]

Since the dawn of time, I've been making the Pages table of contents the jackass way. This has helped me beyond words. So thankful for this video. 😍

[@MaiElizabeth]

The ‘caption’ part is wonderful because I can now make my legal submission more ‘professionally’. Thanks Gary for this useful tutorial. This is where you are different from the others. Most of your content is actually useful in day to day use.

[@artysanmobile]

TOC has improved. I struggled with it 3 years ago. Great video, Gary.

[@janj.1817]

Great … very helpful and timely since I am currently working on a large document (book) that requires a TOC … Thank you!

[@ruimartinho7191]

Gary, thank you for another great and useful video.

[@bevieketel5517]

finally! I've been wanting to learn this forever and now needed it for a law school appellant brief! Ty

[@loisskiathitis8926]

A very useful and informative video tutorial today! Thank you, Gary! 👏❤️

[@thonmaweng4262]

Thanks for precise explanations, i was lost as i am new to macbook.

[@pacificbob24]

Thank you Gary. I'm amazed at how functional pages is.

[@tomarcarjack]

THANK YOU! I knew you would have all the information I needed to know! Not only was I wondering how to format a TOC, but I also wondered whether the TOC would be actionable if exported as a PDF. You shared everything I needed to know in a very concise and easy to understand manner. I really appreciate your videos!

[@macmost]

Glad I could help!

[@williamjohnson6245]

Thanks Gary....This will be perfect for a personal affairs document that I'm working on for my family!

[@rolfgustavsonmusic]

Thanks a lot, Gary! Surprisingly timely for me as well, finishing up my thesis as we speak! This was very helpful.

[@rolandbryce9240]

Brilliant! I watched in awe as you zoomed through each feature like a show hound performing a series of super tricks. I can now chillax , hit play, pause… verify and continue. I now almost ‘get it’ but never realised before, how remarkable Pages is.( I normally use Coreldraw to create a TOc page with hyperlinks to the main text.) Very hard to teach old dog new tricks, but this video is superb. Maestro Gary!😮

[@RolandKarlBryce]

So, I have solved it: so great! Inserting a page break? Doesn’t stop a load of the content from shuffling around when I add extra content in the leftover chunks of blank page: why doesn’t it allow me just to have the page break at the end of the page, but go back and add additional text etc in the blank areas? Pretty frustrating but hey! The TOC is awesome Gary ! I feel I have a great teacher! You are clearly the 10,000 hour sensé!

[@nehneh.a4416]

This was timely and quite useful. The pace was great too. Thank you!

[@ZicaraControls]

Thanks for giving fluent course guiding to the MacBookk option for replacing Word.

[@alissaedwards1537]

Thank you so much. This is what I needed to finish my dissertation

[@danielibnz]

Exactly what I was looking for. Comprehensive presentation with outstanding explanations, as always, Many Thanks.

[@arrowmae3013]

I always appreciate your content. Thank you.

[@garywagner2466]

Thanks. Learned a few things that I will apply to my current project.

[@peterc2248]

Once again, you have demonstrated a feature of Pages that I knew existed but was too bamboozled to play with. It's so simple when explained clearly. Please do another one on tab stops and complex list/bullet indenting. Many thanks

[@AlergicToSnow]

I’ll second that motion

[@VickiBowers]

Wow, this is excellent, exactly what I needed! Thank you so much!

[@pudit_okr]

Thank you, good explanation, step by step, clear example

[@maryamfayadh2984]

Very useful! Thank you for your time.

[@bwi43]

this is exactly what I was looking for and hoping I could do. I am trying to organize recipes in one place. I hoped I could have a TOC that could allow me to click and go from vs scrolling to the page.... No only can it do that but will work in a pdf as well! Once again, you explained it absolutely perfect! Thank you so much

[@catnapper3923]

Super incredibly useful. Answers a question I have had for a long time. Thank you thank you.

[@jimalix6270]

Another extremely helpful video, Gary! Thanks so much!

[@Angelh2014]

Extremely helpful video!

[@dawnbrown1601]

Thank you, I have created the TOC now- so much functionality I didn't understand in Pages. I bought your iMovie course some time ago and remember thinking that then. QQ... Just checking on how to set spacing on the page above and below table of contents so that I can save it as a template so I don't have to work it out each time. Actually this applies even to title page.

[@dr.westwood]

This is great! Thank you! Is there a way to tag words that won't show up to the reader and use those tags to keep an alphabetical list for things like creating glossaries? Or to uses styles (create a custom style called glossary) and assign it to keywords you would want to use for the glossary (or list of key terms you often see at the beginning or end of a chapter under the chapter introduction or chapter summary)? And is there a way to create an index? Ideally the index would list every page the indexed item occurs?

[@macmost]

No way to do an index (except manually). But you may be able to use footnotes for a glossary of sorts.

[@gabydz.f]

Impressive way to explain this!

[@dawnbrown1601]

Thank you. Really came at a good time.

[@enigmasounds]

So helpful thanks so much for doing and perfect timing as doing a recipe book ATM :-)...Just discovered that T of C can only be used in WP mode and does not work in page format mode.

[@cazlee4493]

Excellent tutorial, thank you.

[@lordvader4107]

Dude, great video! This helped me a lot.

[@Assassin1959]

This video was excellent!!!

[@MrFrattinivincenzo]

Thank you for such great video. Really helpful to me.

[@soumyams89]

Amazing tutorial , very useful

[@YourLifeRE]

Thank you for your help. This was awesome!

[@shamanstation6821]

Thanks a lot Gary. A very well done tutorial 👍

[@fanghua4305]

❤❤❤It is just what I am looking for. Thank you so so much ❤😊

[@tacooflove6175]

Thank you 🙏🏽 that was so helpful ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 5 stars for you sir 😊

[@Milok012]

Thanks! It is a very informative video 💖

[@msdaus14]

Nice. Thanks.

[@chanelleneilsoncoaching]

super helpful, thanks!

[@MicahRickards]

super clear thank you

[@OceanJangda]

Great helpful guide

[@bonzer1964]

Thank you for saying what hasn't been said...informative; is it possible or have you devised a workaround to include a section header in the TOC w/o duplicating the entry in the text?

[@macmost]

Can't think of a way to do that, sorry.

[@okiemuteolayinka7820]

Thank you for this

[@5kidslater1]

I’m so excited to see this! I’m writing a cookbook and have been so frustrated that I couldn’t generate an index with cross referencing with ingredients, etc. Am I correct that I could use this feature to make an index or is that something I need to use another feature for? And is there a tutorial for how to make an index in pages?

[@macmost]

There is no indexing feature in Pages. But you can use this to make a kind of index, as long as you are just indexing headings. Try it. Experiment. Play around.

[@5kidslater1]

@@macmost do you know if there’s a way to find all the, say, quinoa recipes and have the names and page numbers of the quinoa recipes come up in an index-like thing?

[@macmost]

@@5kidslater1 While you are working on the document? Just do a normal search. If you want to build a table of contents from that, then make sure you are using styles like I show in this video and create the TOC from the styles that make sense for your document.

[@5kidslater1]

@@macmost hmmm…since it will be in the same typeface as the rest of the body that won’t work. But I can build that one by hand i suppose when the doc is finished. But having the table of contents able to be built and converted to a simple index will go a long way toward helping me!

[@macmost]

@@5kidslater1 If they are on separate lines (paragraphs) you can still do it. Look at how I have two headings in this video, one for TOC use and one not. So create a "Heading 1 For TOC" style and use that when you want it in the TOC, and then just plain "Heading 1" when you don't.

[@j-ftellier665]

Thank you for taking your time to share your knowledge. But how do you manage an image or a topic appearing on multiple pages. For example, what if your ''Caption'' appeared on page 6, 24 and 53. How do you share this information in a table of content to make it work like an index?

[@macmost]

Create a table of contents that only uses the Caption style for its list. Put that where you want in the document.

[@danycordero5308]

Thanks a lot for this clear presentation of the table contents, but htere is an important think to remember Gary, what bout the Index numbering which is critical for any table contents. I Hope you can include an extension of this video.

[@macmost]

Index numbering? I don't know what you mean by that.

[@mchowdhury1521]

Very innformative. I am creating a technical document with chapters with autogenerated, incremental numbered list (1. Chapter A; 2. Chapter B....) . I can get the Chapter Name in TOC but list number doesn't show up in TOC. How can I get autogenerated list number for respective chapters in TOC.

[@davidreidguru]

Super helpful .. thanks :)

[@ianlivey8524]

Already implemented. Many thanks. Is there a way in Pages to automate citing references e.g. add a number for a reference (superscript) in the body of the text which is linked to a reference list at the end of the document? A method that automatically adjusts the consecutive numbering, both in the body of the document and the reference list, when a new reference is added in-between the existing references? I know that there is specialist reference/citation manager software for this task but they tend to be expensive for occasional use.

[@macmost]

You can do footnotes. See kzbin.info/www/bejne/eYrFhXagirp3adk

[@johnnysheehan5227]

I have a random table of contents at left side of pages document - QUESTION: Can I sort this side column in Ascending A-Z order...and how to do this please?

[@scottfunk3149]

So helpful, all your videos. One thing I haven't found covered anywhere is how to create multiple, single photographs in a row at the end of a chapter that will move with text? Each chapter I have ends with a dozen or so pages of photographs, I have them placed as individual objects. However as I edit and add to my body of text I end up having to manually drag them farther into the document to maintain their position at the end of each chapter. Time consuming and a hassle. I've thought of having them as sections, but since objects on their own page do not enable the "follow text" function I'm back to the drawing board. Any help appreciated!

[@macmost]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3rSo3WBmtlpaa8

[@mikedeclemente]

hello, some of my books, instead of text for the chapter, I use a design. So how would I make the design part of the TOC?

[@kcfjdkxj456]

great stuff. thanks for ur help

[@kevinburgess1183]

I have about 10 mini-books in Page Layout format. Can I create a TOC within that format without converting to a word processing document? I tried on one file, but of course, last a lot of the formatting that was in Page Layout, and it did not come back when I converted to Page Layout again.

[@iqnill]

Excellent, thank you. One question: Pages 14.1 - Exporting to EPUB I select the TOC to be included, once in the Books app the TOC shows as the preview of Page 1, but once opened Page 1 is empty. I asked uncle Google and found nothing. Seems like a bug.

[@macmost]

Not sure. I don't produce anything epub, so I can only keep encouraging you to play around with it.

[@kakanangk4263]

Thank you for the tutorial ! Very useful for the new user ! Also, I would like to ask if that Pages have a function to make an index ? I try to search but haven't any yet.

[@macmost]

No, no Index function in Pages.

[@kakanangk4263]

@@macmost Ah a bit of a bummer and thank you !

[@kevinburgess1183]

I want to amalgamate these 10 mini-books into one file with a TOC. Thanks

[@macmost]

The TOC feature in Pages is better called an "Automatic TOC." You simply can't do it unless using Word Processing mode. But you can certainly make a regular "manual" TOC. That's what you should do in your case.

[@girindralekhi1993]

As usual very informative video. How to take the use of Table of content >Section? Hope you will answer it.

[@macmost]

Do you mean having a separate table of contents for each section? That all depends on what sort of document you are creating and is probably very specific to what you are doing.

[@desertpatient]

Thanks bunches.

[@carolwilding9166]

Thank you!!!

[@GenevieveTaeger]

Thanks very much for the details. I have some subheadings in my table of contents that are 2 lines long. The first line goes to the end below a page number for the previous subheading. This ends up looking sloppy. I would like to be able to create a right margin for the first line of only the 2 line subheadings. Is this possible? The end result is that I only want to be able to see numbers in the far right. I hope you can understand me here. Thanks for your help. 😊

[@macmost]

I think so. Try selecting that in the TOC and adjusting the margins as you would any other paragraph.

[@GenevieveTaeger]

@@macmost Thanks for your response! Unfortunately, I cannot change the 1st line margin without the 2nd line of the paragraph changing. The TOC options are less than normal paragraph options

[@scottteven3196]

Very helpful! Could I use pages to create a portfolio of photos. I want the reader to be able to select different groups of photos from the Table of contents. For example , Group A,B,C,etc.

[@macmost]

Not quite sure what you are trying to do, but if you are making a PDF then you could create pages of photos arranged like you want and then have a page of links to those other pages. No table of contents needed if you don't have any other text.

[@scottteven3196]

My portfolio of photos has a few different subjects. I want the user to interact by choosing their preferred subject using a menu of some kind. What Apple, or other app, could achieve this? Thanks!

[@macmost]

@@scottteven3196 Without building your own app, you could probably use Keynote in some cases. kzbin.info/www/bejne/anLOfGCOedmUn9E

[@scottteven3196]

Thanks Gary

[@LJ-jq8og]

YOU are so HELPFUL Gary ❗ Thank you ❗🙏

[@temariaustria]

Thanks!

[@pedropuckerstein4670]

Gary, very informative - any chance you have figured out how to create a dynamic table of contents for a keynote slide deck?

[@macmost]

There's no TOC function in keynote. But you can use internal links to create a "menu" on a slide that links to other slides.

[@pedropuckerstein4670]

@@macmost Nice - I didn't think of that !! but of course it doesn't display slide numbers .... so for print outs .... what to do? or am I missing something ? - anyway thank you

[@macmost]

@@pedropuckerstein4670 You'd have to add them manually I guess. it is meant for presenting, not printed documents.

[@synergy3188]

I thought maybe I could expand on the table of contents idea to create a catalog for inventory. I have a supply of wire and gemstones that I’m trying to organize. So I’m trying to document/catalog a description with size and cost as well as the location of item. I’m hoping I can use “search” to locate in the document the information and location of the item. I’ve used a table but it seems messy. Any suggestions on a document that catalogs inventory?

[@macmost]

A table would be the way to do that. A TOC is for a long document (like a book) not really for what you are doing. What about a table seems messy? Tables should be the opposite of messy. Maybe think of using Numbers instead of Pages though.

[@synergy3188]

@@macmost I watched a few of your videos and was able to see a lot of tools that I didn’t know were there before. So I’m able to clean up a lot of my mess with the tables. I will check out numbers too. Maybe it’s a better tool for what I’m trying to do. Thanks for the quick response!

[@anaperfeito]

Thank you Gary! Very useful tips and channel! I wonder If it’s possible to create a Table of Contents with the titles of the images? I tried it by selecting the paragraph style of the images titles, but it doesn’t recognise it :( I think it's an bug in Pages. Any tips would be very much appretiated. It’s for an academic big project. All the best :)

[@macmost]

The TOC draws its contents from the body text. So anything in another element, like text boxes or image captions will be ignored.

[@anaperfeito]

@@macmost True… I hope they will improve that feature some day, so it will be possible to create a Table of Contents for images as well... Thank you for your reply, All the best.

[@amawingchunkungfu7274]

Is this possible…Can you create a table of contents in page layout using their templates?

[@MrRickyrobertsiii]

Hey Gary! Thank you for this. I did the table of contents, but the page numbers are under the chapter titles. The margins are set up for a book format. Is there a way to correct this? I tried adjusting the font size to see if that would help the page number be on the same line as the chapter title, but it didn't. I am grateful for any time and attention you can give.

[@macmost]

Just keep trying to adjust margins and everything. Start the TOC over if you can't figure it out.

[@MrRickyrobertsiii]

Thanks so much!

[@stormcrow3096]

Great video, very helpful. However, I'm still wondering how to bump a chapter to the next page as it's split between two pages. If I change the font size or paragraph after spacing it fixes that one but splits another. Thank you if you have the time to respond.

[@macmost]

Insert a Page Break at the end of the chapter.

[@stormcrow3096]

Thanks for the swift reply, although, I meant within the Table of Contents. My ToC spans 4 pages and some of the Chapters are split and I'd like to bump it to the next page to keep it tidy. I can't seem to select individual chapters within the ToC. Thanks again.@@macmost

[@GaryRosenzweig]

It will be hard to make small changes like that to the TOC, but experiment. You could always switch to a manual TOC but that would have its own challenges.

[@Jana-sw9cb]

Hi Gary - is there a way to build a TOC page when you are in the layout mode (not the word processing document body)? I'm working on a book with lots of graphics and images and the headings are inside text boxes. The layout mode makes it easier for moving pages around. The TOC is visible and clickable on the left side but it seems there is no way to add it as a page if I want to print it.

[@macmost]

You have to do it manually,. Without body text, the "automatic" TOC wouldn't know what to include.

[@roberthunter124]

VERY helpful, but due to the age of my Mac, can only run Catalina, and so Pages is running at Vrs 7.0.1. Are the features and methodology still applicable? I followed the methods in the video, but immediately ran into the issue that there is no Table-of-contents selection available to choose in View. It's simply not there (whereas page thumbnails is for example). Is my Pages Vrs simply to far behind?

[@macmost]

TOC should be the same. Make sure you are in Word Processing mode, not Page Layout mode. And also make sure you have some headings for the TOC to draw on.

[@roberthunter124]

@@macmost thanks again - I'll check those settings

[@rickzabala6020]

Hello, I just noticed that iBook & Author migrated to Pages. Is Pages the better choice software to write a book? Do you offer an updated course on Pages that includes using Books and writing a book. Is the first page the Cover Page, etc? I hope to start mine.

[@macmost]

Yes, back in 2020. There's no choice between Pages and iBooks Author because the latter doesn't exist now. "Writing a book" is a wide topic. Are you writing a novel, or a college textbook, for instance? Either way, you don't have iBooks Author now, so I would learn Pages instead.

[@rickzabala6020]

@@macmost Will be about Gifts of the Holy Spirit as it pertains to life, employments and vocations. My profession has been vocational rehabilitation with applications of vocational psychology, cognitive behavioral counseling, assistive technology and of course information & referral. I've also taken courses in screen writing which I used Final Draft. I could apply my fiction writing to a book. A la so I'm resetting up my Mac to store photos & video to tell or show stories of life & culture as it pertains to the 1st & 2nd Commandments.

[@ericp888]

Hey Gary. It would have been nice to mention that automatic TOC page does not work in Page Layout Mode.

[@macmost]

I can't. There's no body text for it to look to find the headings.

[@sungyle]

Thank you for your KZbin videos. I’ve learned a lot from you. I had been using Pages for years and had always been saving the documents to iCloud. The other day, I had to share a copy with a friend so I made a duplicate of the document, and saved it to my desktop from which I shared to my friend. Alas! Since then, every time I click ‘Pages’ on my dock, it opens up my desktop instead of my iCloud Pages folder. Yes, I can use the sidebar in finder, go to iCloud, go to Pages and see my files but for years, I just need to click the Pages icon and it would go directly to iCloud. What can I do to stop Pages from opening up my desktop but go to iCloud Pages folder directly? Please help. Thank you in advance.

[@macmost]

It should just go to the last location where you opened a file. Not sure why it isn't doing that for you.

[@thepiscesbox441]

LOVE YOU

[@para-cad_llc]

I'm on Ventura public beta (13.1) and when I follow along, Insert/Table of Contents/ the two options are grayed out (Document or Section).

[@macmost]

Are you working in a Word Processing document or a Page Layout one? Did you set up some headings for it to use? Have you selected a position in the body text to insert the TOC?

[@para-cad_llc]

@@macmost Hey Gary. Thanks for the quick reply. I guessed at your email and sent you a y/t link to a screen recording of what I have run into. I'll keep searching, but when I'm done, I have the option to do a completely manual TOC......but I don't really like the idea of that. Great content in every video. Thank you!

[@paulvanobberghen]

Most of this exists in Word, of course, but is soooo much more elegantly and efficiently implemented in Pages that you’d want to never use Word anymore. Yet, the people I give Word Training to do not know about macOS, let alone Pages. They all run Windows 10 on outdated PCs, and not even Microsoft 365, more likely Word 2016 or so.

[@makor2817]

Im using up to 4 different headers, but when I insert a TOC, it starts following the correct heading outline, however if I jump from Heading 2 to Heading 4 in a document style, the TOC outlines the H4 as a H2. How can I fix this?

[@macmost]

Nt sure what you are experiencing. Maybe try re-applying the style, or even deleting the line with the style and re-adding it. Experiment and play around.

[@db2378]

well done

[@peaceofinfinity5275]

I’m trying to get this done on the iPad Pro, I’ve already typed all the document, but I can’t find how to do this 😢

[@macmost]

support.apple.com/guide/pages-ipad/table-of-contents-tan5b8c588d6/ipados

[@peaceofinfinity5275]

@@macmost thank you so much!

[@nehkoodah7651]

Is there a way to create a multi-column TOC?

[@macmost]

Not with the automatic feature. You can of course do it manually if you like.

[@classicstorm]

I have a table of the content page already created I'm trying to figure out how to add what needs to be added for the page...when I follow these steps it doesn't generate one for me...

[@macmost]

Not sure what you could be doing wrong. Try following along with the example to learn the basics, then try it with your own.

[@classicstorm]

@@macmost I figured it out but had to download word anyways because I need to use the table of authority feature...thanks for replying back...

[@vanessachauvetskinandlaser865]

How does this work with Headers and Footers? Currently my headers are not generating in the table of contents

[@macmost]

Not sure what you mean. Headers and Footers don't interact with the TOC. What is it you are trying to do?

[@vanessachauvetskinandlaser865]

the top and bottom tables (three boxes) when you hover over them@@macmost

[@macmost]

@@vanessachauvetskinandlaser865 Sorry, that's not enough of a description. I still don't know what you are trying to do at all.

[@apollinelucy437]

If I’m making an ebook and want to include the title in the table of contents, how do I make it that it’s “title” written in the table of contents, instead of the actual title of my novel. Same with “copyright” , “dedication”, etc. I can’t edit the text in the table of contents… but I can’t write “dedication” at the top of the dedication page either, so how do I do? Hope it makes sense. :)

[@macmost]

Those wouldn't be a part of your table of contents. The items in your table of contents are elsewhere in your document and the TOC links to them. To provide other things like a title and copyright, those are just normal text items before or after your TOC.

[@apollinelucy437]

@@macmost thank you :)

[@melvi8834]

I did not find the possibility of restricting the size of the summary, in fact the summary does not respect the size of the margins that I set for the entire document (next to formatting)

[@a_b897]

Can anyone let me know how to change the overall width of a table of contents? In some of my documents when I make a TOC it doesn't extend all the way to the right of the page, and my 'stops' for the page numbers cannot go above 16.51cm, even though in other documents the default is 17cm and it extends fully across. I can see that the outline box of the TOC is not as wide as it should be, how can I change the dimensions?

[@macmost]

Maybe check the format sidebar, Text and see if the Indents are set to something other than 0? Otherwise, keep experimenting. Hard to help with something like this without seeing what you have going on firsthand.

[@a_b897]

@@macmost thanks for the reply! I completely understand that it’s really hard to help without seeing the issue visually. I’ve tried almost everything I can think of regarding the formatting. I even duplicated a document where the table of contents was the correct width, then deleted all the text and pasted in its place the stuff from the problematic document and when I insetered a TOC it was back to the wrong width; so that suggests the issue must be somehow caused by the text content of the document, not the document formatting itself. Very strange! If I ever solve the issue I’ll update!

[@a_b897]

@@macmost also, thanks very much for making this video! Despite that one weird issue, I’m thrilled with the TOC feature and this video helped immensely 🙌