Tables of contents are to be found in many longer publications and act as a roadmap enabling the user to quickly find a particular section of the document. The ability to create tables of contents automatically is a useful facility and is found in most word processing and desktop publishing (DTP) programs. The mechanism used by most of these programs for generating the table of contents is what we might call style-tracking; one or more styles is or are designated as being associated with the table of contents. When the table of contents is generated, 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 briefly at how this feature is implemented in Adobe InDesign.

InDesign has three commands concerned with the creation of tables of contents. They are all 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 table of contents. When you choose this command, you are given the choice of either editing the built-in, default table of contents or creating your own. As this implies, the table of contents facility can be used to create a list of any items occurring within the document, provided the text associated with these items uses styles.

The first table of contents setting is the title. This will appear at the top of the list of items in the style in which you would like the title to appear. Next, you need to choose which styles you would like to include in your table of contents. All of the styles contained in the document are listed on the right. Simply double-click on each style you wish to include, in order of priority. Finally, you can specify the attributes of each style which is to be included in the table of contents. The key attributes are the level, the style to be used to list items at that level and the position of the page number (which can also be omitted).

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.