![indesign table of contents indesign table of contents](https://creative-boost.com/wp-content/uploads/indesign-table-of-contents.jpeg)
All right, now let's see where these article descriptions come from. InDesign went out and found the text styled with the styles that we told it to look for, and then reformatted that text with the other styles that we picked in the dialog box, and then flowed it into this frame. And then, with this loaded cursor, I'll just click on the Text Frame. So with the selection tool, I'll click on this Text Frame, on page two, and choose Layout, Table of Contents, make sure I have our Candy Magazine Table of Contents Style selected, and click OK. And let's create a table of contents with it. Now, let's click OK, and OK to save our Table of Contents Style. These entries won't need a page number, so I'll change After Entry to No Page Number, and I'll make sure that they're at Level 2, which they are. This is what will create the subtitles in the table of contents, and I'll show you where that text comes from in a minute. Next, I'll select another style, to include some more text in the table of contents, the Table of Contents description. But in this case, I don't need nested bookmarks, so I'm going to set all these to Level 1. Levels aren't relevant for Publish Online documents, since those don't have a navigational table of contents, they only have on page table of contents. I'll see these indents in the Bookmarks pane in Adobe Acrobat, or Reader, and I can also use the Levels to nest entries in a navigational table of contents in an ePub. The Level setting has nothing to do with on page formatting, but it does have to do with the structure of the table of contents that will be used if I choose to create bookmarks. Now, that does not mean that these will all be indented on the page. Did you notice, when I added the Paragraph Styles, that they kept getting indented? Well, that represents the Level that InDesign chooses for each one, and it kept nesting each new one inside the last one. I also have this interesting thing here called Level. So I'll delete what's here right now, click on the popup menu, and choose Em Space, and repeat that for the other entries. So for each of these, I'll choose After Entry, and then for Between Entry and Number, I'll put an Em Space. So I could have it after the entry, before the entry, or no page number at all. I also have to choose, for each of these, where I want the page number, right here. In order to see all the controls, I'll click on More Options, then I'll click on Article Title 1, and choose an Entry Style, I'll choose TOC Title, and do the same for Article 2, Article 3, and the Index Title. And for each of these styles, I have to pick how I want them formatted down here, in the bottom half of the dialog box. And I also want the Index Title, so people can navigate to that from the table of contents, so I'll scroll down until I see that, click on it, and click Add. I just want Article Title 1, so I'll click Add, select Article Title 2, and Article Title 3. And next, I'll work from right to left, selecting the styles I've applied in my document to the text I want to appear in the table of contents. So let's delete Contents in the dialog box.
![indesign table of contents indesign table of contents](https://stockindesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/016-01.jpg)
Now if I move the dialog box out of the way, you can see we already have the word Contents on the page, so we don't need a title here. So let's create a new Table of Contents Style here, click the New button, and let's give it a name, I'll just call this Candy Magazine.
#Indesign table of contents how to
A Table of Contents Style is a group of settings that tell InDesign what text to put in the table of contents, and how to format it. So we'll choose Layout, Table of Contents Styles. Let's scroll up to page two, where the table of contents will be, and the second step in building a table of contents is to go to the Layout menu, and create a Table of Contents Style. In our exercise file, the text is properly formatted with styles, like this heading, "The Art of the Boil," and it's formatted here with Article Title 1. So if text isn't styled, it can't be found by the table of contents feature. InDesign's table of contents function works by looking for text with certain styles applied to it. The first step to building a table of contents is to consistently style all the text in your document that you want to appear in the table of contents.
![indesign table of contents indesign table of contents](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/n0MIWDwIb10/maxresdefault.jpg)
So let's see how the table of contents feature can add more interactivity to your documents.
#Indesign table of contents update
You can build and update tables of contents from any Style Text in your document, and you can create links and bookmarks that readers can use to navigate in ePub, PDF, and Publish Online. Tables of contents are one of the most useful long document features in InDesign.