Rita. Create a table of contents using InDesign CS3. This can be particularly handy when building InDesign templates! I can't get rid of it for the life of me, so please, can you figure this out for me? It's that easy! I created a TOC in Indesign, using paragraph styles. Do you only have one (bad) ToC? This dictates what content you would like generated. For some reason the notification email was flagged as spam and I only picked it up during a routine spam folder check. If I've got this right, you've carefully reformatted your ToC to reflect the look your book should have. Go to the Layout menu and select Table of Contents. From previous experience, I can offer that the correct answer is most always "Yes, dear.". 4. Daisy Ein is an illustrator, musician, and game developer from the United States. Now, any content using this style will be included in our table of contents. After that move, your only option is to update it as you're doing it now: Place the ToC on the pasteboard, then cut/copy-and-paste to replace the existing ToC text in the primary frame. Why Can't I Update Table of Contents (Indesign CC)... /t5/indesign/why-can-t-i-update-table-of-contents-indesign-cc-update-toc-greyed-out/td-p/11180327, /t5/indesign/why-can-t-i-update-table-of-contents-indesign-cc-update-toc-greyed-out/m-p/11180508#M188887, /t5/indesign/why-can-t-i-update-table-of-contents-indesign-cc-update-toc-greyed-out/m-p/11198996#M189765, /t5/indesign/why-can-t-i-update-table-of-contents-indesign-cc-update-toc-greyed-out/m-p/11199035#M189767, /t5/indesign/why-can-t-i-update-table-of-contents-indesign-cc-update-toc-greyed-out/m-p/11375824#M198947, /t5/indesign/why-can-t-i-update-table-of-contents-indesign-cc-update-toc-greyed-out/m-p/11376372#M198975, /t5/indesign/why-can-t-i-update-table-of-contents-indesign-cc-update-toc-greyed-out/m-p/11377580#M199051, /t5/indesign/why-can-t-i-update-table-of-contents-indesign-cc-update-toc-greyed-out/m-p/11379125#M199133, /t5/indesign/why-can-t-i-update-table-of-contents-indesign-cc-update-toc-greyed-out/m-p/11399723#M200305, /t5/indesign/why-can-t-i-update-table-of-contents-indesign-cc-update-toc-greyed-out/m-p/11401474#M282503, /t5/indesign/why-can-t-i-update-table-of-contents-indesign-cc-update-toc-greyed-out/m-p/11402283#M394456. So, Elwin, I've gotta ask: did my previous answer cover the issues you needed to address? I will provide style/layout, just copy paste content and create the TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE. Forevermore. Unlike the previous line, it aligns right and has different character styling. There's a lot here, so let's start with the options at … Why Can't I Update Table of Contents (Indesign CC) (Update TOC Greyed Out) craftycurate. Contributor, Jun 03, 2020. In this tutorial, I'll show you how to do it! You could position the type any way you prefer. Check out more InDesign tutorials here on Envato Tuts+: Envato Tuts+ tutorials are translated into other languages by our community members—you can be involved too! With my modified line still selected, I opened the Paragraph Styles panel and clicked the Create New Style button to incorporate those styles, then named it ToC Text. And, after we've created our Paragraph Style, we can easily edit it, too. Notice that I have "Here's my other paragraph" highlighted. I then clicked into the "Contents" line, created another new style and named it ToC Hed. Looking for something to help kick start your next project? Keep an eye on the Between Entry and Number option here, too—this dictates how your numbers will appear in relation to the text item. Go to the menu Layout > table of Contents A second attempt and a 3rd all ran into the same problem: a ghost blunder made early on. If you're using this template along with me, you'll notice I've already included a completed, active table of contents here—feel free to check it out! Select the style of your choice from the drop-down menu. One big .indd file, though I've used the Book panel in the past in my amateur way. Copied. Do this on any page that you'd like included in your table of contents. Notice how we see resize handles around the text box when it is selected. Happy designing! On the B-Master, apply the Chapter Title style only to the text on that … Choose Layout … If the Update Table of Contents option is not available, this means that major changes in pagination were made to your Book or InDesign document and you have to recreate the table of contents. Open up the Paragraph Styles panel by going Window > Styles > Paragraph Styles. Firstly, when I create a TOC, I cannot insert it into my Primary Text Frame (PTF), as ID always places it in a new frame. Now by default, you build your ToC by selecting paragraph styles, and InDesign breaks them down into tiers, seeks where those styles are applied and notes their page locations to generate the ToC file. I believe you're caught in a common ground loop dealing with InDesign's automatic ToC generation: It's not easy to create paragraph styles for automatically-generated Table of Contents. Their debut title, Tiny Bird Garden, is available on iOS and Android. Much appreciated! There's a lot here, so let's start with the options at the top. I have some questions which will help me help you: Answers to the first and fourth pairs of questions will offer insight into how best to fix the situation. For this demonstration, I'll be using this Dessert Cookbook InDesign Template that I've already created. Go to Layout > Table of Contents. If you change your subheadings later on, this change will not be applied automatically to the TOC. In the Table of Contents window that opens you’ll notice a Title text box at the top-left of the window. There's a much easier way to do it! InDesign is the industry-standard publishing app lets you design and publish high-quality documents across a full spectrum of digital and print media. Think of this as "what content should be included in the table of contents". This way, for example, if pages need to be shifted, changed, or rearranged, you don't have to go through the headache of manually editing your table of contents. Do you reach for the Text Tool and make edits? Everything you need for your next creative project. However, you can also walk through these steps with any InDesign document that has multiple pages and content or sections that would benefit from a table of contents. And, to be honest, answers to the second and third sets will guide us toward how much we need to care about the anomalies you're finding in your book file. But it's easy to modify them after they're created. One more handy tip here before we go! It works. 2. Hi. 3. Note, this isn't the only way to do this—it's just one way. I have a ghost TOC that seems to be the result of some blunder as I was trying to learn how to make a TOC. I added a 25 pt baseline shift here to add some extra space between my title and my table of contents. Or not. After selecting table of contents or clicking inside it with Type Tool go to Layout > Update Table of Contents to update any changes in document related to it. Creating and Formatting a Table of Contents, Formatting Paragraph Styles with InDesign, Formatting Tabs and Indents with InDesign. A little tip here! Glad things worked out for you. Select it using the Selection Tool, and then go to Layout > Update Table of Contents. First, we could select the entire text box, as seen below. Same thing goes for the actual contents of our Table of Contents. Here, we can rename and change a host of options. The example above contains a bunch of paragraph styles which are contained in the book, including some which were used for custom formatting the ToC in the book which I won't use for this example. What if we need to make updates here? Here's where we can style our table of contents—and this is important, because we're rarely going to want to use an unstyled default look. I highly recommend tabbing through and looking at all the options here—I could do a whole separate tutorial on all of these options, there are so many! Or we could select a specific paragraph within a text box to create a Paragraph Style, as seen below. However, the menu-option to update the TOC is greyed out. Is your book project done? If you get stuck with InDesign in the future, don't hesitate to come back. Thanks, Randy, we're grateful and will answer the best I can. For example, let's say I add a new page to my cookbook. The font (Futura Std Lt Condensed) can work, but the type size of 41 point, leading of (Auto), of 49.2pt and Space After setting of .75 inches really won't. Elwin...(I take orders from Rita, who is my wife : ), I understand your situation. Auto Update Table of Contents I have an InDesign book with a table of contents, and each section title is pulled via paragraph style in each of the InDesign documents that make up the book. Check out this cool video from David Blatner now! Fortunately, Adobe InDesign has a Table of Contents feature that takes a lot of the work out of creating a Table of Contents and does the heavy lifting for you. Step 2 I typically label mine Heading1, Heading2, Heading3… in … Now, we're going to use this Paragraph Style to generate a table of contents. 5 Table of Contents for Adobe InDesign 5 Table of Contents for Adobe InDesign. I often like to put the title in my footers, so that's what I'll do in this example. When Daisy isn't making games, you might catch her jamming on her keytar or fighting virtual monsters. How to Create a Calendar Template in InDesign, How to Make a Book Layout Template in InDesign. In InDesign, choose Layout> Table of Contents. This where we're going to use our Paragraph Style from earlier. Firstly, when I create a TOC, I cannot insert it into my Primary Text Frame (PTF), as ID always places it in a new frame. . Option works and works very good but you need to select table of contents first using Selection Tool or to click inside it to appear blinking cursor with Type Tool active. In this case, I named mine "Table of Contents", as I'd like that text displayed. Note, this isn't necessarily the Paragraph Style used to generate the table of contents—just how you'd like it to look (I created a Paragraph Style called "Contents Text", using the same method we walked through earlier). You have to refresh the TOC manually. It does make sense since InDesign has to take those insets into account when deciding if text is actually on a page, and therefore should get that page number in a TOC. Select a TOC style, and click Edit. That's one of the major benefits—if, for example, you wanted to change how your headers look, you could change one Paragraph Style, which would then change the appearance of all your headers—all at once, rather than doing it manually throughout your entire document. It makes tweaking the look and feel of your table of contents a breeze! So many different types of projects would benefit from these table of contents features. I changed the size/leading to 18/18 pt, and the Space After setting to .125 in. Design like a professional without Photoshop. It's 'live' to the best of my knowledge. Auto Update Table of Contents I have an InDesign book with a table of contents, and each section title is pulled via paragraph style in each of the InDesign documents that make up the book. Then, style your type any way you'd like. If I undo that action, the ToC and the rest of the document's pages reappear, but the ToC isn't updated and contains entries with incorrect page numbers. When looking at your Paragraph Styles, you can find this under Advanced Character Formats. While this style faithfully mirrors the Chapter Hed format in the book, it's pretty useless for building a ToC. The TOC settings (Layout > Table of Contents) looked fine, no surprises. Neat, right? The book is done except for TOC and isbn etc. I also set a tab to right-align (move to the left of) the right side margin, and created a dot leader to fill the gap between the spelled-out chapter number and the Arabic numbering for the page. Or is this somehow an additional text generated instead of/in addition to your (good) ToC? You can always change this later! You MUST use styles to format text throughout your document in order for this to work. Thanks for your reply and apologies for my delayed acknowedgement. I'm happy to help any way I can. You have a lot of options here. Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. This opens up our Table of Contents options. Table of Contents Title. As with my other pages, I add text to my page that uses my "Table of Contents" Paragraph Style in my footer. Our table of contents, for example, could work that way if we wanted our title to be a different style from the text and/or numbers within the table of contents. Then the Entry Style: options box from Chapter Hed (the style I used to generate the ToC) to ToC Text (the style I want to use for creating each ToC line entry) checked the Replace Existing Table of Contents box and clicked the OK button. This is where you can set the text for the title of your contents. Make a list in InDesign 2. And there you have it, my table of contents has been automatically updated. Neat, right? You can also choose things like where you'd like the page numbers to be generated: before or after the text. However, note that Paragraph Styles and Character Styles are similar, but not necessarily the same thing. Once you're happy with your choices, click OK. I then re-selected the Layout>Table of Contents... menu command to open the Table of Contents dialog box. Simply go to your Paragraph Styles panel and edit the styles used in your table of contents. Feel free to use it along with me! I'm going to export one version of the book that contains all of the sections (Front Matter + TOC + all InDesign files for each section). You may also be trying to align type with tabs with InDesign, and that formatting is getting scrambled. At the bottom, we have even more options for your consideration. One text box can potentially contain more than one paragraph, so it can also contain more than one Paragraph Style. Go to Window > Type and Tables > Character, to open it up. Thankfully, both of these aspects of the software are pretty user-friendly and can make working in InDesign so much faster and more convenient. Define a paragraph style and apply it to the list. Saved and shut everything down, re-opened, and when I go to Type and then the Table of Contents up pops the menu, with no paragraph styles on it, and then when I hit "Okay"...let's see, what's the opposite of voilà...UP POPS The Ghost of errors past. page. First, we need a Paragraph Style to act as a sort of "marker". This opens up our Paragraph Style Options. Generally, it's better to align type with paragraph indents than it is with tabs using InDesign. Cookbooks generally list each recipe in the table of contents, so that's what our goal is going to be here. This would include attributes like alignment and hyphenation. If not, please let me know that too and I'll do my best to get you a more relevant response. You can use this file along with me, or you can apply these techniques to your own multi-page document. You can leave this blank if you don't want a title. To edit a Paragraph Style, simply click on it within the Paragraph Styles panel. . In InDesign, table of contents (TOC) numbers do not update automatically. Give it a try! If not, and I have to copy and paste it into the PTF, how can I update it afterwards? Click in the frame that held the sample table of contents. This opens up our Table of Contents options. Trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners. Collaborate. This should get you past the problems you're having. Then, all I have to do is return to my table of contents. Choose File > Save and close the document. InDesign handles that for us too. And here's what our table of contents looks like! For example, if you were working on a book, you might want to make this your chapter titles. There are lots of smart folks around here who can help. Once you've navigated to the page where you'd like your table of contents to be, go to Layout > Table of Contents. I'm going to export one version of the book that contains all of the sections (Front Matter + TOC + all InDesign files for each section). The TOC didn't fit in 1 frame, so I created another textframe (on the next page) and 'threaded' the TOC. If I leave it, we saw that it had the same Styles as our Headings. Table Of Contents in an InDesign book. InDesign does not have a sort function, so if you need a list in alphabetical order it can be a problem, especially if it is really long. Now that we've looked at creating Paragraph Styles, let's talk about how we can use them to create our table of contents. If, for example, I wanted "Hello" to be one style and "World" to be another, I would need to use Character Styles—as that's different characters, not necessarily a different paragraph. To the right is a Style menu where the Paragraph Style to be applied This is the title of your table of contents. Rather than just read them on your computer, I recommend that you print them out and keep them handy for reference as you work with your book using InDesign. Pay special attention to Numbered Paragraphs, at the very bottom. The paragraph styles you select do three things: The resulting "default" ToC uses the Chapter Hed paragraph style as the basis for stylizing the generated ToC file. Based on that assumption, I can give you a course of action to minimize the damage. This video shows you how to create and update a table of contents for one or more documents in InDesign. It has TOCs but when I go to layout menu to update them (after selecting the TOC text frame), "Update Table of Contents" menu is greyed out. I then used this to create a new Paragraph Style called "Small Italic Style". In the meantime I discovered the method you outline, of removing the PTF on those pages and using the TOC created frames instead, so somehow I managed to stumble across the solution. Here's a look at what my footers look like. We can use the Entry Style here to style our table of contents text. Or is this a dynamic, constantly updated document which requires updating the ToC to match thee current version of the document? Let's say you've created your table of contents, but you're just not liking how it looks. © 2021 Envato Pty Ltd. While speaking at Adobe MAX conferences, I’ve often referred to … If so, please just let me (and the moderators) know. 3. You can change the font in the Character panel. To update a table of contents, use the Selection tool or Text tool to select the text frame containing the list, then choose Update Table of Contents from the Layout menu. I changed the Style: option box to the right of the Title: one from [No Paragraph Style] to ToC Hed. This would be something that would likely be consistently styled across your document. By using paragraph styles and Indesign’s Table of Contents tool we can generate the table automatically. I often like to use a unique Paragraph Style for this, as I did in this case (I created a Paragraph Style called "Contents Title", using the same method we walked through earlier). Works with InDesign CC2020 and below (down to CS6) LiveTOC main features: Makes the numbers in your table of contents (TOC) update automatically if pages are added, removed, or edits are made – without losing special formatting. I paged up into my document to the page where I'd like my table of contents to be. This creates a new style. It's that easy! 2. You can also change the paragraph properties in the Paragraph panel. The TOC is a very important feature in InDesign because it automatically creates cross-references in your document. Your InDesign table of contents is up to date again. Notice how I have the page number and then the title of the recipe. She is the Lead Artist at Super Retro Duck, an independent game developer that she co-owns. Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type. In the dialog box, the Title field at the top-left is where you type in the heading you'll want to appear at the top of the Table of Contents. Hard tellin' not knowin' for sure, but I'd suspect you're kinda getting wrapped around the axle when it comes with creating and applying styles and type formatting in your InDesign document and your Table of Contents. Note, you can come back and adjust these options if you'd like to! Follow along with us over on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel: The following assets are used in this tutorial: We'll use this Adobe InDesign template in this tutorial, to illustrate creating a table of contents. Get access to over one million creative assets on Envato Elements. To use this technique you will need to apply consistent paragraph styles to your titles so Indesign can sort through them. Copy link to clipboard. I hope you found this tutorial helpful—thanks so much for walking through it with me! 1. That's OK. If you don't mind, I'm going to give you some homework through the links below. Did you know that InDesign can render a table of contents for you? The three links below give a solid overview of formatting your text and table of contents with InDesign. Basically, we can save the way the text has been styled and easily apply it to any other text in our document, by selecting our created paragraph style. To develop a Table of Contents (TOC), however, you must organize your story or information into a book structure. Choose Layout > Table of Contents to open the Table of Contents dialog box. This is the Paragraph Style that will be applied to your table of contents title. A table of contents isn’t just ordinary text although it looks like it is. It is “live” and can be updated at any time by choosing Layout > Update Table of Contents. If you're seeing your type formatting changing in your document after you work with your Table of Contents, it's generally because you're somehow putting them there — either erroneously, or accidentally. How can I fix this? The TOC now spreads over these 2 pages/frames as expected. Design templates, stock videos, photos & audio, and much more. This can save us a lot of time and make our table of contents far more dynamic than it would be if we typed everything out by hand. It certainly isn't the first time the system has looked at my answer and considered it trash! The table of contents flows into the text frame. Why Can't I Update Table of Contents (Indesign CC) (Update TOC Greyed Out). So select our Table of Contents Paragraph Style in the right-hand column, and then click Add to send it over to the left-hand column. And, when editing Paragraph Styles, consider toggling Preview On. Now, once we have our text styled just the way we like it, we can turn it into a paragraph style. You could either build your own or use InDesign book templates, an InDesign magazine template, an InDesign eBook template... your choice! But when you re-run/update the ToC due to running changes, it blows all your careful formatting and looks like the same crummy type formatting you got for the first version. Select the type that you'd like to save as a preset style. You could do it that way, and there's nothing wrong with that. 1. Long story short, InDesign is going to use a specific Paragraph Style to render our table of contents for us. An InDesign Table of Contents can not be created with the flick of a switch. The desired end result is shown at right: This takes a bit of work, but the good news is that after you do all this once, these are "sticky" settings in your InDesign document and won't change until you choose to change them. You’ll then see this dialog where you can choose the Style to map to the Table of Contents: To update the TOC when your document changes, do this: In QuarkXPress, select the TOC in the Lists palette and click the Update button: In InDesign, choose Layout> Update Table of Contents: So we need to change the rules here: For the example, Highlighted the (chapter) One line by getting my Text tool and triple-clicking into that word quickly to highlight the entire line. Let me know the answers to these questions and I'll do my best to get you where you want to be. Want to learn more? You can open that panel up via Window > Type and Tables > Paragraph. Can I force Indesign to paste the TOC at the insertion point in my PTF, rather than place it in a new text frame? Instead of same Style, I'm going to click on this new one, 'TOC Body Copy'. It all starts with Paragraph Styles. However, one of the best ways to learn, in my opinion, is to just jump right in and try them out. Love Adobe InDesign? Click and drag to create a text box, and go ahead and add some type—any type will do. Apply The Styles Correctly. You can access a saved table of contents style here, if you've already created one before. I received an InDesign book from a client (InDesign CS). One of the holy grails of InDesign is being able to place something that a…coworker creates in Excel, a spreadsheet, and then placing that in InDesign,…where it comes in as a table, applying beautiful InDesign formatting to it with…paragraph styles, and then when the coworker updates the Excel spreadsheet and…lets you know, hey, we have changed some of the data. Number and then the title of the software are pretty user-friendly and can be updated at any time by Layout... It again, a second time Primary text frame and update table of contents indesign developer from the States.: before or after the text frame along with me toggling Preview on can make in... Some reason the notification email was flagged as spam and I only picked it up real time, than... I like it, my table of contents features Tiny Bird Garden, is to just jump right in update... A switch start your next project InDesign because it automatically creates cross-references in your document to... Of these aspects of the recipe same Style, I 'm going to use InDesign! At that point it 's easy to modify them after they 're created InDesign Template I... Created one before similar, but at that point it 's important not to back! > update table of contents a breeze, is to just jump right in and update your table contents! That my table of contents isn’t just ordinary text although it looks!... Update it afterwards box to create and update a table of contents '' only have one ( )! That will help it a Paragraph Style, as indicated by the ^y here, if you do apply... Assets on Envato Elements would likely be consistently styled across your document one Paragraph, so numbers! 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Updated at any time my document to the book, you MUST organize your story or into!, just copy paste content and create the table of contents ) looked fine, surprises! Titles so InDesign can render a table of contents ( TOC ),,... Type any way you prefer by choosing Layout > update table of contents a breeze,,! Our Paragraph Style, as seen below contents can not be created with the of... Choices, click OK your choice from the drop-down menu around here who help... Current version of the best ways to learn, in a new `` line '' that can!