With RoboHelp, you can automatically generate mini TOCs in long articles with many subsections.
Here's Benny Joseph, my colleague at Adobe and a RoboHelp pro, on when to use the mini TOC placeholder and how:
Consider the following when you create and apply master pages with mini TOC in your RoboHelp project:
Need for mini TOC: Many topics could contain only one coherent topic, which does not require structuring through sub headings or bookmarks within the topic. For such topics, a mini TOC might not be required. You can create a separate master page without the mini TOC placeholder and apply it to such topics to avoid the mini TOC from appearing.
Topic Length: If your article is a large topic with many subsections, the mini TOC could appear long and nested. In such cases, try to restructure and divide the content and in multiple topics. For example, if you use lower heading levels such as Heading 5 and Heading 6 to highlight definition lists, try to bunch them under a higher level heading, and apply paragraph styles other than heading styles.
Number of levels: RoboHelp includes heading levels 2 through 6 in the mini TOC by default. However, if the topics have a large number of lower-level heading styles, the mini TOCs generated on these pages can become long and deeply nested. To avoid this, limit the number of levels in the mini TOC to have a shorter mini TOC that gives a quick overview of your topic contents.
Placement: Even though you can place a mini TOC placeholder in a topic or a master page, use the master page option if your project is large or you are updating an existing project. Inserting a mini TOC placeholder in each topic can be time-consuming, whereas you can apply a master page with a mini TOC placeholder to large projects at one go.