«
»

Setting up a Table of Contents in FrameMaker


Here’s a post by Asit Pant, a veteran technical communicator and FrameMaker community-member. Asit shares valuable tips about formatting TOCs that are equally useful for beginners and advanced users.

A ToC contains entries that serve as the outline of your content—typically the headings. The ToC also serves as a navigation aid through hyperlinks to the source content.

Once you insert the ToC as part of a book the first time, you will probably want to set up its formatting to suit your requirements. If you already know how to insert the ToC and want to learn how to format it, you can scroll directly to the Formatting the ToC section below.

NOTE: This post is specific to setting up a ToC for a FrameMaker book. For information on setting up a ToC for a standalone document, see the Technical Communication Suite blog post—Embed a TOC in a FrameMaker Document by Samartha Vashishtha.

Inserting the TOC

To insert the ToC with the default formatting, follow these steps:

  1. In the book, select Add > Table of Contents.
  2. In the Set Up Table of Contents dialog, select the paragraph tags that you want to include in your ToC. In this example, let us include Heading1 and Heading2 (or their equivalent in your document). Use the arrow buttons to move these headings to the Include Paragraphs Tagged list.
  3. To have each entry in the ToC linked to its source, select Create Hypertext Links. These links let you navigate to the source of an entry by clicking the entry.
  4. Click Add.
  5. In the Update Book dialog box that appears, ensure that Generate Table of Contents, Lists, and Indexes is checked, and then click Update.
  6. FrameMaker creates the ToC in a file named <BookName>TOC.fm.

Formatting the TOC

The ToC created by default looks something like the following:

Heading1 1
Heading2 3

NOTE: If a template has been set up for you, the ToC might appear different. In this case, you can use the following steps to fine-tune the appearance further if required, and also to understand how the ToC formatting works.

However, you probably want the ToC to look like something as follows:

Heading1 .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Heading2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Modify the ToC entries on the reference page and the paragraph properties of the formats that are used for generating the TOC. Follow these steps:

  1. In the <bookname>TOC.fm file, select View > Reference Pages.
  2. Find the entries starting with <$paratext> <$pagenum>. These entries are building blocks and refer to the paragraphs with the specified formats (Heading1 and Heading2 in this case) and the respective page numbers in which they appear in the document. Notice that these entries have paragraph format names of <HeadingName>TOC (unless they were changed by someone who designed your templates).
  3. Modify the properties of the paragraph format:
    • Place the cursor anywhere in the first line containing <$ paratext> <$pagenum>.
    • Select Format > Paragraph > Designer to bring up the Paragraph Designer.
    • Create a tab stop to ensure a space between the paragraph name and the page number:
      • In the Basic tab, click Edit in the Tab Stops group
      • In the Edit Tab Stops dialog box, type an appropriate number for New Position. This is the distance from the left edge of the column to the tab stop.
      • Specify a leader for the tab stop. A leader is a visual connector (for example a dashed line), which helps guide the eye from the paragraph name to the page number. In the Leader area of the dialog box, click one of the predefined tab leaders or enter your own custom leader, and then click Edit.
      • To ensure that the page numbers are aligned to right, set the Alignment option to Right.
      • Click Continue to go back to the main Paragraph Designer window.
  4. You might want to change other properties of the paragraph to format the Table of Contents entry. For example, you might want to make the font bigger and/or bolded (for top-level headings), or to add an indent (for lower-level headings). Set the appropriate options per your preference and update the paragraph format.
  5. On the Reference page, place the cursor between the <$paratext> and <$pagenum> building blocks. Press the tab key. This ensures that whenever you generate the ToC, there is a tab stop between the heading and the corresponding page number. The formatting of the tab stop will be per the settings you defined earlier in the Paragraph Designer.
  6. Repeat the previous steps for all ToC entries on the Reference page (that is, entries that contain the <$paratext> and <$pagenum> building blocks).
  7. Select View > Body Pages to change the view.
  8. Regenerate the ToC by selecting Edit > Update Book. The ToC is now formatted as desired.

Further Suggested Reading

, ,

This entry was posted on January 3, 2011, 10:06 am and is filed under FrameMaker, How to, TCS specific, Troubleshooting. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  1. #1 by Prithvi on February 9, 2011 - 9:28 am

    I created a style called Heading3 that was not part of the original template. I added it to the TOC.
    However I cannot see the corresponding entry in the reference page, that has entries only up to Heading2 as mentioned above by you.
    What do I need to do?

    • #2 by Asit Pant on February 10, 2011 - 12:20 pm

      Hi Prithvi,

      First, regenerate the TOC (Edit->Update Book). You should see the text for Heading3 in it, assuming you set up the TOC with it. (To add Heading3 to the TOC, right-click on the TOC file and select Setup Table of Contents.)

      If you do not see the enrty for Heading3TOC in the Reference page, you can add another block and apply the Heading3TOC paragraph format to it.

      Hope this helps.
      -Asit

  2. #3 by Kay on February 11, 2011 - 3:50 pm

    I did all these steps, and the formatting on the Reference page looks correct, but the body page did not change, even after I reapplied the paragraph style on the body page and refreshed the book.

  3. #4 by Prithvi on April 26, 2011 - 7:45 am

    Hello asit
    i have managed to design a table of contents by making changes to the reference pages.
    but whenever i update the book, the toc becomes “unformatted” that is loses all the work done on it earlier.

    it seems to take on the formatting of the earlier file in the book that is the title page.

    please help.

  4. #5 by Robin Senor on February 22, 2012 - 11:00 am

    I have been experiencing a bug in creating tabs in Framemaker 10; regardless of whether I create from the reference page or the main page I cannot create one (for a style of any type). As soon as I open the tab window and select it, the paragraph designer closes (which I don’t think was true in 9 an earlier). I enter my desired values and click continue, the window closes and nothing is maintained for the paragraph format. The only “workaround” I’ve found for this is to open an old TOC I have, and save my historical TOC types as my new TOC types. Is there a fix for this available? This is a nightmare.

    • #6 by Leigh Steele on April 1, 2013 - 8:42 am

      I am also having this problem in FM 10. I have not found a workaround yet, nor any acknowledgement by adobe that this is even happening. I did manage to get a TOC created once, but I was so frustrated by the time I finally got it created that I couldn’t tell you what I did! When I figure out what I did, I will definitely post it here!

  5. #7 by Robin Senor on February 22, 2012 - 11:04 am

    also, automatic updating of the TOC is not working with this kloogy workaround. ugh.

  6. #8 by Maggie on May 10, 2012 - 6:41 am

    I am experiencing the same problem and have not been able to fix it. Any suggestions.

  7. #9 by Maggie on May 10, 2012 - 6:42 am

    I am experiencing the same problem and have not been able to fix it. Any suggestions. I update the reference pages, save it, but when I update the body page does not change.

  8. #10 by Katie on July 12, 2012 - 10:34 am

    I am a tech writer with a company that had no previous tech pubs department, so I have the “honor” of creating brand new templates for the documentation from the standard ones that came with Frame 10 (SO NOT FUN).

    The TOC is giving me the most trouble (however, I haven’t even tried the index yet…). Since I don’t have a TOC template I like, I have been trying to use the TOC template from the standard book templates. The current TOC template looks just like Asit’s first example except with bullets (ick), and I want to turn it into the second example. The “Table of Contents Specification” in the Reference page has the following:
    openXmlElementId :
    openObjectId :

    No matter how I manipulate the paragraph tags, I cannot get rid of the bullets:

    • Copyrights 2
    • Corporate Address 3
    • Abbreviations 6

    Any ideas how I can create a nice TOC from this garbage??

    • #11 by Katie on July 12, 2012 - 10:38 am

      The Reference page information I had was cut off in my original post so I removed the brackets here:
      openXmlElementId $relfilename:$UniqueXmlElementId $RelativeXmlElementId
      openObjectId $relfilename:$ObjectType $ObjectId>
      $paranum $paratext $pagenum
      $paranum $paratext $pagenum
      $paranum $paratext $pagenum

  9. #12 by Kevin Longfield on February 12, 2013 - 2:41 pm

    I’m having a problem with FM 10 regarding setting up chapter numbers in the TOC. Updating the book will update the chapter numbers in the document files (Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc.) but the TOC numbers tham all Chapter 1. Anyone kow of a fix? Using the nubmer in function does not work. I understand why you can’t have more than one chapter number in a file, but the TOC should be an exception.

  10. #13 by Mike Bauman on March 28, 2013 - 8:11 am

    Was wondering if anyone has had any luck including a graphic as part of their auto generated list of paragraphs?

    I can capture text from headers, but I am creating an instructor specific guide and would like to pull graphics to a LOP that are part of my instructor notes.

  11. #14 by Leigh Steele on April 1, 2013 - 8:58 am

    I remembered my workaround!! It is:
    1. Open the TOC and make sure it is on the Body Pages view.
    2. While you are in the View page, select View>>Ruler
    2. Highlight the entry to be tabbed.
    3. Click on the desired spot directly under the numbers and dashes in the ruler. The Edit Tab Stop menu will open.
    4. If the position is not quite right, adjust the number in the New Position field.
    5. Select the desired leader dots if needed.
    6. Click Edit. The tab will be set.
    7. Highlight the TOC entry and click Paragraph Designer. You should see the new tab position in the Tab Stops section.
    8. Click Update All to update all instances of the Paragraph. Click Remove Overrides if you see the Overrides dialog bod.
    9. Save document and start tabbing. Since the tabs do not automatically apply with this method, you will have to put your cursor in the position (e.g., the end of the TOC line) and click Tab.

  12. #15 by Sarah on April 1, 2013 - 1:45 pm

    Hello

    Please could you explain how you make “Folder” names in a book appear in the table of contents. I’ve not used ‘folders’ before but was trying to use them as chapter level headings. I only really need them in the TOC, I don’t actually need content in them as it is just for splitting up a set of product datasheets. There isn’t a paragraph tag to put in…?
    Thank you

Comments are closed.