Adobe InDesign CS/CS2 Breakthroughs [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

TOC Ticks

Locate Missing Entries for a Book's TOC

After designating the first of my documents in my Book palette as the Style Source, I synchronized all the style sheets in my book's documents. But when I open that first chapter and choose Layout > Table of Contents to create and place the book's TOC, some style sheets that I need to include are missing.

By default, the Table of Contents dialog box only lists style sheets in the current document. Synchronizing styles just makes sure that all the chapters in a book contain the same style sheets, with the same definitions, as those in the Style Source document. If one or more of the other documents contain styles that the Style Source one doesn't, InDesign ignores them. They're not modified or deleted, nor are they loaded into any other document that's part of the book.

The good news is that you don't need to manually load those other style sheets into your document. Just turn on the "Include Book Documents" checkbox at the bottom of the dialog box. InDesign then lists all the style sheets from every document that's part of the book in the TOC dialog box.

Note that the "Include Book Documents" option is only available when you have the Book palette open.

Use TOCs for Other Lists

I really miss the "Lists" feature in my old page layout program. In addition to TOCs, it let me create illustration lists, advertiser lists, basically anything that I could identify via a unique style sheet. I could even maintain multiple lists in the same document.

InDesign's Table of Contents feature can be used to create any sort of list, as long as it can be identified via a Paragraph Style. If every diagram in your document carries a title, and those titles are formatted with a "Diagram Title" paragraph style, InDesign's Table of Contents feature can create a list of diagram titles and page numbers.

You can create multiple "TOCs" in the same document, too even if one is a "table of illustrations" another is a "table of advertisers," and so on. There is a workaround required, though, when you want to update a single type of TOC in a document that has more than one. We'll get to that in a minute.

What if your layout doesn't include identifying text for the type of list you want to create? For example, most display ads don't include the name of the advertiser as a separate text frame next to the ad, but you want to generate a list of advertisers for the back page. Can you do this with InDesign?

Sure. Just create a new layer and enter your own advertiser names in new text frames on the same pages as their ads. Don't worry about making your text frames fit the design, because you'll be hiding the layer before you Print or Export. In fact, you can hide the layer anytime; the Table of Contents can still find it if you turn on "Include Text on Hidden Layers" which is in the More Options section of the dialog box.

Now you can choose Layout > Table of Contents and create a "TOC" that just includes the advertiser names' paragraph style. Choose your options for the list's formatting, its item order (by page number or alphabetically), and so on as usual. If you've already placed a TOC or another list, be sure to click the More Options button and deselect "Replace Existing Table of Contents." When you click OK, the cursor is loaded with the list of advertisers which you can place anywhere in your document.

Updating your list (after editing, adding, moving or deleting any of the advertiser names) is easy if it's the only TOC or list in the document. Just select the list's text frame and choose Layout > Update Table of Contents.

With multiple TOCs and TOC-generated lists in the same document, it's different. You can't use the Update feature to update just the advertiser list, for example, and not the front-of-the-book Table of Contents. (If you do, InDesign replaces all the TOCs and lists in the document with the same content, based on the last settings used in the Table of Contents dialog box. Yikes!)

Instead, when you need to update a particular list, delete that list's existing text (or entire frame) and make and place a new one from the main Layout > Table of Contents dialog box. If you've created Table of Contents Styles for each type of list (see the Tip following this entry), it just takes a couple seconds.

Tip

You can manage multiple lists with TOC styles. After you've selected which paragraph styles to include in a TOC or list, and have specified how you want InDesign to format it in the Styles section of the TOC dialog box, save your settings by clicking the Save Style button and entering an identifying name like "Feature Articles" or "List of Advertisers." Now, if you accidentally delete the frame containing the TOC or list, you can easily make a new one by choosing its name from the TOC Style popup menu at the top of the dialog box. All your finely-tuned settings reappear. Just click OK to load the cursor with the new TOC or list, and place it in your layout. To import a TOC style that was saved in a different document, choose Layout > Table of Contents Styles in your current file, click the Load button, and double-click the InDesign file that has the TOC style you want.

Tweak a TOC for Perfect PDF Bookmarks

We create parts manuals in InDesign, then export them to PDF for distribution to our field reps. Linked Bookmarks in the PDF would really help these reps navigate the manual's numerous sections and subsections. The problem is that the bookmarks generated by the Table of Contents option, "Create PDF Bookmarks," aren't suitable. They're too detailed and they're not grouped (nested) into logical sections, among other things.

The solution is to create two TOCs, one to use in the document itself, and one just to generate the Bookmarks.

First, though, let's clear out old mistakes. Open your Bookmarks palette (Window > Interactive > Bookmarks), and delete any bookmarks you find there. (Shift-click all of them and choose Delete Bookmarks from the palette menu.)

Now you'll need to save the settings you're using for your "real" Table of Contents as its own TOC Style. Open the Table of Contents dialog box from the Layout menu, check the settings (which should reflect what you last specified when you created your TOC), and click the Save Style button. Name the style something like "My TOC."

Leave the dialog box open and adjust the settings for your soon-to-be-saved Bookmarks TOC style. For example, you may want to add or remove Paragraph Styles (to include/exclude Bookmark entries), or assign different Levels (Figure 7-3a) to the Paragraph Styles to customize how the Bookmarks will nest. Click the Save Style button when you're done, naming it "My Bookmarks."

From now on, whenever you're working with your document's actual Table of Contents, make sure that "My TOC" is the active TOC Style at the top of the Table of Contents dialog box, and that the Create PDF Bookmarks checkbox is not turned on before you click OK to create it or replace it.

To generate your bookmarks, choose Layout > Table of Contents and select "My Bookmarks" from the TOC Style popup menu. Before you click OK, make sure that the Create PDF Bookmarks checkbox is turned on and that Replace Existing TOC is gturned off. Click the OK button and place your "fake" TOC outside of the document in the pasteboard area.

Open your Bookmarks palette; ta-da! A whole slew of bookmarks appear (Figure 7-3b), possibly with different entries than those of your document's actual Table of Contents, depending how you modified the My Bookmarks TOC Style settings.

If a Bookmark's text is too lengthy, you can shorten it by selecting the Bookmark and choosing Rename Bookmark from the Bookmarks palette menu. You can also drag bookmarks around in the palette to reorder them, nest them differently, even delete existing ones and create new ones. Note that any changes you make in the Bookmark palette are overwritten the next time you create a TOC with Create PDF Bookmarks turned on. So save your customizations until the very end!