Table of Contents for a Book

[Andrew Scarth]

Is there a way to insert a ToC in the first section of a book? I have a book made up of several sections using the "book facility". I cannot find out how to obtain an overall ToC placed in the first section which contains all the contents from the subsequent sections. This was possible in the last versions of PagePlus.

[MikeTO]

Hi Andrew, this is definitely possible. Please refer to the Books chapter in the free PDF manual I've shared in the forum.

In a nutshell, create a front matter chapter file and make it the first chapter in your Book file. Use it for the copyright, introduction, TOC, and everything else with pages numbered i, ii, iii. Insert the TOC there and change the scope of the TOC to Book using the TOC panel.

Good luck.

[Andrew Scarth]

Hi Mike,

Thanks. I hadn't spotted the change of scope for the ToC.

All works now.

[joshbruce]

See if I can resurrect this one, as I must be missing something.

I have a Book with 3 Chapters.

1. TOC + front matter
2. Chapter 1
3. Chapter 2

I can get the TOC to work; however, I can't seem to register Chapter 1 as Page 1.

The attached shows the page number for what should be Page 2 of the Chapter, as Page 1 doesn't use the page number field.

Is this related to TOC settings or Section Manager settings?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated, as it seems to be the last hurdle to me taking advantage of the Books feature.
 

[MikeTO]

The Section Manager can't be used to set the starting page number for a Book chapter.

To restart page numbering at the start of a chapter, select that chapter in the Books panel and choose Page Number Options from the panel menu.

Cheers

[joshbruce]

That worked! Thanks.

So, a Book is almost truly a separate Document in terms of text flow and features?

[MikeTO]

36 minutes ago, joshbruce said:

So, a Book is almost truly a separate Document in terms of text flow and features?

A Book is not a document and is just a tiny file that organizes and manages chapters. I think the chapter's starting page number wasn't well integrated with the Section Manager. The Section Manager starting page number field should update the equivalent field in Books > Page Number Options, or at the very least be disabled when opening a chapter that is part of a Book. Perhaps in the future.

[joshbruce]

2 hours ago, MikeTO said:

The Section Manager starting page number field should update the equivalent field in Books > Page Number Options, or at the very least be disabled when opening a chapter that is part of a Book. Perhaps in the future.

I agree. The natural inclination [for me] was to use Section Manager. However, with the ability to rearrange Chapters in the Book Panel, having it there also makes a certain amount of sense. So, yeah, disabled or synced somehow.

It's not an easy UX problem to solve, given how Books works right now - as a panel.

Initially, I ran away because my brain didn't pick up on the non-Document and Document crossover. I almost want a different interface when working on a Book - not a panel - because it feels almost like the Chapter is the owner of the Book.

[AnthonyMarrian]

Struggling a bit here. I've inserted my TOC1 table of contents at the head of all the sections in my book, and chosen the right style (Heading 3 New). The pages in each section of the book have a <Section Name> frame provided by a Master Page, and are formatted Heading 3 New. As a result, the TOC produces lots of duplicate entries as it picks up each heading on each new page. So, I thought if I adjusted the Section Name style on the first page of each section to, say, Heading 1, and told the TOC just to look at Heading 1, that would solve the problem. However, doing that produces no entries, presumably because, for some reason, the update is not returning Heading 1 frames. Please can I have some guidance? Many thanks.

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, AnthonyMarrian said:

Struggling a bit here. I've inserted my TOC1 table of contents at the head of all the sections in my book, and chosen the right style (Heading 3 New). The pages in each section of the book have a <Section Name> frame provided by a Master Page, and are formatted Heading 3 New. As a result, the TOC produces lots of duplicate entries as it picks up each heading on each new page. So, I thought if I adjusted the Section Name style on the first page of each section to, say, Heading 1, and told the TOC just to look at Heading 1, that would solve the problem. However, doing that produces no entries, presumably because, for some reason, the update is not returning Heading 1 frames. Please can I have some guidance? Many thanks.

Hi Anthony. Click in the empty TOC and look at the TOC panel. Below the options will be a list of your styles. Select Heading 1 and deselect Heading 3 New. Then click on the options icon to the right of Heading 1 and set Indent Level to 1. If you update the TOC now, it should work as you expected.

[AnthonyMarrian]

That is so kind of you. I see the point. I thought editing Heading 1 to suit would be a global edit, but it seems to apply only to the section in which it has been edited. So, I tried creating a new text style based on it, but that doesn't seem to travel either. Still, I'll investigate that further in the morning. Very much appreciate all your help.