Confused about TOC layout

[C_Sarelius]

Hi,

I'm working in FM7 and I've been going through the manual for help on layout of TOC. Specifically what I can't seem to understand is how to group entries in a generated list.

I'm working in a book with a number of files; I'll have a generated TOC, LOF and LOT. In the TOC what I want to do is group entries starting from Section and then Chapter. In other words I want in my TOC:

Section xx

     Chapter xx

          Heading

          Heading

          Heading

     Chapter xx

          Heading

Section xx

     etc

I've also been trying to understand the entries on the Reference page to see if I can figure out the grouping from the way they are displayed on the page.

Question - how do I do it? Do I need to format entries in the Reference page? Or is it somewhere else. (This also applies for my LOF and LOT)

Advice appreciated.

Carl

[Van Kurtz]

Carl,

I presume that each kind of title (Section, Chapter, Heading, etc) has a paragraph format for it. When you first generate the TOC, Frame creates a reference page with an entry for each paragraph format that you include in the TOC, AND it creates a TOC paragraph format for each of these entries, that is, SectionTOC, ChapterTOC, HeadingTOC, etc. You can change these formats however you need for your purposes. It is best to just edit these xxxTOC formats in the paragraph designer, so that you can import them into other documents you create in the future.

By the way, a TOC is a sequential list. You do not group any of the entries, as one does in an index.

Good luck,

Van

[C_Sarelius]

Hi Van,

thanks for that. Yes, I do have a separate paragraph format for each level of title, and I've been into the Reference page to change the format for font, indentation, etc. I do understand that a TOC is a sequential list but I thought that if I can get an index to 'group', why not a TOC. I can't be the only FM user to have asked this question or tried to layout a TOC like this, so there must an answer out there somewhere. I'm currently looking at the variables to see if there's something there I've missed.

I'll post something here if I succeed.

Cheers

Carl

[Guest]

To add to Van's excellent summary, FM builds the TOC sequentially, in the order that the specified paragraphs occur in each chapter. However, this order is based on FM's rules for what order it "looks" for the paragraphs. FM looks first at the content that's in Flow A (the main body flow), and after that at content that's in other "structures" of the document such as tables, anchored text frames, other text flows.  So if you're seeing some oddball order in your TOC, double-check how the paragraphs are located in the source documents.

For example, if you put a Heading1 in a single-cell table in order to achieve some visual effect, then that paragraph's entry in the TOC will be down at the bottom of the chapter's entries, after all of the Heading2 entries that are just entered as normal paragraphs on the page. 

If this does happen and you can't change the design for some reason, then you might want to consider using a List of Markers instead of a TOC to create the TOC chapter.

[C_Sarelius]

Hi Sheila,

thanks for that. It's not that my TOC is showing abnmormal behaviour or strange ordering, it's just that it's not doing what I want it to do. Please see my response to Van's post.

Cheers

Carl

[Guest]

What are you calling "grouping" -- is it a visual distinction as far as some entries being located physically next to each other? or is it the content of some of the entries that's now that you're expecting?

could you post two examples, similar to what you did in your first posting, showing what you want and what you're getting? that would help us visualize what's wrong.

[C_Sarelius]

Hi Sheila,

In 'Example 1.pdf' you'll see what I'm getting when I generate a TOC. The paragraph formats on the Reference page of the generated TOC for the TOC heading entries have been modified to provide some sort of layout. Note the repetition of the heading 'Section 3'. 'Example 2.pdf' has been manually fixed to show what I want - that's what I mean by grouping. Does this clarify what I'm looking for? Also, where are you located - NZ or Australia somewhere I gather? BTW, don't be concerned about the header/footer - there is nothing classified here.

Cheers

Carl

[Arnis Gubins]

Carl,

Unfortunately, the queueing for file attachments is a bit messed up, and it may be days before these links are available.

Could you please try taking screen shots of the two TOCs and place them as inline graphics in your meassage using the little camera tool in the editor - this will ask you for a file link to upload.

Thanks,

Arnis Gubins

FrameMaker Forum host

[C_Sarelius]

Hi Arnis,

here we go.

Here you'll see what I'm getting when I generate a TOC . The paragraph formats on the Reference page of the generated TOC for the TOC heading entries have been modified to provide some sort of layout. Note the repetition of the heading 'Section 3'.

This example has been manually fixed to show what I want - that's what I mean by grouping. Does this clarify what I'm looking for? Also, where are you located - NZ or Australia somewhere I gather? BTW, don't be concerned about the header/footer - there is nothing classified here.

Cheers

Carl

[Arnis Gubins]

Hi Carl,

It looks like it's a function of how you've got your tagging designed and set-up for the paragraphs. I would suggest that you have only one single Section starter tag for the physical start of each section and then have a placeholder tag for a cross-ref back to the Section one for subsequent chapters in each section (if you actually need the section info on your Chapter title pages).

As Van and Sheila have mentioned, TOCs are designed to list paratgs in sequence only. You can't change this behaviour.

Why do you keep thinking that we're loated in the southern hemisphere? Sheila's on the west coast of the US and I'm in Canada in the east.

[C_Sarelius]

Hi Arnis,

thanks for the advice, I'll go in and have a closer look at the setup and the tags.

Re the timezone, I wasn't expecting to get any responses until tomorrow my time as I expect most responses to come from North America or Europe. I'm in Melbourne, on the south coast of Australia and here it's 1330, lunchtime. Must be getting close to midnight where you are. All the best.

Thanks for your help.

Carl

[Van Kurtz]

Carl,

It looks from you examples that each chapter is a separate file, AND each file begins with a section paragraph. Why does each file begin with a section paragraph when it is not the beginning of a section? If you are doing that to use the information in headers and footers, then maybe you can try using variables to store that information, thus eliminating the need to begin each file with a section paragraph.

Just to be extremely picky, again what you want to do is not grouping. It is still sequential but without showing certain paragraphs, namely the sections after the first one.

That being said, one CAN do an index of paragraphs, which groups paragraphs by their content, that is, it lists the pages numbers of paragraphs that have identical content. I do this to collect an index of warnings at the beginning of certain manuals. You can try it, but I doubt it will give you what you want. I suggest trying to understand what is causing the behavior you are seeing and fixing it within that context.

Good luck,

Van

[C_Sarelius]

Hi Van,

yes, each chapter is a separate file. The heading 'Section 3 ...' is a paragrpah format 'Section Title'; the heading 'Chapter 1 ...' is a paragraph format 'Chapter Title'; the next level down is a paragraph format 'Main Heading'. All are located on the Body page in a text frame. The TOC is setup to include these three paragraph formats. There is nothing in the header/footers that is used in the generation of the TOC. Here's a screen shot to show my TOC setup. I don't believe that doing an index is the way to go (thanks anyway) because that will only make it harder when I actually have to create a proper index. I'll persevere with examining variables in the TOC reference page and see if that doesn't shed any light - if nothing else this willhave been a learning experience.

Cheers

Carl

[Guest · Accepted solution]

Are you putting a Section Title paragraph in each Chapter? If so, that's the problem -- there should only be one Section Title paragraph, in the chapter where the section actually starts. Succeeding chapters that are within that section should not have a Section Title.

That's where you're mix-and-matching with the concept of "grouping" and the workings of an Index.

TOCs work by selecting the actual paragraph text for each specified tag -- FM doesn't "roll up" all Section Title paragraphs even if they're the same.

If you need to have the text of the Section title repeated on each subsequent chapter start, I'd suggest that you make a new paratag, e.g. "Section Repeater", and then not include that tag in your TOC, of course. There are other methods to repeat content, too, such as using variables and markers, but let's not get the thread too confused just yet.

[C_Sarelius]

Hi Sheila,

yes I am putting in the section title into each chapter becasue that's what my customer, and the specification they use, demands. But you've given me another approach I hadn't thought of, the use of an identical para format titled Section Title Repeater. I'll look at that.

Cheers

[C_Sarelius]

For the record and following on from Sheila's post, I've created another paragraph format called 'Section Title Repeater', making it a clone of 'Section Title'. When I setup my TOC I select the paragraph tags per my earlier post. I don't select 'Section Title Repeater' and my TOC, once generated, looks the way I want it to.

Cheers

Carl