Master Table of Contents hyperlink destination

[MoonPigeon1965]

In all of my books that have a MTOC and Chapter TOCs, clicking on one of the MTOC links takes me to the first page of the chapter. I would rather be taken to the first page of the chapter TOC, but I can't figure out where to change that information. This is my TOC reference table:

Appreciate any help!

[Barb Binder]

Hi @MoonPigeon1965, and welcome.

A mini-TOC is just a list of headings in a single FrameMaker file—it can't link to an outside file. I think you are using the term Chapter TOC to refer to a stand-alone TOC, but a stand-alone TOC is its own .fm file so the miniTOC can't see it.

You can create a list of cross-references to link to other files. The list can look identical to a TOC list (mini, stand-alone or book), and it updates with the book, but it is fussier to set up.

~Barb

[MoonPigeon1965]

Since I used the wrong terms, I'm not sure if I described my question correctly.  This is one of my FrameMaker-generated Master TOCs:

When I click on "editorial standards", it takes me here, the first page of chapter 1 (which is in the same book):

What I want to do is take the reader here, which is the stand-alone TOC for the Editorial Standards chapter:

Is this possible to do? Thanks again!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Let's see your .book layout where each of these elements/files is shown.

[MoonPigeon1965]

Thanks, here you go:

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

So, what you're saying is that inside the MTOC.fm doc, when you launch a link there, it's going to the Ch01.fm file instead of the Ch01TOC.fm - is that right? I think that's to be expected because the MTOC.fm file looks like it's a "real" (system generated) TOC that's been told to look for specific paragraph tags to be used in the building of the TOC. Your Ch01TOC.fm doc looks like something you've manually rigged up to act like a TOC (as far as I can tell). So unless you've got some specific tags in those manual TOCs for the generated one to sweep up, nothing is going to point to the Ch01TOC.fm files.

[MoonPigeon1965]

I didn't create the Ch01TOC manually. I used the Insert > Table of Contents > Create Standalone TOC function. I created the base template years ago; so I don't recall where I indicated that the MTOC should point to the CH01.fm file instead of the Ch01TOC.fm file - where do I change that?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Hmm, in that case, you'd want the MTOC.fm doc to be changed to use whatever tags are in the standalone TOCs - but I'm not sure if that's possible - it would be like having a Heading1TOCTOC inside the MTOC.fm file when you're done, instead of the current Heading1TOC element that's present now.

[MoonPigeon1965]

I actually tried that, but I knew it was not the proper way. So what I have is the "normal" way of doing it?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I guess - normally, you'd expect that the main TOC would do all the pointing to the content and you'd never see the "chapter" TOCs unless you were creating a "sub-set" of content separately. I've done that before with a "book of books" structure in one of my projects.

[FrameMaker-dk]

The Chapter TOC's is where you need to do a bit of manual editing. Insert a, manually written, title and give it a tag which you want to include in the master toc. When you recompile your book the manually written text will be picked ud and used. You will need to take have different tags for the titles. One tag for the chapter toc's and one which is being used in the chapter. The last tag needs to be taken out of the master toc.

Makes sense?

[Barb Binder]

Hi @MoonPigeon1965:

I keystroked what I think you are asking for: how to link the book TOC to a stand-alone TOC entry (instead of the normal pararagaph within a FrameMaker file).

I pulled in Heading1TOCs and Heading2TOCs from the standalone file and as @Jeff_Coatsworth predicted, I ended up with Heading1TOCTOC and a Heading2TOCTOC. 

But then it gets weird. It pulls in both the page numbers from the actual chapter files, then adds a tab and then adds the stand-along page numbers. There's nothing on the TOC reference to support this behavior—my best guess is Fm is trying but just can't quite pull it off. I've been using FrameMaker since the early 90s and I've never seen this question—how to link one TOC to another TOC. (I saw it recently on the InDesign forum, keystroked it and InDesign simply refused to produce any content at all, so at least FrameMaker is trying. 😊)

The links work and if you really want to do this, you could manually remove the extra page tab/numbers after each update or at least before the final output.

~Barb