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Peter Kahrel
Community Expert
Peter KahrelCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 30, 2025
質問

Add a manual entry to the TOC for a book file

  • January 30, 2025
  • 返信数 8.
  • 856 ビュー

Running into an issue when trying to add a manual entry to my TOC for my book file. I have a book file with 14 indesign files. The first two are TOC layouts and are built using styles. I need to add a couple lines in the TOC for places in the book that were not grabbed with styles. When I go to create a line and hyperlink it does not find the corresponding page number. It says that file only has 40 pages (even though it's page 240 in the book). I'm trying bookmarks next but any advice on how to work around that?

 

(Moved this topic from https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/text-anchors-in-indesign-book-file-going-to-wrong-pages/m-p/15122228#M608511)

返信数 8

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dgbeig
Participant
January 31, 2025

Hello all, I'm the original OP - and thank you Peter for moving my request and all of you for your responses. That was funny to read your disbelief that Peter would have a question so I know I came to the right place of experts.

Since I had already built the TOC and it was 8 pages long and needed a lot of handwork to clean up (my client didn't want all headers and subheads represented in the TOC) I was looking for a work aorund so I didn't have to output again.  There were only 8-10 lines I needed to add among the hundreds.

 

I couldn't get the hyperlinks to work with pages but I just created text anchors for all of the areas that were not respresented with my TOC style collection and then made destination hyperlinks. That worked and saved me the headache of reoutputting the TOC. 

Now I know where to come for other indesign quesitons. Thanks all!

Dana

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
January 31, 2025

It is not easy when a TOC needs to be different (usually more streamlined) than the book content, but the goal is always to make the process completely automatic, so that a simple update is either a finished TOC, or only a minor fix or two is needed. (I have one book with a badly breaking section title, and while I could jump through hoops to make it work, the simplest solution is just to fix that one thing each time I do an update.)

 

But having to extensively edit a TOC after update — really-really, that should be unnecessary and avoidable.

 

One simple technique to make a TOC more selective is to have multiple Paragraph Styles for the headings — a cascade of child styles so that they remain in step, with ONLY the style name changed. That way everything works normally except that, for example, the TOC update gathers up only SECTION HEAD entries and ignores SECTION HEAD NoTOC ones. Does that make sense?

 

And the way to get TOC entries for things that don't have a simple in-text element — well, one solution is to rewrite the material so that there is a heading or topic sentence or label to tag for the TOC, and in most cases that results in a more standard flow and organization of content (instead of being an author quirk). But if you need to TOC, say, a table that does not have associated text or a heading, the technique (mentioned above, I think) is to put hidden text on that page to which a TOC link can be made.

 

But that's what we're here for, now that you've found the forum. More details about your project would help.

    D
    dgbeig
    Participant
    January 31, 2025

    Part of the issue is that I had some sloppy paragraph styling to begin with and so I had to overcompensate for that when I was making the book TOC. It was because I kept building new sections off previous sections and the color changed for each section, so I had multiples of things. Everytime I tried to clean something up it created more work.  The deadline was insane and in the midst of lots of other projects or deadlines, so I have to live with a "could be better" TOC.  It's a good learning lesson for me on more properly defining and naming  my paragraph styles. Thanks again!

    Peter Kahrel
    Community Expert
    Peter KahrelCommunity Expert作成者
    Community Expert
    January 31, 2025

    Apologies for the confusion, that was me trying to be clever. I also got the link wrong, I changed that so the link in the question ow points to the original thread. The original OP was informed.

      Robert at ID-Tasker
      Robert at ID-Tasker
      Legend
      January 31, 2025

      Right now, OP won't even know that there are answers - won't get notifications. 

       

      E
      Community Expert
      Eugene TysonCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      January 31, 2025

      Hopefully the OP can be restored.

       

      If it was me  I'd add a custom paragraph style to the text that needs to be grabbed.

      If it's same as other style - then use the Based On (whatever style is required)

       

      Then include the custom new style in the TOC generation in the location it's required. 

       

      Seems like it would fix it .

      Barb Binder
      Community Expert
      Barb BinderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      January 30, 2025

      Am I the only one who wants to pretend that Peter is asking us an InDesign question? 😂

       

      ~Barb

      ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
        James Gifford—NitroPress
        James Gifford—NitroPress
        Legend
        January 30, 2025

        That gave me a brief pause, yup. (Looks like the OP's name etc. got overwritten in the transfer here; hopefully someone can restore it for continuity. But yeah, definitely a "...really?" moment!)

          James Gifford—NitroPress
          James Gifford—NitroPress
          Legend
          January 30, 2025

          (Looks as if the original post attribution might have been changed, here?)

           

          One short answer is that you can manually edit a generated TOC in any way you like — it will remain static until the TOC-Update command is given. So if a purely manual fix is needed, it should work, but it won't be persistent and it can be difficult to get a working/persistent link as part of the entry for PDF or e-book use.

           

          If a TOC entry is needed and there's no paragraph style/paragraph to hook it to for automated generation or update, the "extra text frame" method Dave C, mentions is the most common workaround. But the best solution is to try to re/design the page and content so that the TOC entry can just update and work as necessary.

          Dave Creamer of IDEAS
          Community Expert
          Dave Creamer of IDEASCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          January 30, 2025

          I would put a non-printing text frame with a custom style at the top/bottom of the pages you want to link to (I usually color the text something obvious like magenta). Then just that that special style to the TOC style.

           

          David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
          Peter Kahrel
          Community Expert
          Peter KahrelCommunity Expert作成者
          Community Expert
          January 30, 2025

          Not sure what's going wrong there, but anyway, if I understand you correctly you want something to appear in the TOC that doesn't occur in the text. For that you can use a standard TOC entry  so that it gets bookmarked properly as part of the TOC. With a hyperlink you won't be able to do that.

           

          Go to the page where the additional TOC text is. Add a text frame on the page on a non-printing layer, and apply a paragraph style that you use for the TOC. The text frame needs to be partially on the page.

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