Construction of a TOC

[Airlens]

I have an indesign book.  I have constructed a TOC using the ChaptNum, ChaptTitle, ChaptSubTitle and A-Head  styles. The TOC generates nicely.

In the front matter I have a doc following the TOC named List of Illustrations with A-heads for each of the major categories, Photos, Charts, Maps etc.  I have illustrations throughout the book identified by their unique paragraph style like PhotoStyle, ChartStyle etc. etc.   The goal is when I generate the TOC, that it puts a list of each Illustration under the correct subheading IN the TOC.  (Not in the LOI doc).  This works to some degree if you are generating a TOC for a specific chapter, beyond that ... not so much.  How should I approach this.   New to Indesign, 

[David Popham]

Not 100 percent clear what you are trying to do. You should be able to include the paragraph style used for the illustration caption in your main TOC style in order to add that content in the order that each illustration appears in the publication.

It sounds as though you should be able to use two different TOC styles—one for the main TOC and another to create the List of Illustrations—and add the illustration caption paragraph style to both.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

As David said--it should be a matter of adding the appropriate styles in the TOC Style. Make sure all the illustration styles are set to the same level and formatted to the same style in the TOC.

[Airlens]

Thanks for your responses.  The problem was in the concept not the software.  I initially thought I would build a complete list of illustrations in the TOC and it would come out under the correct subheading photo, charts etc.  as they appeared in the Book....That may be possible, I don’t know, but the real question is why would I need a complete list of illustrations in the TOC when the next doc in the book is List of Illustrations which includes a complete list of illustrations arranged by type,  photo, chars etc.  I understand how to build the LOI doc using cross references, probably a little more labor intensive, but avoids the duplication inherent in the original plan.  I am not sure i understand levels in the TOC setup but I will figure that out. Thanks again.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS · Accepted solution]

Sorry--I should have mentioned that Levels affects PDF Bookmarks. It won't affect a print PDF.

I'm a little confused (on first cup of coffee this morning)...

You can either:

• Create one combined TOC/LOF (List of Figures) in one TOC Style simply by including the appropriate styles and applying the desired formatting.
• Create a TOC that is separate that does not include the LOF styles; create another separate TOC style that includes only the LOF styles. (InDesign still calls it a TOC Style, not a list, even if the list is used for figures or tables.) 
• The same technique would be used for a LOT--List of Tables.

The Cross References panel shouldn't come into play for any of these lists.

[Airlens]

Bullet #2 is where I am trying to get to.  I will work with it a while and let you know how it goes.  I’m not disappointed to see that Cross References have no part to play here.  Thanks Again

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Note that you can make as many "TOC" lists as you want. Simply create two (or more) TOC styles. The InDesign team just chose to call the lists "TOC" styles since it's main competitor at the time used the term Lists.

The actual Table of Contents style would look for styles like Chapter Title, Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.

The LOF style would look for just the Figure Captions style (or more if you used different paragraph styles for the photos, charts, maps, etc.).

A LOT would look for just the Table Title style.

ALL of these lists would be hyperlinked, do you don't need to worry about using x-refs panel, which would take a lot more time.