Auto updating Table of Contents

[Cory Benson]

In Indesign, I'm creating a furniture catalog that has a table of contents with every page listed. Every year, this catalog gets updated and some of the pages shuffle.  Is there a way to drop in a special character for page number on the table of contents that is linked to its own page? You can add a page number, but from what I can see, it has to be the current page, the next page, the previous page or a section marker. If I could link the marker to a specific page, I wouldn't have to update the page multiple times before sending to print.

[Barb Binder]

Hi Cory:

I'm not clear on the question. Are you asking how to link the page numbers in the body of the catalog to the page numbers in the TOC, so that after you update the content you can update the TOC and all of the page numbers update?

~Barb

[Cory Benson]

Exactly. I want the ToC to auto update if i add pages or take away pages.

[hammer0909]

Well you can’t have the TOC “auto” update, but all you have to do is choose Layout > Update Table of contents and all of the page numbers should update with the new page number.

[Cory Benson]

Hmmmm....  how do you set that up? Is there a specific table of contents feature I don’t know about?

[hammer0909 · Accepted solution]

Yes there is. Choose Layout > Table of Contents to open the Table of Contents dialog box. You MUST use styles to format text throughout your document in order for this to work. Choose the style that you’ve used on each page (usually a header style) and then define how you’d like to format the entries that appear in the Table of Contents (again using a style).

[Cory Benson]

Wow! Thanks for the info! I’ve been doing it manua for about 20 years.

[Barb Binder]

That's what I was afraid you were saying!

~Barb