Can you create a "smart" table of contents?

[olive_and_finch]

In indesign, is there a way to create a Table of Contents that links to certain spreads and changes whenever pages are added/removed? I was thinking of how cool it is that indesign can identify page numbers by inserting a special character to a master page and wondered if this exists. I get really tired of continually having to renumber the TOC page as pages are constantly being shifted around.

Thanks!

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

InDesign will happily generate a table of contents for you, complete with page numbers. After you edit the document and text shifts, you can just update the TOC and InDesign will update all of the TOC entries.

This is done using paragraph styles. See https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/creating-table-contents.html. If you have further questions on the process, feel free to come back and ask us.

~Barb

[Scott Falkner · Accepted solution]

You can use cross references. It’s more work, but the result is dynamic and automatically updates with the cross references you have created. Deleting or adding chapter titles won’t update automatically. It’s only useful if you have a few chapters and the pagination is constantly changing and you need to keep the page numbers updated because you are prodcucing multiple proofs a day.

TLDR; Possible, but not worth it.

[Jongware]

I second your use of Cross References but disagree with your "possible, but not worth it"!

It is definitely worth the initial effort, if the expected changes in the text are limited to layout only -- say, shifting tables around, resizing figures, and inserting or deleting the odd paragraph which may change the pagination. This is much more common than that entire chapters are included or deleted (and the actual number of chapters is not relevant).

Note the "may change"! This means that you do not have to regenerate the entire TOC (and, too often, manually format) every time you are not sure if the pagination did change -- you don't need to remember, and you cannot "forget to" update the TOC.

[Sheena Kaul]

Hi there,

I hope your issue is resolved already but in case you need more assistance please reply to this thread. 

Else, if any of the solutions above helped, please confirm. 

Regards,

Sheena