Auto-Generating a Table of Contents

In many cases, Flare provides you with an initial TOC , which you further "build" (or create) using the TOC Editor. You can easily create a TOC manually, adding books, as well as links to topics, other TOCs, and external files, in any kind of structure you want. Another option is to auto-generate a TOC. You can do this by generating parts of a TOC based on the heading levels in your topics (<h1> through <h6>). When you auto-generate a TOC, you will use some of the same steps that you used when creating a TOC manually; you still add topic entries to a TOC manually. The difference is that auto-generating lets you create sub-entries in a TOC for the sub-headings in your topics.

Which method should you choose (a manual TOC or an auto-generated TOC)? There are advantages to both methods. Plus, you can use both methods if you want. You can start by auto-generating a TOC and then change it or supplement it manually.

How to auto-generate a table of contents

Make sure your topics include headings with the <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, or <h6> styles.

Create at least part of a TOC manually.

Double-click a TOC entry for which you want to auto-create sub-entries.

The Properties dialog opens.

Select the Auto-generate tab.

Select the check box Compute sub-entries from linked file.

In the Action field, select either Insert Computed Entries or Replace with Computed Entries. "Insert Computed Entries" will add the TOC sub-entries below the one you selected. "Replace with Computed Entries" will remove the TOC entry that you selected, replacing it with the sub-entries based on the <h1> through <h6> styles in the topic.

In the Depth field, click the down arrow and select a number from the list to specify how many levels of headings you want to include in the auto-generation.

example

If you select 3, Flare will create TOC sub-entries for all <h1>, <h2>, and <h3> headings in the topic.

Click OK.

Press CTRL+S or click

to save your work.

Note: This feature is for online output types only (DotNet Help, HTML Help, WebHelp, WebHelp Plus, WebHelp AIR). It is not intended for print-based outputs (Adobe PDF, XHTML, Microsoft XPS, Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker).

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