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Using TOC Depth for Heading Levels

When creating print output, you You can determine which topic headings will be displayed at which level in the generated TOC. For example, even though all of your topics may use a heading style of <h1>, you might want some of those topic headings to display at the first level in the print TOC (acting as an <h1>), others at the second level (acting as an <h2>), and still others at the third level (acting as an <h3>).

You can base the heading levels on the structure you create in the outline TOC. If a TOC entry is at the extreme left of the TOC Editor, it will display at the first level of the print TOC; if an entry is indented to the right one level, it will display at the second level; and so on. Not only will those headings be reflected in the generated TOC in the output, but the corresponding headings will be converted in the main body too (e.g., if a heading becomes an <h2> in the TOC, it will become an <h2> in the text as well).

Example

example

Let's say the first paragraph in each topic that you create uses the <h1> style (except your title page and print TOC topic), and you structure the outline TOC like this:

If you do not use the depth feature, the print TOC will look like this in the output:

But if you turn this feature on, the result will instead look like this in the output:

Notice that "NewTopic3" is indented to the third level in the print TOC (because that is its position in the outline TOC). The other topics are at the second level. The books ("Chapter 1" and "Chapter 2") are at the first level, but they are not linked to topics; therefore, they are not included in the output. If you want the unlinked books to be included in the output, you can create headings.

How to use TOC depth for heading levels

1. Open the appropriate target.
2. In the Target Editor, select the Advanced tab.
3. In the Generated TOC section, select Use TOC depth for heading levels.
4. Press CTRL+S or click to save your work.

Note: If you create books in the outline TOC (whether they are linked to topics or not), they will affect the heading level in the print TOC. If you want unlinked books to be converted to headings in the output (both in the print TOC and in the main body), you can do so. See Creating Headings for Unlinked Books in a Generated TOC.

Note: What happens if you are using classes of heading styles and then select the "Use TOC depth for heading levels option"? For example, let's say you have classes of your <h1> and <h2> heading styles. Suppose you created h1.Special (with a blue font), and h2.Special (with a red font). Meanwhile the primary <h1> and <h2> styles both use a black font. In your topics, you've applied your heading style classes to some heading content. And in your outline TOC, you organized the structure like this:

Because you selected the option to use TOC depth for heading levels, some of the level 1 headings will become level 2 headings or even level 3 headings in the output. If you have headings where you used h1.Special but their level in the output was not affected (i.e., they remain as level 1 headings), they will keep the properties from the style class. In other words, they will stay blue. But if the structure of the outline TOC causes them to become level 2 headings in the output, they will take on the properties of the h2.Special tag—because the class has the same name ("Special") as its <h1> counterpart. Therefore, those headings will have a red font. However, let's say that your level 2 class was named something different (e.g., h2.Red). In that case, h1.Special headings that are pushed to become level 2 headings will instead use properties from the main <h2> tag. In other words, they will have a black font—not blue like h1.Special and not red like h2.Red.

Note: As an alternative to basing headings on the "outline TOC" structure, you can use styles. See Using Styles for Print TOC Heading Levels.

See Also

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