8 Replies Latest reply: Sep 13, 2010 1:48 PM by Jan Macuch RSS

    Cross referenced TOC

    E Diane King Community Member

      So with CS4 on, we have the built-in cross references and ID has always had the built-in TOC generator. I think it would be marvelous to have an option on the TOC generator to apply cross referencing to the TOC page numbers, so that you never have to rerun the TOC to update it. I don't know how many times that I've revised a book for reprint and forgot to update the TOC.  It gets me in trouble a lot!  This would be a marvelous feature that makes use of the features already there--I can't see that it would be that hard to add.

        • 1. Re: Cross referenced TOC
          peter at knowhowpro Community Member

          E Diane King wrote:

           

          So with CS4 on, we have the built-in cross references and ID has always had the built-in TOC generator. I think it would be marvelous to have an option on the TOC generator to apply cross referencing to the TOC page numbers, so that you never have to rerun the TOC to update it. I don't know how many times that I've revised a book for reprint and forgot to update the TOC.  It gets me in trouble a lot!  This would be a marvelous feature that makes use of the features already there--I can't see that it would be that hard to add.

          Users who've hand-tweaked a TOC may not want it to update automatically. Perhaps a preflight option that warned if a TOC or index or other similar item was marked to automatically update or to ignore updates and synchronization would be useful.    

           

           

          HTH

           

          Regards,

           

          Peter

          _______________________

          Peter Gold

          KnowHow ProServices

          • 2. Re: Cross referenced TOC
            E Diane King Community Member

            Actually, that's why I've requested this feature.  Often, I can't get the TOC to generate the TOC the way I want it to look, so I have to modify it a lot after generating. If the page numbers were then cross referenced to the object that was being referenced in the TOC, then I would never have to manually modify the TOC again (even when it needed to be updated because of reflowing of text).  The page numbers would just be updated. That's exactly why I think the cross referenced page numbers option would be extremely useful.  I would no longer have to manually change the page numbers in a modified TOC—which I end up doing a lot.

             

            I did have a book once in CS3 that had several TOCs (one for each unit) and I used the old cross referencing plugin to create those TOCs and then just updated the cross references before closing the document each time I made changes and the TOCs always stayed up to date.  It was wonderful but a bit time consuming to set up. Cross references aren't exactly easy to set up, and if the TOC did it when it generated the TOC, then the update would be so much easier because the pages would be cross referenced to actual paragraphs in the book, rather than general styles.

             

            Get what I'm saying?

            • 3. Re: Cross referenced TOC
              [Jongware] Community Member

              FWIW, I usually cannot have the Auto-ToC create the contents I'd like to see.

              So I create one using the TOC function, edit it to my taste, then replace its fixed page numbers with Cross References to the real pages. Doing that takes a bit of time (I added shortcut keys to both "Add Cross-Ref Anchor" and "Insert Cross-Ref Link") but since you never have to re-generate or check the TOC ever again, it's a short time well spent.

               

              I wonder if this could be a Feature Request: Have the TOC function insert those cross-refs anchors automatically in the styles that go into the TOC.

              • 4. Re: Cross referenced TOC
                E Diane King Community Member

                YES . . . that's exactly what I mean!  I'm glad someone is seconding me.

                • 5. Re: Cross referenced TOC
                  [Ariel] Community Member

                  I understand what you mean. I could definitely do with that.

                   

                  As it is, I actually only use the TOC function once, to gather up the names of chapter titles etc. Then I manually format it, and replace the page numbers with 000 (so that everyone can spot it, even the most untrained proofreader ever).

                   

                  Then, once it's clear that there will be no more changes (huh!), I simply type the page numbers in manually.

                   

                  So yes, if the page numbers could automatically be converted to cross-references by the InDedsign TOC feature, that would certainly be useful.

                   

                  Ariel

                  • 6. Re: Cross referenced TOC
                    Jan Macuch MeganK

                    Hi,

                     

                    There's a script which creates TOC shipped with Cross References PRO by DTP Tools (that is a commercial plug-in though) www.dtptools.com/cross-references.

                     

                    Best regards,

                    Jan Macuch

                    • 7. Re: Cross referenced TOC
                      Fred Goldman Community Member

                      Jan,

                       

                      Do cross references done with the dtp-tools plugin export to epub as hyperlinks?

                      • 8. Re: Cross referenced TOC
                        Jan Macuch MeganK

                        Hi Fred,

                         

                        Yes they do (there is an option to create a cross-ref with or without a hyperlink to be exact).

                         

                        Thanks,

                         

                        Jan