microsoft word table of contents periods

#Microsoft word table of contents periods pdf
#Microsoft word table of contents periods free

You can choose to keep the autogenerated numbers in your own project if you’d like, but it’s common for books to have unnumbered forewords and afterwords included in the list of chapters, which makes the autogenerated numbers incorrect.įor my purpose, I would fill in the chapter numbers manually then adjust the layout so the top-level list doesn’t have any padding (thus aligning it with paragraphs) and each embedded list is indented by two spaces. Once I had established the markup I planned to use, the next step was to apply some styles.įirst, I removed the autogenerated numbers. Applying styles to the table of contents

Here’s a simple HTML skeleton that formed the basis of my markup: That way, the relationship of the number relative to the text is clear, even without any other visual distinction. The easiest way to solve this is to simply insert the word “page” before the page number. Unfortunately, using an ordered list means losing the semantic relationship between the title and the page number, so my next step was to re-establish that relationship within each list item. The order matters and shouldn’t get lost in the markup. A table of contents represents a list of chapters and subheadings in the order in which they appear in the content. I think an ordered list is more appropriate in this case. I decided to build off of Julie’s approach and use a list however, I opted for an ordered list ( ) instead of an unordered list ( ). Table elements aren’t great for hierarchical data, and while definition lists can technically be nested, the semantics didn’t seem correct. If I wanted to show subsections in the table of contents, though, I didn’t have any good options. So, once again, the relationship between the title and the page number would be obvious.Įither of these seemed like good options until I realized that they really only work for single-level tables of contents, namely, only if I wanted to have a table of contents with just chapter names.

Then there’s the often unused and forgotten definition list ( ) element.

One option is to use a table ( ) with one column for the title and one column for the page.

Fundamentally, a table of contents is about a title (chapter or subsection) being tied to a page number, almost like a key-value pair. When deciding on the correct markup for a table of contents, I thought primarily about the correct semantics. I used pieces from both blog posts as well as adding some new HTML and CSS concepts into the approach to come up with a result I’m happy with. Once again, though, his approach wasn’t quite right for my purposes.Īfter reading these two posts, though, I felt I had a good enough understanding of the layout issues to embark on my own. Next, I found Christoph Grabo’s “Responsive TOC leader lines with CSS” post, which introduced the concept of using CSS Grid (as opposed to Julie’s float-based approach) to make alignment easier. I started with Julie’s example, but found that it didn’t quite work for me. Julie worked on PagedJS, a polyfill for missing paged media features in web browsers that properly formats documents for print. The first was “Build a Table of Contents from your HTML” by Julie Blanc.

I came across two excellent blog posts on creating a table of contents with HTML and CSS. I also wanted dot leaders between the title and page number. I also wanted each line to be a link so it could be used in webpages and PDFs to navigate around the document. I wanted something automated that would work with HTML to generate the table of contents in a format that was suitable for print. those dots, dashes, or lines) that visually connect the title to the page numberĪ table of contents is easy to generate inside of word processing tools like Microsoft Word or Google Docs, but because my content was in Markdown and then transformed into HTML, that wasn’t a good option for me. Typically, the lines contain three parts: Each line represents a part of a book or webpage and indicates where you can find that content.

The makeup of a table of contentsĪt its core, a table of contents is fairly simple. What I didn’t realize was that I didn’t have an answer to an important part of a print book: the table of contents.

#Microsoft word table of contents periods pdf

I thought it would be an easy exercise using HTML and CSS to generate a PDF and then send it off to the printer. Even though I didn’t have any intention of turning it into a print book, enough people reached out inquiring about a print version that I decided to self-publish that as well.

#Microsoft word table of contents periods free

Earlier this year, I self-published an ebook called Understanding JavaScript Promises ( free for download).