MacFormat UK – September 2019

In a Page

Layout doc,

the TOC exists

as a feature

that readers

can access

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APPLE SKILLS iOS software

54 | MACFORMAT | SEPTEMBER 2019

Table of contents in Pages

Automatically add an on-screen or on-page listing to your documents

IT WILL TAKE

20 minutes

YOU WILL LEARN

How to generate

and insert a table of

contents in a Pages

document

YOU’LL NEED

iOS 12, Pages

A table of contents (TOC)

itemises the parts of a

document so the reader can

jump to the page they want.

It could just be a list of chapters, or might

include several levels, from sections to

individual subheadings.

Pages for Mac can generate a TOC

automatically, and the iWork update in March

brought this to the iPad. The TOC is based on

paragraph styles: apply the same style to each

chapter title, heading and so on, and they’re

collated. You can then choose which to

include; the list is limited, so delete unused

styles to avoid confusion. If you want some

headings to have a different appearance but

take the same role in the TOC, vary their

character (not paragraph) styles.

À la mode

As usual, matters are complicated by Pages’

two modes. In a Word Processing document,

having set up your TOC you can insert it into

your text to appear on a page. You can then

adjust this instance of the TOC, choosing

whether it lists everything in the document

or only up to the next section break or the

next TOC you insert. When you edit the

document, the TOC will update.

In a Page Layout document, the TOC

exists as a feature that readers can access on

screen; it’s included when you export a PDF.

You can’t insert the TOC into a page for

printing, although there is a workaround...

When your Page Layout document is

finished, long-tap its thumbnail in Pages’

Browse screen and choose Duplicate. Open

the copy and convert it to Word Processing

mode (see Genius Tip, top right) then create

and insert one or more TOCs. Double-tap

below the TOC on the page to select it and

choose Copy from the contextual menu. Open

your original Page Layout doc and paste the

TOC into a text box. It appears as plain text

formatted with tabs, which you can format.

The ‘master’ TOC will continue to update as

you make changes, but those changes won’t

propagate to the ‘print’ TOC. Adam Banks