Nobody anywhere, not even Adobe, have been able to clearly and properly explain how to build and format a table of contents in Indesign. UNTIL THIS VIDEO!! Thank you. Very clearly explained, and at last I have finally been able to create a table of contents in Indesign and formatted to look slick and professional.
This video is absolutely perfect. Super clear, no unnecessary fluff, straight to the point. And after four years still applies. Thank you, Michael Bullo!
I am going to cry!!! I have been searching for this information for a long time and finally found you! I didn't have to go to another site for part 2... Well done, Michael.
Best TOC damn tutorial I watched on this subject and believe me I have seen a few. One of my other jobs beside graphic design, is writing interactive pdf help manuals. Michael delivers this tutorial at the right pace, right tone of voice, and with great explanations of what goes on, the tab thingy in particular. Of course it doesn't hurt that he has Aussie accent either ...LOL👍
This is such a gem. Thank you so much for all the informative tips, especially how to control the dots. *Those who don't see the bookmarks in pdf, make sure to save as PDF (interactive) Not (Print).
I struggled for hours doing this until I landed on your video. Your instructions are crystal clear and was able to follow along to create my own styled toc. Thank you! new subscriber here!
Perfect tutorial! I've tried several others, but couldn't follow them. Your tutorial is very easy to follow and understand. You explain things very well. I was about to give up when I found yours. Thanks so much! Your an excellent teacher.
Really nice tutorial. Paragraph styles really are not that complicated. For the sake of this tutorial, just spening a minute on that would probably be sufficient to really make this instruction complete.
This is my life saving tut. I have seen many tut for this kind if issue even talk my older brother about it but there no clean idea about making such kind of help. I loved this so so so so much! You got my happy subscribe
Thank you! I needed to implement multiple paragraph styles in a ToC and this video showed me how. It also showed me an alternative to using the Tabs function in the Type menu, as well as how to add spaces in the dotted lines between the ToC entries and the page numbers.
@@MichaelBullo Improvements with InDesign projects continue! Three months after first watching, I just watched again to indent "level 2" ToC entries. Thanks again!
Hi Michael, Thanks for the tutorial. It's the clearest and most succinctly presented I have seen after trawling the internet for days! Brilliant. Cheers, James
I agree. This is the best multilevel TOC tutorial. Many other videos are misleading, as their titles are about layered TOC but they only end up showing how to generate simple TOC. Whereas this video in a very to the point manner explains and breaks the process to a logical, most simple to understand steps. Thanks, Michael Bullo.
@@MichaelBullo It's a 4 page TOc but it was the line of dots between the chapter title and the number that had me completely stumped. The rest was no biggie. I kept trying one thing, then another (wasted about 4 hours on it altogether)... and probably torqued the algorithm so badly I couldn't refresh or regenerate the TOC at all, and had to delete not just the text boxes for it, but the pages as well to regenerate it. And THEN I found your video. LOL. Anyhoo... thank you! :D
THANK YOU SO MUCH for this tutorial! Hands down the best one of found online. Thank you for including the levels & making this SO simple/easy to follow.
Struggled with overriding headers / subheaders with character styles. I think it needs to be noted that if there's already a character style applied to your text, your TOC will NOT override the character styles, despite customizing the paragraph style. Other than that, I found your video to be very details and helpful! Thank you!
Thanks for the feedback Vincent. You make a good point regarding Character Styles getting picked up by the TOC. For anyone reading this it's thankfully an easy fix. Make sure that the text frame holding the TOC is selected and then from within the Character Styles panel press the None option.
After a total of 24 hours, I finally found 1 person who showed how to make a table of content the proper and professional way...... It's incredible that indesign is so popular and yet there are these kind of missing things... Also I wonder where are the Book templates?? Normally in Photoshop there are 10.000s PSD files, but book templates for indesign, there are almost none..
Thanks Egzon. Hope it helps. You mentioned "book templates" for InDesign. There is a Book feature in InDesign which allows you to bring together and organise multiple InDesign files as if they were chapters in a book. Is this what you are referring to or are you thinking more along the lines of page templates which you would use to layout a book?
@@MichaelBullo I'm actually thinking more about a indesign file where everything is prepared....I think I only have found max 100 total over the whole internet..
@@MichaelBullo any chance of a follow up video explaining how to start the contents from a section. I have some pages at the beginning of an instruction manual that I have in a section that I don't wish to be part of the contents
@@sygad1 That's a good question and a great video idea. Unfortunately I'm busy with work at the moment. I recommend posting this question on the Adobe InDesign forum where some experts should be able to guide you through the process. Best of luck.
Hi Michael, this video is the best video on how to create a toc. I am very grateful. I learned so many things. After this video, I realized how wrong I have been working and why most things do not work as they should and despite everything there are still problems that I do not know. Please if you have time answer me the following question as I don't think anyone around has your wonderful practical experience. Here is my question. When I put the numbers on the right side and the dots as you explain, I exported the document to epub and found that the numbers were indeed on the right but the dots disappeared in the new format. Can you make a video about what we have in design format so that we can export it so that all the details appear in the new epub format? And thanks a lot again, for the best tutorial online on how to create a toc in Indesign
Great tutorial. I might add that if you want the bookmarks to show in the .pdf so the viewer does not have to look for them, you have the option to set that view as the default view in the .pdf. I did this recently when I combined 5 documents in a .pdf and booked mark each document so it could be located easily and set the initial view to show the bookmarks so it was obvious where to go.
That's a fantastic comment Genevieve. Thanks for sharing. For anyone else reading this you might find this other video useful... How to Display PDF Bookmarks in Adobe Acrobat (Turn on by Default for File) ua-cam.com/video/FKtvmgq88O8/v-deo.html
T H A N K Y O U, M I C H A E L ! - Finally I found a video that explains it all and I can now think about making a TOC without getting stress, haha! You're awesome! :D
Great introduction - thanks! Three things that you didn't mention that are really irritating to work out (or were for me). I'd really appreciate knowing if I have taken the right approach to point 1: 1. If you have numbers stacked on the right (e.g. after a ^y) then it can look a bit odd with a proportional font (21 between 20 and 22 looks indented). I created a character style and set the open type features, figure style to "Tabular Lining". The numbers are now fixed width. 2. Turn on Remove Forced Line Break by default - it's got to be pretty rare that you actually want that unchecked. 3. Once you've saved a TOC to a style then you need to edit the style, not the TOC in order to get a change to persist - I kept trying to save the Style again and changes did not persist until I went into the "Table of Contents Styles" menu item. Seems simple but I was slowly going nuts on this one (particularly as I was trying to get my point 2. to persist)! Thanks, Mike
Nobody anywhere, not even Adobe, have been able to clearly and properly explain how to build and format a table of contents in Indesign. UNTIL THIS VIDEO!! Thank you. Very clearly explained, and at last I have finally been able to create a table of contents in Indesign and formatted to look slick and professional.
Thank you Greg. That's very kind of you to say. Great to hear you've created an awesome design. Cheers.
This video is absolutely perfect. Super clear, no unnecessary fluff, straight to the point. And after four years still applies. Thank you, Michael Bullo!
Thank you Joann. That's very nice of you to say. Best of luck with all those InDesign docs.
I am going to cry!!! I have been searching for this information for a long time and finally found you! I didn't have to go to another site for part 2... Well done, Michael.
Thank you. That's very kind of you to say. I'm genuinely happy to have helped you out.
Wonderful teaching! Just lovely. Clearly spoken, clearly demonstrated, clearly explained, clearly presented. Five Stars!!!
Now that's a comment. Thank you very much and have a great day.
I've watched this more times than I care to say. I use InDesign sporatically and have retrain myself. This video is one of my goto's
Thank you Lillian. Good to hear this has helped you out a few times. Have a great day :)
One of the most informative tutorials I've seen so far on InDesign. Keep up the levels!
That's very kind of you to say. Thank you.
This video is pure perfection. Thank you so so much, Michael. I was having a lot of trouble doing the TOC and now I think I can do it.
Hey that's great to hear mate. Thank you. If you get stuck with anything let me know.
I've been reading and researching every place I know to learn how to generate an ID TOC. You are the BEST. Thank you, thank you!
Thank you Lisa. Happy to hear this helped. There certainly are a lot of elements to know when building a TOC. Cheers.
This is EXACTLY what I needed! Logically put together, you can tell Michael thought through this tutorial step-by-step. I'm subscribing now.
That's great to hear this helped. Thank you for appreciating the work put into this video and welcome to the channel.
I've watched many InDesign tutorials, and this one is EXACTLY what I needed. Thanks Michael, keep doing what you do! 🙏
Thank you very much for the support. I really appreciate it. Best of luck with your InDesign projects.
Thank you so much that's the best explanatory video ever
Wow. That's very kind of you to say. Thank you and best of luck with your long documents.
By far the best step by step video on creating a TOC in inDesign.
Now that's a compliment. Thank you and best of luck with your InDesign documents.
You are the only person who has been able to explain TOC's to me! THANK YOU!
Thanks mate. Best of luck with all those long documents.
Mr. Bullo - you Sir are an excellent instructor. Thank you so much. Clear, concise, yet thorough. Very helpful.
Thank you Bruce. I appreciate your detailed comment and I'm happy to hear it helped. Best of luck with all your designs.
Yours is the BEST video out of 10 I've seen already, I love that you made it logical and perfectly detail for newbies like me.
I genuinely appreciate that feedback. Thank you and best of luck with those long documents.
By far the best and most up-to-date tutorial for the table of contents feature. Thank you Sir!
Much appreciated. Cheers.
Best TOC damn tutorial I watched on this subject and believe me I have seen a few. One of my other jobs beside graphic design, is writing interactive pdf help manuals. Michael delivers this tutorial at the right pace, right tone of voice, and with great explanations of what goes on, the tab thingy in particular. Of course it doesn't hurt that he has Aussie accent either ...LOL👍
Thanks mate. I really appreciate you taking the time to write this endorsement. Good to hear the "tab thingy" now makes sense ;)
This video should be called EVERYTHING you need yo know about TOC! thorough and detailed! Great for my first TOC of ID. Many thanks!
Thank you so much. Best of luck with your designs.
This is one of the most comprehensive and easy demonstrations. will save it for an eternity!! Thank you Michael its brilliant
Thank you so much. Very kind of you to say. Hope it proves useful.
This is the best description of how to create a TOC in InDesign... Awesome work mate. Thanks. Very clearly taught.
Thanks mate. Hope it proves useful. Cheers.
Best tutorial on working on TOC with indesign
Thank you Peter
This is such a gem. Thank you so much for all the informative tips, especially how to control the dots.
*Those who don't see the bookmarks in pdf, make sure to save as PDF (interactive) Not (Print).
Thanks mate. I appreciate the feedback. Good call on how best to export out a PDF. Cheers.
I struggled for hours doing this until I landed on your video. Your instructions are crystal clear and was able to follow along to create my own styled toc. Thank you! new subscriber here!
Thank you Gisele. Very kind of you to say. Best of luck with all those beautifully structured future long documents ;)
There are few tutorials available on TOC, but this is one of the clearest and simple. Thank you! you got one more subscriber :)
Thank you Alex. I appreciate the feedback and the sub. Cheers.
probably the best tutorial i've come across for InDesign TOC - well done!!! Thank you so much
Thank you. That's very kind of you to say.
I have been here for reference twice now because of how it is easily and well done
Thanks for coming back and best of luck with all your InDesign documents.
Perfect tutorial! I've tried several others, but couldn't follow them. Your tutorial is very easy to follow and understand. You explain things very well. I was about to give up when I found yours. Thanks so much! Your an excellent teacher.
Hi Jeanette. Thank you for those very kind words. Much appreciated.
Really nice tutorial. Paragraph styles really are not that complicated. For the sake of this tutorial, just spening a minute on that would probably be sufficient to really make this instruction complete.
Thank you for the kind words and for the feedback. Best of luck with all those InDesign documents.
@@MichaelBullo Thanks!🙂
@@negativghostrdr No worries
I loved the way you simplified the explanation of creating a table of contents ... thanks a zillion for this beneficial tutorial!
Thank you for the comment. That's very kind of you.
This is my life saving tut. I have seen many tut for this kind if issue even talk my older brother about it but there no clean idea about making such kind of help. I loved this so so so so much! You got my happy subscribe
Thank you so much. That's very kind of you to say. Welcome to the channel.
brilliantly straightforward. explanation without extra fluff..... now to see if it works the same in CS6
Thank you. I don't think you'll have any problems but let me know if you do.
@@MichaelBullo thank you.
@@cyberlizardcouk Cheers
Thank you! I needed to implement multiple paragraph styles in a ToC and this video showed me how. It also showed me an alternative to using the Tabs function in the Type menu, as well as how to add spaces in the dotted lines between the ToC entries and the page numbers.
Thank you Aaron. I hope your InDesign projects are going well.
@@MichaelBullo Improvements with InDesign projects continue!
Three months after first watching, I just watched again to indent "level 2" ToC entries.
Thanks again!
@@Aaron_Lesse Welcome back. Happy to have helped you out again.
THANK YOU! I've been trying to figure out how to do this for ages. This is the best explanation I've found!
Thank you Nikki. I appreciate that.
Super! Really clear and easy to understand. Well done 👏🏻
Thank you for the feedback and I'm happy to hear this helped you out.
Thanks Michael, if I watch it 3 times, I might even remember it!
Thanks mate. Might I recommend you watch it 4 times ;)
Love this tutorial, today I have test on Indesign and you're a life saver!
Thank you and best of luck with the test.
A perfect way to explain TOC settings.
Thank you. Best of luck with all those long documents :)
Thank you so much! I tried and had several errors, with this great tutorial, I could easily find a solution. Kudos. 😀
Thank you very much. That's great to hear this helped you out.
Hi Michael,
Thanks for the tutorial. It's the clearest and most succinctly presented I have seen after trawling the internet for days! Brilliant.
Cheers,
James
Hi James,
Thank you for the great feedback. It's most appreciated. Happy designing.
Cheers,
Michael
I agree. This is the best multilevel TOC tutorial. Many other videos are misleading, as their titles are about layered TOC but they only end up showing how to generate simple TOC. Whereas this video in a very to the point manner explains and breaks the process to a logical, most simple to understand steps. Thanks, Michael Bullo.
Thank you. Great to hear you found the tutorial helpful.
ME2!!! It's incredible that nobody is telling you how to make these adjustments.. except this guy here
Couldn't for the life of me remember how to do this, helped so much thank you! Loved the way you explained it, clear and concise!
Thank you. I'm happy to hear this helped you out.
I've been having a hard time to figure this out, but you saved my day! Thank you so much, great tutorial!
Thanks Marco.
Very helpful - I could pause underway and jump to my own and try it out.
Thanks mate. A link to the demo files can be found in the description if it helps.
This is fantastic! I will share it with my classmates on school!
Thank you. I hope it helps.
Excellent video that goes in depth about all the right things in a friendly, concise manner. Thank you!
Thank you very much Natalia
the most detailed TOC tutorial, thanks, Michael.
Thanks for that. Hope it helps.
This was my 4th ToC video and I wish I had found it first! Thank you this was so perfect!
Thank you Priscilla. That's very kind of you to say. Happy InDesigning :)
Thank you very much for this useful tutorial! Very clear and easy to follow.🙏
Thank you for the feedback and best of luck with all those documents in InDesign.
Michael, thank you so much for this entire series. What a contribution to us! Would love to join as a follower. Lou, Munds Park, AZ
Thank you Lou. That's very kind of you to say. I don't offer any kind of membership at the moment. Have a great day mate.
Outstanding. Clear & concise!
Thank you Mark. I wish you well with your long documents.
Idk what i would've without you
Thank you. That's very nice of you to say.
You are AWESOME! thanks for the thorough walk-through, all worked
Fantastic and thank you. Congrats on the new TOC.
That’s exactly what I want to know.
Thank you very much.
Thanks Hosun. Much appreciated.
Very helpful as I'm formatting a TOC for my thesis!
Thank you. Best of luck with the thesis.
You described this clearer than Terry White, the official Adobe Products Evangelist. Cheers mate.
Now that's high praise :) Thanks mate.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
This made it all so clear. I've been messing around on my own and couldn't quite get it right!
Thank you for saying that. Creating a TOC can be pretty involved. Best of luck with all those long docs.
@@MichaelBullo It's a 4 page TOc but it was the line of dots between the chapter title and the number that had me completely stumped. The rest was no biggie. I kept trying one thing, then another (wasted about 4 hours on it altogether)... and probably torqued the algorithm so badly I couldn't refresh or regenerate the TOC at all, and had to delete not just the text boxes for it, but the pages as well to regenerate it.
And THEN I found your video.
LOL.
Anyhoo... thank you! :D
@@StephanieLarsen123 Thank you very much. Great to hear you got there in the end. 4 page TOC you say? Damn!!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH for this tutorial! Hands down the best one of found online. Thank you for including the levels & making this SO simple/easy to follow.
Thank you. Good to hear the different levels were helpful. Best of luck with all your designs.
Struggled with overriding headers / subheaders with character styles. I think it needs to be noted that if there's already a character style applied to your text, your TOC will NOT override the character styles, despite customizing the paragraph style. Other than that, I found your video to be very details and helpful! Thank you!
Thanks for the feedback Vincent. You make a good point regarding Character Styles getting picked up by the TOC. For anyone reading this it's thankfully an easy fix. Make sure that the text frame holding the TOC is selected and then from within the Character Styles panel press the None option.
@@MichaelBullo Thank you!! I was struggling with the for WAY too long and was about to give up. Luckily went to read the comments
This is an outstanding tutorial...Thank you so much for all the help!
That's very kind of you to say Valerie. Thank you and best of luck with all those InDesign docs.
Thank you, actually I was troubled by the right alignment of the page numbers in the TOC. Thank you for the video.🙏🙏🙏
Thank you. Good to hear this helped you out.
Very helpful and nicely put together. Rear a few articles and it was going straight over me, everything perfect after watching this.
Hey thank you. Great to hear this helped you out. Happy designing :)
Excellent presentation. Your approach make it very logical and understandable.
I appreciate the feedback and kind words Lillian. Thank you.
After a total of 24 hours, I finally found 1 person who showed how to make a table of content the proper and professional way...... It's incredible that indesign is so popular and yet there are these kind of missing things... Also I wonder where are the Book templates?? Normally in Photoshop there are 10.000s PSD files, but book templates for indesign, there are almost none..
Thanks Egzon. Hope it helps.
You mentioned "book templates" for InDesign. There is a Book feature in InDesign which allows you to bring together and organise multiple InDesign files as if they were chapters in a book. Is this what you are referring to or are you thinking more along the lines of page templates which you would use to layout a book?
@@MichaelBullo I'm actually thinking more about a indesign file where everything is prepared....I think I only have found max 100 total over the whole internet..
@@EgzonNikqiFB I hear ya. There's definitely far more Photoshop templates out there than for InDesign.
Aaa
No worries, I created brand new styles from scratch and it worked..
Absolutely a GREAT tutorial. Thanks much for this.
Thanks mate. Hope it helps you with those long documents.
exceptionally clear and informative, thank you, helped enormously
Thanks mate. I appreciate that and I'm happy to hear this helped.
@@MichaelBullo any chance of a follow up video explaining how to start the contents from a section. I have some pages at the beginning of an instruction manual that I have in a section that I don't wish to be part of the contents
@@sygad1 That's a good question and a great video idea. Unfortunately I'm busy with work at the moment. I recommend posting this question on the Adobe InDesign forum where some experts should be able to guide you through the process. Best of luck.
Finally a practical guide !! Great tutorial Thank you 😊
Thank you. I appreciate that and I hope it helps.
An excellent, clear tutorial!
Thank you mate. Happy to have helped.
Really good tutorial. Clear and well explained... you are a natural teacher. Great stuff :-)
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
this is wonderful Micheal... a big brave heart! so many kind regards
Thank you Mohsin. That's very kind of you to say.
Wow.....Thanks for the video Michael..... love it
Thank you Sunil. Have fun creating all those TOCs :)
Saved me tones of time. Thank you very much!!
Hey that's great to hear. Thanks for letting me know.
Really helpful. thank you, dear Mr.Michael
Thank you Adham. Happy to hear this helped you out.
absolutly fantastic... very well explained
Thank you very much. Best of luck with all your documents.
thank you very much the best lesson I've ever seen
Thank you Mohamad. Very nice of you to say.
Just found this and it's still so useful!
Thank you Nicola. Best of luck with those InDesign docs.
You legend... Easy to follow and clear
Thanks mate. Appreciate it.
Worked like a charm! Thank you so much!!
Great to hear. Thank you.
Excellent. Exactly what I needed and more. Thank you so much!
Thank you Maria. Best of luck with all your InDesign documents :)
Exactly what I needed. Thanks!
Thank you Annie. Great to hear.
Excellent and helpful video. Thank you for creating and posting it.
Thank you Richard. I appreciate that.
Agreed, super tutorial, clear, easy to follow, spot on!
Cheers Tim. Happy it helped.
Super Useful Video and pretty easy to follow!
Thank you. Hope you're building some cool stuff in InDesign :)
this is what i was looking for thank you so much!
Thank you. Best of luck with those long documents.
Excellent Tutorial i must confess.. Thank you so much
I'm happy to hear that. Thank you.
Thanks a lot for this informative tutorial, all steps are well explained !
Cheers mate. Happy it helped.
Hi Michael, this video is the best video on how to create a toc. I am very grateful. I learned so many things. After this video, I realized how wrong I have been working and why most things do not work as they should and despite everything there are still problems that I do not know.
Please if you have time answer me the following question as I don't think anyone around has your wonderful practical experience.
Here is my question.
When I put the numbers on the right side and the dots as you explain, I exported the document to epub and found that the numbers were indeed on the right but the dots disappeared in the new format. Can you make a video about what we have in design format so that we can export it so that all the details appear in the new epub format? And thanks a lot again, for the best tutorial online on how to create a toc in Indesign
Thank you so much! A million times helpful!
Thanks mate. Great to hear. Cheers.
Great video thank you very much, very clear and helpful!
Thank you for those kind words and best of luck with those InDesign long documents.
Really helpful. Thanks for the wonderful tutorial
Thank you. I appreciate the feedback.
Thank you so much for this great tutorial
Thank you very much. I appreciate the comment.
Love your vid mate from another Aussie.
Thanks mate. I appreciate that. Hope you're building some cool stuff in InDesign.
Amazing ! Learnt alot in a single video 😍 . Subscribed ! Thank you
Hi Tanvi. I'm happy to hear that. Thanks for the sub. Happy designing :)
Amazing! Thank you so much. So very clear and easy to understand.
Thank you and great to hear
Really good video. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks mate.
Thanks Orson. Great to hear.
So clearly explained! Thanks a lot!
Hey thank you. Appreciate it.
Great tutorial. I might add that if you want the bookmarks to show in the .pdf so the viewer does not have to look for them, you have the option to set that view as the default view in the .pdf. I did this recently when I combined 5 documents in a .pdf and booked mark each document so it could be located easily and set the initial view to show the bookmarks so it was obvious where to go.
That's a fantastic comment Genevieve. Thanks for sharing. For anyone else reading this you might find this other video useful...
How to Display PDF Bookmarks in Adobe Acrobat (Turn on by Default for File)
ua-cam.com/video/FKtvmgq88O8/v-deo.html
T H A N K Y O U, M I C H A E L ! - Finally I found a video that explains it all and I can now think about making a TOC without getting stress, haha! You're awesome! :D
Thank you. That's very kind of you to say. A stress free InDesign TOC does sound pretty awesome ;)
Great introduction - thanks! Three things that you didn't mention that are really irritating to work out (or were for me). I'd really appreciate knowing if I have taken the right approach to point 1:
1. If you have numbers stacked on the right (e.g. after a ^y) then it can look a bit odd with a proportional font (21 between 20 and 22 looks indented). I created a character style and set the open type features, figure style to "Tabular Lining". The numbers are now fixed width.
2. Turn on Remove Forced Line Break by default - it's got to be pretty rare that you actually want that unchecked.
3. Once you've saved a TOC to a style then you need to edit the style, not the TOC in order to get a change to persist - I kept trying to save the Style again and changes did not persist until I went into the "Table of Contents Styles" menu item. Seems simple but I was slowly going nuts on this one (particularly as I was trying to get my point 2. to persist)!
Thanks,
Mike
Hi Mike. Thanks for posting all the additional notes. You make some great points. Cheers.
Thank you sir! This was very helpful!!
Thank you Dom
Better than my teacher.
Thanks mate 👍
No more handy work designing my graduation book! Thanks!
Cheers Alex