Create a table of contents on the top page that includes TOCs from child pages?
Asked by Mark Robinson:

Hi,

I'd like a macro similar to the standard table of content that as the option to include all the child pages table of contents too.. Therefore when exporting to PDF the top page and lower pages the top page includes the full table of contents similar to any word document. I understand its best to create pages like chapters of a book (child pages) and top page is the table of contents for the whole book and a short introduction (prologue) to the book itself.

Ideally if at all possible to be able to number the headings too option would be the icing on the cake,

Thanks

Mark


Answers:
author: Davin Studer
body: To build upon the answer that [@Peter DeWitt](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/356173) gave ...

On your parent page add the "Children Display" macro with the "Excerpt Display" option set to rich content.

Then on your child pages add an Excerpt macro at the top and inside that macro add a Table of Contents macro and set the options of the TOC macro like this ...

* Outpust Type - list
* List Style - disc
* Minimum Heading Level - 1
* Maximum Heading Level - 6
* Printable - checked
* Absolute URL - checked

Then on your child pages simply put in your content. You parent page will show the child pages and their TOC's in a tree format.

comments: author: Daniel Verberne
body: Hello, I'm aware your post was made several years back, but I'm trying to implement this now and I'm unsure how many 'child pages' I need to tackle to apply the Excerpt Macro with the Table of Contents macro inside it?

I've got an existing Confluence space many pages in size and depth and not sure how much manual work will be required for the expected result.


author: Kimberly Onnen
body: Hi Daniel, you would need to put the "Children Display" macro inside the "Excerpt" macro for the parent page of the sub-topics that you want to include on the main table of contents.

In the example below, topics "A" and "B" are first-level topics with multiple child topics (SubA1, SubA2, etc.). Some of those topics have child topics (SubA2-1, SubA2-2) and some of those topics have child topics (SubA2-3-1, SubA2-3-1).

If you want the child topics to be included in your table of contents, then their immediate parent topic needs the Excerpt with the Children Display inside that. BUT.. keep in mind that a topic can only have ONE instance of the Excerpt macro. I ran into a problem with this because I use Excerpt a lot.

A (excerpt with Children Display)

-SubA1

-SubA2 (excerpt with Children Display)

--SubA2-1

--SubA2-2

--SubA2-3 (excerpt with Children Display)

---SubA2-3-1

---SubA2-3-2 (excerpt with Children Display)

----SubA2-3-2-1

----SubA2-3-2-2

----SubA2-3-3

-SubA3

B (excerpt with Children Display)

-SubB1

-SubB2

-SubB3 (excerpt with Children Display)

--SubB3-1

--SubB3-2


author: Mira
body: Also aware that this post was made several years ago, but it appears that a recent update introduced a bug where this solution is no longer viable. Putting a Table of Contents macro inside an Excerpt macro on the child pages makes the Table of Contents invisible, and it won't show up on the parent page in the Excerpt Include macro either.

Any other ideas?


author: Michael Capobianco
body: Hey, Mira

My workaround for this was to create two table of content sections. One in the excerpt (that will show on the parent page) and one outside of it (that will show on the leaf page)


author: Peter DeWitt
body: Mark, trying using a combination of the Excerpt / Excerpt Include Macros. You can wrap the ToC on the child pages in an Excerpt and display them in the parent page using the Excerpt Include.

-pd


author: Kimberly Onnen
body: I know this is almost a year old, but this solved an issue I was having!! Due to the nature of my space (installation, configuration, etc.), I didn't want my pages broken out into child pages to make it easier for a user but I also wanted a table of contents. Once I removed the Surrounding Panel, this worked exactly as I wanted. I had to add links to my three pages and underneath each link, I included the ToC from within each page.

Thanks for asking the question and thanks for the answers!!


author: Mark Robinson
body: Worked a treat thanks alot Mark


author: Ezra
body: Thank you, the nested macros worked perfectly.


author: Lukas Gotter _ Meetical
body: Please vote for this issue to bring the "include TOC from an excerpt" feature back <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-72469>


author: Arseny Poltorak
body: I've answered similar question [in this topic](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/Create-a-Table-of-Contents-in-Confluence-that-spans-child-pages/qaq-p/233808#M210708). It's pretty much the same recipe as Davin suggested, just explained in greater detail with a screenshot and a suggestion, how to keep your children pages free of TOC, while still having the TOC on the parent page.


Tags: child-page