Adding Table of Contents Problems
Asked by Yllien Verdes:

Dear Community:

I have multiple stumbling blocks for making a Table of Contents.

1. In every video tutorial and Atlassian help page I review, the screen shots show a "Preview" of what the Table of Contents will look like alongside the Parameters fields. *My version of Confluence does NOT show the Preview alongside the Parameters column.*I only have a Parameters column. Is there a setting where I can see the two side-by-side so that I can alter the Parameters and see a Preview of my Table of Contents in real time? (Like the tutorials show).
2. When I insert a Table of Contents and Publish it, the result always begins the list with one or two items that I DO NOT WANT to appear on the clickable Table of Contents. For example, why would I have a Table of Contents BEGIN with a blue, clickable "Table of Contents" that goes nowhere on the page? When I remove the words "Table of Contents" in my Page, and then Publish the macros toc, the list begins with one or two empty bullet points or indented bullet points. Why? I want the Table of Contents to begin with the FIRST Section of the Page, not the Title of the Page, not with the words "Table of Contents," etc. How do I accomplish this goal?
3. Finally, when I attempt to change font sizes to differentiate between titles and the body of the text, somehow these changes are connected in ways that I cannot control. If I want to set a "Section" at Heading 2 and set the content beneath the heading to by "Heading 4" or "Normal Text" I cannot keep the sizes separated.

Font Size is key in creating a Table of Contents, which is why I include the issue here.

Could someone please help me make a "Table of Contents" that makes sense?

Thank you!


Answers:
author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: There are two points here - the preview and how the macro works.

First, a lot of macros need real data to work with for the preview. If you've not got anything on the page before creating the table of content macro, it can't show you a preview. Try editing an existing page with content data already on it and then start adding a new table of contents to it. You should find you get a preview.

The second point answers both your 2nd and 3rd questions together because it's about how the macro works.

When the macro runs, all it does is read the current page for all your headings and turns them into a table of content. It uses whatever you've put in the text of the heading, with any formatting you've highlighted.

So, to get rid of your unwanted items, turn them into plain text or paragraph text, as you don't want them to be headings. As for the font sizes, the headings have their own, and that's you shouldn't be trying to set your own in them.

comments: author: Yllien Verdes
body: My goodness, Nic! Thank you!


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Yep, it's the formatting. Look at the content that contains the Blah Blah Blah, you will find the line itself and another one that are formatted as "header 2". (I think it'll be header 2, can't be sure)

The heading formatting applies to an entire line, not just highlighted text


author: Yllien Verdes
body: Sure enough. As soon as you made the remark about formatting, I began taking more care of the Word docs before importing them.

Seems to me that I can modify to my heart's content on the Word platform. Then, once imported, the Page can be much more easily modified.

I'm almost done with my Employee Handbook (made from scratch, not the template) and it looks GREAT, thanks to you.

:-)


author: Yllien Verdes
body: ![No more blah blah blah blah.jpg](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/184881i04B21D6400CD7B5F/image-dimensions/5x3?v=v2 "No more blah blah blah blah.jpg")


author: Yllien Verdes
body: ![No more blah blah blah.jpg](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/184875i64BA40B1D873ADF2/image-dimensions/6x3?v=v2 "No more blah blah blah.jpg")

comments: author: Yllien Verdes
body: Thank you for helping me.


Tags: table-of-contents

confluence-cloud

font

macro