On larger multi-page documents it’s a good idea to create a Table of Contents – this is very easy in Indesign and is one of the many functions we cover in our Indesign courses.
We do so using the Paragraph Styles feature. A bit of planning is required when setting up the document. Basically anything you want to appear in the table of contents (TOC) should have a certain paragraph style applied to it. The TOC will then be generated automatically and just requires a little formatting afterwards.
First create and format a header that you want to appear in the TOC. Then go into Paragraph Styles, select your header and create a new Paragraph style. Name it TOC Style. Then as you continue to build your documents, adding headers as you go, apply the TOC Style to those headers.
When you have completed your document, create a blank page at the start, then go to Layout, Table of Contents and follow the prompts. The dialog box will ask you which styles you wish to appear in your table of contents – just choose the TOC Style for the moment, and hit OK. Take your loaded text icon to the blank page and click to place.
You’ll notice that it’s pretty unformatted – you can then add formatting as usual. By default there are tabs added between the headers and the numbers, so you can use the Tabs panel to add leader dots.
Indesign Users Group in Sydney meets bi-monthly, and is a free forum for designers to discuss topics and the latest Indesign features. See many examples of our clients’ work on our Facebook page.
Other related Indesign Blog Posts:

• Indesign images and text
  
• Indesign workflow
• Indesign templates
• Indesign page numbers